HP 3458A ; A/D board spare part availibilty and cost

[MiDi]

Eprom eraser or UV-C lamps are quite cheap.
Hi-res photos of new A3 appreciated.

[maat]

The EPROM used should be an ST M27C4002. You can get those new from the Bay for a few dollars. Do check though, there are different versions of the A5 board around. Some have multiple EPROM chips. The new ones will be empty and you programm them once (unless you get an eraser). Sometimes, if the chips are really old, you might not be able to fully erase them and have to get a replacement anyway.

[tonyz663]

Here are some photos.  Fighting a bit with the photo file sizes!

[tonyz663]

Another photo:

[tonyz663]

More photos:

[tonyz663]

Last photo:

[michael_liu4444]

Dear Sir,

I am looking for a good A/D Board A3 (03458-66503 or 03458-66513).

Do you know know any one who want to sell to me ?

Requirement: after install the board into a 3458A, the 3458A should be able to pass self-test and AutoCal.

Please send a message to my email: michael_liu4444@163.com

Thanks & regards,

Liu Biao

[ScoobyDoo]

Hello Voltnuts,

                         does anynone know why KS suddenly changed its policy and started to sell again these boards at acceptable cost ?
                         I have ordered a spare board - placed the order - and a few hours later I observed price went up from 1004€ to 1068€.
                         Or is KS only selling these 03458-66533 until stock lasts as next step up version will have the backwards sw compatibility bug removed ... (speculation) ?

Herzliche Grüße/Meilleures salutations/Best regards
ScoobyDoo

still 42 11 12 0 to go :    https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-66533

                         

[aronake]

what is the latest on keysight spare part sales? are boards available? Seem they stopped selling, then starts again and now i see indications that they do not sell, but only do repairs.

[KT88]

currently you have to send it to them to get a quote. i‘ll possibly do it with my 3458a soon. my guesstimate would be between 2k…4k.

[ScoobyDoo]

Hello folks,
                   In December 2020 following price levels were listed on website of KS:

https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-40212                                113€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-40214                                7,50€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-43701                                7,50€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-43702                                7,50€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-44113                                5,82€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-47911                                81,45€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-62111                                255€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-49331                                29,08€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-66527                                390€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-67912                                65,44€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-66675                                975€

So one can use these to understand how much prices have increased at Keysight for whatever reasons

Best regards
ScoobyDoo

 

[aronake]

Hello folks,
                   In December 2020 following price levels were listed on website of KS:

https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-40212                                113€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-40214                                7,50€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-43701                                7,50€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-43702                                7,50€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-44113                                5,82€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-47911                                81,45€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-62111                                255€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-49331                                29,08€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-66527                                390€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-67912                                65,44€
https://www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/03458-66675                                975€

So one can use these to understand how much prices have increased at Keysight for whatever reasons

Best regards
ScoobyDoo

These links all still works, and there are updated prices. Do anybody know if these more "basic" spare parts are possible to buy from Keysight or they stopped selling everything?

I am looking for a front panel (03458-40212) if anyone have one to sell.

[ScoobyDoo]

Hello aronake - You will need to contact local Keysight service center - the white version has limited stock
and KS might ask You more details about your instrument before granting permission.
[otherwise some dealer / stockist would buy all remaining stock and just ask what they want].

The situation (local policy) might be different from continent to continent - in Europe You must be a registered
KS customer before they accept & process the order.
An option could be to ask AB Precision in Germany if they can ship You such white front panel - but it might come with extra export charges (EU -> HKK) and some extra margin on top.  ( https://www.ab-precision.de/ )

Don't forget to order the red bezel (03458-49331) if Yours need replacement.

I agree - since there is a new wind inside Keysight - cost of spare parts has almost doubled and it becomes hard to deal with them.

I would recommend not to wait too long as these are available until gone (in white colour).

Best regards
ScoobyDoo

[aronake]

Here is a find that may help someone.

New A3 are not orderable, but the keysight spare part website list this refurbished A3 as orderable. 1996 USD thought.... but still less then sending in the meter and have Keysight replace it.

https://www.keysight.com/hk/en/ecom/parts/part-detail.html/03458-69503

[ScoobyDoo]

KS already removed the pricing 1935€ | 1996USD ... - these were refurbished boards.
I don't expect to see KS offering new tested boards in near future

New A3 are not orderable, but the keysight spare part website list this refurbished A3 as orderable. 1996 USD thought.... but still less then sending in the meter and have Keysight replace it.
https://www.keysight.com/hk/en/ecom/parts/part-detail.html/03458-69503

[aronake]

There are LOTS of reports who bought a 3458a with U180 drift, but sas anyone owned a 3458a that has started to develop severe U180 drift while owning it?

There should be millions of hours of 3458a usage among eevblog users, and if that is not the case, it kind of points toward these u180 faults came from the factory.

[MiDi]

There are LOTS of reports who bought a 3458a with U180 drift, but sas anyone owned a 3458a that has started to develop severe U180 drift while owning it?

There should be millions of hours of 3458a usage among eevblog users, and if that is not the case, it kind of points toward these u180 faults came from the factory.

Definitely, hard to judge if an instrument that fails after dozens of years can be called faulty from factory...
There were batches that had issues with U180 from factory and Agilent repaired them.

[dietert1]

I think failure in a 30 or 40 year old instrument is normal. The problem is how to get it fixed.

Some days ago i fixed a Technics SU-VX920 stereo amplifier. It's of similar age and a pretty big one. The problem was the mains switch: Its contacts had pretty much vanished and turned into dust. Of course the part isn't available anymore, yet much easier to replace by something similar than the hybrids in old HP multimeters.

