EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: wilhe_jo on February 11, 2021, 02:21:41 pm
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Hi!
I got some AR Isotropic Field Probes (FP5000 and FP2080) for a very good price.
The caveat was, there's no charger included, and I do not have any Field Monitor to interface to them.
Well, the charger is just a 3 Cell NiCd charger and the interface is described in the manual briefly.
The wavelength is missing, but I guess I need to open them up to change the batteries anyways because the probes were "in transit" for a month with the switch set to "ARM"...
The PCB is done and will be ordered in the next weeks together with some "commercial" PCBs.
It consists of just a LT4060 charger, which can do NiCd and NiMh, and a MCP2221 usb-serial chip together with a Avago Transmitter/Receiver.
If someone else needs a charger and/or interface for these probes, I could order some more of these boards.
Oh, I forgot, if someone knows something about the wavelength used, I'd appreciate that :)
I guess it will be just the usual 650nm but who knows...
[edit]
Looking around in ARs website, I got to the operating/service manual of the 10000W1000A amplifier (https://www.arworld.us/post/opMan/10000W1000A%20Manual.pdf (https://www.arworld.us/post/opMan/10000W1000A%20Manual.pdf))
If you look into section 2.5.2.3, you'll find the specs for their fiber optical interface :)
So it's 820nm, and they suggest the Avago HFBR series.
[/edit]
73
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Ok, I couldn't wait and opened both sensors up (I'll post some photos later on...).
Both batteries were dead-as expected.
1 pack is discharged to 0V - the other one has some 0.5V left (remember, that's 3 cells!).
So I guess, changing them is a pretty good idea.
Somebody put a label on the one sensor. It suggest, new batteries in 2019.
The other has a date written on it. It says April 2012.
That one is a little leaking I guess... it has some white crust on it.
I looked around and on some parts of the PCBs I see some white residue as well.
It might be potassium hydroxide or just leftovers from the PCB cleaning... it looks similar to what IPA leaves behind...
Any thoughts if I should clean these or not?
I mean, there was no contact between the battery and this PCB.
From my experience, corrosion from leaking batteries is around the battery since the electrolyte creeps along the surface.
My intuitive guess would be to leave it as it is... or is this a bad idea?
I mean rubbing around on some 18GHz components without any need is not too brilliant either, right?
Another question is if I should order NiCd or NiMH...
As I mentioned, my new charger will do both chemistries.
So if there's no real drawback that I overlooked, I'd "upgrade" to NiMh.
73