Products > Test Equipment
Keysight's new 34465A (6.5 digit) and 34470A (7.5 digit) bench multimeters
Shim:
I returned my 61A which I paid $1075 and got the 65A for $1340. Both $CDN
I like the fact that the 65 can use thermocouples for temperature. I have 2. My Fluke 289 came with one and got another with the free promo test lead set when I bought it.
The 2nd display is great. I am doing audio product development and if using the dB scaling feature, you can display frequency or the actual voltage reading. The 65 also has full statistics when reading in dB, which the 61 did not (it only had min, max, and if think span, but no avg).
Been long day, haven't played with it more than a few minutes so far. More in the next few days.
tszaboo:
--- Quote from: G0HZU on March 04, 2015, 01:44:47 am ---
--- Quote from: georges80 on March 03, 2015, 11:34:17 pm ---
--- Quote from: EEVblog on March 03, 2015, 11:02:57 pm ---
--- Quote from: georges80 on March 03, 2015, 10:34:50 pm ---I doubt more than a tiny fraction of folk have a need for 6 1/2 or 7 1/2 or ... accuracy and indeed many of the purchasing decision are based on wanting the perceived latest & greatest versus needing it
--- End quote ---
Trying watching something simple, like the slow discharge of a battery, using a 4.5 digit meter. Good luck.
Having a 6.5 digit meter is like having a deep memory scope. You don't know how useful it can be until you get it.
--- End quote ---
Yep, I guess we'll all be doing slow discharge tests of batteries next to justify our 6 1/2 digit meters :) I work with battery powered designs all the time, haven't seen the need for measuring battery discharge with a 6 1/2 digit meter yet. An electronic load with logging to a laptop has been much more useful for my use when characterising a battery.
I have a 6 1/2 digit bench meter (got it free), use it occasionally, but certainly wouldn't rush out to buy one and I am designing/working with electronics every day. I agree that there are 'some' applications where it is needed, but I'll stick to my original claim that only a small fraction of users actually NEED one.
cheers,
george.
--- End quote ---
Agreed. I've worked in design labs for over 25 years and worked alongside hundreds of talented engineers across RF/HW/SW/DSP designing all manner of products in the defence industry and it's extremely rare to see a 6.5 digit DMM being used in our labs. We have loads of very expensive test
gear but the DMM isn't seen as anything special and is just seen as a dull and boring accessory and we get by just fine with 3.5 to 5 digit H/H models.
In the test dept things are different and there are quite a few high end DMMs. some in ATE racks and some are on test benches where they have a definite status appeal.
--- End quote ---
When you design something where the specification said 0.0x% or 0.00x% it is quite essential to have a meter like this, or even a 3458A. I like the one we have at work a lot. You can measure stuff you never even imagined it is even possible. Like you have a solid ground plane, but it is possible to measure the uV of voltage drops across it. If you ever worked with a 16 bits or more having one is essential.
Now, the 34470A seems like really a nice unit. I had a lot of trouble getting the 3458A to make trend charts, it requires a running network, PC, Ethernet-GPIB bridge a submarine and a spaceship to work. While I found it on the 34461 useless due to the inaccuracy of the meter, this is much better.
I'm also interested how did they make the good old artefact calibration in the meters.
JohnnyBerg:
I remember back in the early 70's as we wanted to get telephone, and my father said: what do we need a telephone for?
Same with a X.5 digit meter: you don't know what you're missing, until you have one :)
Howardlong:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on March 03, 2015, 11:02:57 pm ---
--- Quote from: georges80 on March 03, 2015, 10:34:50 pm ---I doubt more than a tiny fraction of folk have a need for 6 1/2 or 7 1/2 or ... accuracy and indeed many of the purchasing decision are based on wanting the perceived latest & greatest versus needing it
--- End quote ---
Trying watching something simple, like the slow discharge of a battery, using a 4.5 digit meter. Good luck.
Having a 6.5 digit meter is like having a deep memory scope. You don't know how useful it can be until you get it.
--- End quote ---
Initially I had this vision of a $3k DMM being tied up to a battery for weeks/months taking a reading once an hour or so, or am I misunderstanding?
Is it that you can see the self-discharge (or slow discharge) over a much shorter period, say a day or two, and extrapolate?
Dr. Frank:
--- Quote from: NANDBlog on March 04, 2015, 09:23:41 am ---
I'm also interested how did they make the good old artefact calibration in the meters.
--- End quote ---
You mean the AUTOCAL feature of the 3458A?
That is NOT implemented in the new '465A and'470A, quite obviously, although they also call it AUTOCAL.
If you have a look in the manual for these new meters, service / calibration section, you will note, that these instruments both have to be calibrated in the usual manner, i.e. by individual Cardinal Points for each mode and for each range.
They may only correct for some internal temperature drifts of amplifiers, what they call AUTOCAL here, but the A/D is far too bad (nonlinear) to realize a real / full artefact calibration, by only two references.
Frank
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version