Keithley 2602 Ethernet / Secret Menu

[jjoonathan]

I recently picked up a Keithley 2602 dual-channel SMU. It's a nice little unit! The menus aren't as cryptic as I feared and the scripting, which is where it earns its keep, works fine over RS232. However, I could really use ethernet support, both for SCPI and for the embedded webapp shipped with the 2602A / 2602B. I'd take either if I could get them. I couldn't help but notice the 2602's unpopulated ethernet and MAC/PHY footprint in [1] and naturally wondered how possible it would be to, uhh, populate them. Any information that could help would be appreciated In particular, I'm looking for

* The secret menu key combination. I suspect the secret menu might have some LAN testing options if that was in development at the time. Based on [2] and [3] I further suspect that one can get into the secret menu by holding down two keys on startup.  I've tried some likely suspects (diagonal combinations in the keyboard area common to 2601, 2602)  but haven't figured it out.

* Information on the MAC/PHY chip. I don't really know enough about these to make educated guesses, so if anyone has some likely suspects from this vintage, I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks!


[1] 2602 Repair             https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/keithley-2602-dual-smu-repair/
[2] 2400 Secret Menu   https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-718-keithley-2400-smu-teardown/msg618514/#msg618514
[3] Keithley Secret Menus https://xdevs.com/guide/keithley_secret/

[JxR]

I don't have an answer to your questions, except to point out that there was never a VX11 Ethernet based option for this unit (looking at the datasheet).  You already must have spent several thousand acquiring the lovely beast.  So, why not spend a little more and just get yourself a GPIB-USB or GPIB-Ethernet adapter?  Seems like a much easier way to get what you really want.

[jjoonathan]

I already have one. It lets me talk to the device via scripting, but I could already do that. It doesn't have a built in SMU webapp and it doesn't seem to satisfy IVy or KickStart -- I should have mentioned that was the goal.

You're right that the likely solution is to work around the problem rather than through it, though. I've got a shitty curve tracer coded up in jupyterlab and that'll do for now.

If someone here happens to have a 2602A/B and IVy or KickStart, I'd really appreciate a wireshark dump 

[JxR]

2602A and 2602B are both supported in Kickstart.  I'm going to assume that you would probably need a GPIB-USB adapter for it to be officially recognized.  I doubt you could make a GPIB-Ethernet adapter work (there are no options to configure a custom VISA resource address in Kickstart).  No idea about using RS-232.

[TiN]

I would instead recommend investing time into your own app for experiment and data handling. Not only it replaces your depending on manufacturer demo apps like KickStart (which can be obsoleted/removed/borked any time vendor see fit) but also adds you flexibility using instrument as you see fit or even supporting other devices , not only 2602.

I'd expect firmware already have bits and pieces for Ethernet, as Keithley often unify same firmware for series of instruments. However there could be other HW changes that would make putting PHY chip pointless. Sadly I never got to play with 26xx series to tell you more, and their design is much different than more basic 24xx series.

[JxR]

I would also agree that having Kickstart support isn't really a big deal.  Running some scripts from python and dumping the data to a CSV is a skill that can be learned in a day or two.  You can make custom graphical Python interface with PyQT and have some nice graphing with PyQtGraph as well if you so desire (all free).  Kickstart is just a convenience.

[jjoonathan]

My problem there isn't too little python know-how, it's that the joy has long since been squeezed out (hah) on account of writing python all day, every day for the man. My jupyter curve tracer tool won't ever get better than good enough, because that would feel too much like work, and, like I mentioned, it's already good enough.

On a less depressing note, here are some fun things I found while rummaging through the beast:

* Lots of milled isolation slots on SOT devices!

* Alignment pins on the custom, anodized heat sinks, so that the fins on the two identical (but flipped) modules will line up, but staggered, and form channels!

* Made in the USA!

* Isn't that ethernet port just begging to be populated?

* Power rail measurements, in case it dies


That's all for now. Next up, I think I'll design it a little ZIF fixture, and perhaps one with some SOT footprints.

[TheSteve]

When I had a 2602 I noticed the same thing. I really wished it supported the features of the 2602A/B with the programmable web interface features. An upgrade might be possible if you can sneak firmware from a 2602A into it - but it is a total long shot. If nothing else I'd want to see the controller from a 2602A before doing anything to see just how similar it might be.