Regards, Dieter

[aronake]

There are LOTS of reports who bought a 3458a with U180 drift, but sas anyone owned a 3458a that has started to develop severe U180 drift while owning it?

There should be millions of hours of 3458a usage among eevblog users, and if that is not the case, it kind of points toward these u180 faults came from the factory.

Definitely, hard to judge if an instrument that fails after dozens of years can be called faulty from factory...
There were batches that had issues with U180 from factory and Agilent repaired them.

It is absolutely true that an instrument that fails after dozens of years can be called faulty from factory.

But question was is anybody here who owns a 3458a have seen it develop this fault over their ownership. Lots of reports of people who bought a faulty, but I think I have not seen anyone reporting in that drift developed over time while owning one. And if no fault has developed over the millions of 3458a hours among EEVforum user time that kind of indicate that use is not much of a trigger of a fault event but that the meter may have had drift from the factory.

What of course may also be the case is that pretty much all meters people have here are used. And if the meter do not develop drift after the first years, then it is very likely to never develop any drift. And people here either get one used that is safe as drift never developed, or get and used where drift has developed.

The second theory sound more plausible.

[dietert1]

The reason for not reporting about newly developped and unfixable drift should be the same commercial reason that makes people dump drifty instruments at ebay without mentioning the problem. The drifty ones won't vanish except by repair or by hiding the problem.

Regards, Dieter

[aronake]

The reason for not reporting about newly developped and unfixable drift should be the same commercial reason that makes people dump drifty instruments at ebay without mentioning the problem. The drifty ones won't vanish except by repair or by hiding the problem.

Regards, Dieter

That an interesting thought. But people happily tell about  3458a they bought that were drifty, and that would put them in same position as telling about a 3458a that developed drift while owning it.

There are indications that the 3458a Agilent sold and had the recall/repair notice for was drifty at delivery but not noticed in the pre-shipment testing. Kind of makes sense, each meter would need to be tested for weeks to be certain. So maybe then lots more of 3458a was sold bad. Or maybe pretty much all that now are discovered to have drift had it from the factory. And that the drift is nothing that comes from use, but from the factory.

[srb1954]

The reason for not reporting about newly developped and unfixable drift should be the same commercial reason that makes people dump drifty instruments at ebay without mentioning the problem. The drifty ones won't vanish except by repair or by hiding the problem.

Regards, Dieter

That an interesting thought. But people happily tell about  3458a they bought that were drifty, and that would put them in same position as telling about a 3458a that developed drift while owning it.

It would be interesting to do a poll amongst owners, particularly with those who owned from new, to determine the prevalence of drift-prone units and when the drift problems were discovered.

There are indications that the 3458a Agilent sold and had the recall/repair notice for was drifty at delivery but not noticed in the pre-shipment testing. Kind of makes sense, each meter would need to be tested for weeks to be certain. So maybe then lots more of 3458a was sold bad. Or maybe pretty much all that now are discovered to have drift had it from the factory. And that the drift is nothing that comes from use, but from the factory.

It would also be interesting to discover when HPAK realised that there was a problem and started to do something about it. My unit is a 2005 build and it had severe drift problems when I acquired it approx 2 years ago. So it appears HPAK, even at 15 years after the product's initial introduction, either hadn't realised that there was a problem with the product or were not prepared to remedy the product issues.

[Kleinstein]

For the date they were aware of the drift problem, this is relatively easy as there is the service note to describe the drift test. For sure they realized the problem / weak point.
The problem for HP/KS may be that they likely produced quite a lot of the U180 chips up front and they may not have a good way to really fix the problem.

With old drifty units sold on ebay and the good units kept at the cal labs and similar commercial users the picture on the failure rate may look higher than it actually is. We don't hear much about old units still running with no problems (except maybe the SRAM/battery change).

[aronake]

For the date they were aware of the drift problem, this is relatively easy as there is the service note to describe the drift test. For sure they realized the problem / weak point.
The problem for HP/KS may be that they likely produced quite a lot of the U180 chips up front and they may not have a good way to really fix the problem.

With old drifty units sold on ebay and the good units kept at the cal labs and similar commercial users the picture on the failure rate may look higher than it actually is. We don't hear much about old units still running with no problems (except maybe the SRAM/battery change).

That's a good point and adds maybe the most plausible explanation: The drift problem is very rare and may also very rarely develop over time (explaining why very few people have reported that their 3458a suddenly start to drift). Meaning that there are lost of 3458a out here having no issues and it is very rare that a 3458a develop drift over ownership, but those that develop drift are very very much overrepresented in the used market (explaning why many people happen to get 3458a that are drifty).

[srb1954]

For the date they were aware of the drift problem, this is relatively easy as there is the service note to describe the drift test. For sure they realized the problem / weak point.

The service note 18A, which was issued 13 February 2007, states "Some recently produced 3458As ..." and only covers a relatively small range of serial numbers that might have drift problems. I looked up the serial number of my unit, which is after serial number range stated in the service note, on the service support website https://support.keysight.com/s/product-serial-details?language=en_US and this does not recommend that my unit be checked against the service note 18A procedure. This is despite it having severe drift and having to have a replacement board fitted by Keysight to fix the problem.

It appears to me that HPAK have not fully acknowledged the problem as there are plenty of users reporting drift problems dating back to the earliest production units but HPAK appear to be silent in relation to these.

It would be interesting if other owners were to check the status of their units on the Keysight service support website and report whether the service note 18A procedure is recommended for their units and whether they have encountered drift problems.

The problem for HP/KS may be that they likely produced quite a lot of the U180 chips up front and they may not have a good way to really fix the problem.

Since early units and those produced at least up to 2005 exhibit the problem it seems highly unlikely that HPAK would have ordered enough U180 chips to cover 15 years of production when the product was first introduced.