Products > Test Equipment
History of Keithley electrometers
Anders Petersson:
--- Quote from: HighVoltage on January 12, 2021, 01:51:26 pm ---Maybe you can add the official original list price next to the instruments.
As far as I know, the 6517B is still in production with a list price of €9,200 in Europe.
--- End quote ---
I can make the post into a HTML table with various info. But I don't know any of this myself so please post any info you have or can dig up that is suitable for a compact table. 6517B (and apparently 6514) are in production so those list prices are easy, but I'd like to see if we know pricing for some older models before adding a column for it.
I guess I can add a section for SMUs and picoammeter too.
KeepItSimpleStupid:
I think the 236, 237 and 238 series SMU's should be added.
There's the stand-alone pico-ammeters (Keithley 480, 485)
There may have been some Analog Pico ammeters
The 619 was wierd. The analog out was wierd.
I discovered a bug in the 617 because it was destroying our devices when it switched ranges, There were 200 V spikes at the inputs. Keithley was really surprised when they confirmed it and immediately created an external solution that only worked in measure voltage mode until they developed a fix for the instruments.
That wasn't the case with Apple. I found that sending an email with ATH$ in the body of the email would hang-up the modem in the iBook every time over dial-up. They didn't have the courtesy to test it. I suffered for at least 9 months until they fixed it.
1980+ Fluke and HP and Tektronix were Kings.
HighVoltage:
--- Quote from: KeepItSimpleStupid on January 20, 2021, 05:37:50 pm ---
I discovered a bug in the 617 because it was destroying our devices when it switched ranges, There were 200 V spikes at the inputs. Keithley was really surprised when they confirmed it and immediately created an external solution that only worked in measure voltage mode until they developed a fix for the instruments.
--- End quote ---
Interesting!
When was this, if you remember?
Must have been the first 617 delivered because I never saw this bug on any 617
KeepItSimpleStupid:
I know the instrument was recently introduced and it really wasn't good enough for what we wanted for two reasons.
1) The max current of 20 mA
2) the voltage resolution
1) We really would have liked 100 mA. There was also a 100 ohm protection resistor that I quickly blew. That was a surprise too.
2) Ended up using a Keithley 230 voltage source as well, BUT I ended up using the sense leads of the 230 to compensate for the resistor.
The application was research grade solar cells, so 5V could possibly damage them. The system was mainly purchased to do I-V-T measurements to get activation energy and conductivity of thin films of silicon.
Smokey:
I think these are the Keithley Low Level Measurements Handbooks release dates, with what electrometers are mentioned:
1st Ed = 1984 (See Below)
2nd Ed = ?? (See Below)
3rd Ed = ?? (See Below)
4th Ed = 1993
5th Ed = 1998
https://archive.org/details/lowlevelmeasurem01keit
(Section 5.3 Lists 610C, 614, 617, 642, 6512, 6517)
6th Ed = 2004
https://pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archive/15_Mfrs_Publications/Keithley/6th_Low-level_Measurements.pdf
(Section 5.3 Lists only 6514, 6517A)
7th Ed = 2013
https://download.tek.com/document/LowLevelHandbook_7Ed.pdf
(Section 5.3 Lists only 6514, 6517B)
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