HP E4433B Failed Battery Repair

[weekendEE]

Recently I purchased an 'as is' HP E4433B, when I received it I could immediately hear a soft rattle coming from inside the instrument. When powered on there is no RF output at all and when the output amplitude is changed there is no audible attenuator clicking. Upon checking the logs there are 30 "error 230 data corrupt or stale" messages, most of which having to do with RAM. Once I saw this I immediately figured the internal battery was shot and the memory had been erased.

Once I cracked the instrument open the first thing I noticed was that one of the internal batteries tabs had broken loose. I am going to have to order a new battery as this one is completely dead. Everything else looked great, all of the power status indicator lights on the main board were on and the binary counter was functioning.

My question is how should I proceed after replacing the battery, I would assume a fresh install of the firmware would be a start. Any advice on how to proceed would be appreciated.

[MarkL]

The E4400 Series Service Guide is here:

  http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/E4400-90335.pdf

According to the Service Guide (page 5-24):

Calibration data will be preserved with the removal of the battery. However,
user data will be lost unless it is saved and later restored using an external
controller.

So, unless you had user waveforms, sequences, setups, etc. that you wanted on the unit, you should be fine.

Your firmware should also still be intact with a dead battery.  Service software is available if you want to upgrade your firmware, or if you really need to reload the firmware for some reason.

Replace the battery, and go from there.  With any luck there's not something else wrong with the unit.

Or, if you haven't messed with the unit yet and you purchased it as working (on ebay, "Condition: Used"), you might consider returning it.  The RF section can be difficult to repair, and there's no schematics or detailed service information generally available.  If the seller is facing a return, they will probably not have a problem if you want to at least try a new battery and still accept a return if the issue was not the battery.  But I would ask and get this agreement before digging in.

[DeepLink]

CLIP for Agilent ESG is indeed available - got a scan for a reasonable price from Milan Vasic (PM me for his adress)

For repair of the RF boards an extender board is handy