Products > Test Equipment

Keysight EL30000 DC load buyers warning / mini review

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niner_007:

--- Quote from: Keysight DanielBogdanoff on June 22, 2021, 08:31:42 pm ---Sorry for the delay, took a few days off and am catching up!

@niner_007 the R&D team would love to chat if you're willing, I'll send you a PM.

The SCPI lockup issue is something we haven't seen before, we've been doing nonstop / no delay commands without issues, so the team would like to take a look / chat and see if there's a bug, but we suspect it's just your load and we want to get it replaced.

Regarding battery testing, from R&D:
"
The EL30000 Series does not currently have a dedicated battery test feature, but we are considering adding it through a future firmware release.  Meanwhile, you will need to use a PC to control the load and stop the discharge before the battery reaches its cutoff voltage.
"

Obviously we'll need to get the comms issue worked out for your unit.

From Bill Griffith, one of our power folks:
"- The current definition for undervoltage better is for testing power supplies. The latch mode assumes the input voltage starts low, and rises toward the undervoltage limit at which point the load turns on and stays on regardless of voltage. E.g. once live stay alive.

- I wrote a simple program to test batteries with an undervoltage cutoff: https://blogs.keysight.com/blogs/tech/bench.entry.html/2021/05/03/battery_and_celltes-HXQ1.html

- Loads potentially have two sets of ranges, one for the load and one for the measurement system. You do not want to auto-range the load as it would affect the source. It might be beneficial in some cases to auto-range the measurement system. However, it is much simpler just to tie the load and measurement system together. I personally, prefer the ease-of-use of a single setting for high, medium, and low range.

- For lower power BNC connections – I cut off a dual banana plug. You used two of them in this video: https://youtu.be/FM7dWAC6wok?t=22 I personally like the front connectors – we used them to test the 20 A output of the power supply

(Attachment Link)
"

--- End quote ---
Feel free to PM. I returned the unit I purchased for a refund, I don’t have access to one. If you provide a demo unit, I’d be happy to retest and report the findings here, in case it was only my unit, there might be weird interaction with network equipment, I don’t know.

Regarding battery discharge, I am not comfortable driving it via PC, too many things can go wrong in such a setup, unless you have a mode in the load where you check “keep alive” messages from the PC,  and in their absence you disconnect the load. 

For auto-ranging, it doesn’t need to work while the load is connected, you can restrict it only when the load is disconnected. This is a usability issue as implemented today. Can record a video and illustrate it if I had access to a load.

bsodmike:
I was just bitten by this bug. Here I thought this $4,000 DC load would be better than the BK Precision and it just ignores the under voltage setting.

My understanding was this could be used to stop when discharging batteries etc.

Also no Wh reading on the display. @Daniel - I would be happy to test any updated firmware if you can provide it. My email is michael@inertialbox.com.

I purchased this through a local agent for Farnell UK as I live in Colombo, Sri Lanka so yeah I’m pretty screwed.

H_Zhang:
I bought E36232 and EL34143 at the same time, the experience is very bad! They both have serious anti-human logic in their basic operations. The device has knobs but noway to adjust voltage or current by bit. Only 0.001V per turn of the knob, which makes the knob useless! And even when benchvue is used, EL36232 is often disconnected, and USB has to be replugged to reconnect the instrument. Very, very bad experience. :( :( :( :( :( :(

maxwell3e10:
To keep a running list:

--- Quote from: maxwell3e10 on June 11, 2021, 05:44:27 am ---Recent Keysight hardware is just not as great as in the old days. There are plenty of other examples discussed here:
Disappointing performance of B2962 power source
Drift of 34470 DMM due to ACAL
Bugs with bursts in 33522 function generator

--- End quote ---
Bug in 53230 counter implementation

bsodmike:

--- Quote from: H_Zhang on November 10, 2021, 02:45:10 pm ---I bought E36232 and EL34143 at the same time, the experience is very bad! They both have serious anti-human logic in their basic operations. The device has knobs but noway to adjust voltage or current by bit. Only 0.001V per turn of the knob, which makes the knob useless! And even when benchvue is used, EL36232 is often disconnected, and USB has to be replugged to reconnect the instrument. Very, very bad experience. :( :( :( :( :( :(

--- End quote ---

Yes, I ran into this same issue.  The knob is practically hopeless.  I've also got a R&S NGP814 - that UI is amazing in comparison.

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