New Agilent 34461A 6.5 Digit Bench Multimeter

[EEVblog]

I'm not new to producing ideas-- The (then HP) people came to me (around 1993), and asked me what I would like in an oscilloscope.  I told them that I would like to see a combined analog and digital scope, with massive amounts of memory.  They thanked me, and sent me a free handheld DMM for my idea.  Then, they went on to make 100's of millions of dollars from my idea (and won industry awards, etc.)-- from what is now called the "MSO with Megazoom Memory".

You don't seriously think that was the result of your suggestion do you? 

[EEVblog]

The marketing people called me back and told me that they were going to go ahead and implement "my idea"...  Were they lying to me?  Maybe.

They were just being kind to you 
Big companies like HP don't simply take a single idea from a customer and then bang, turn it into a product, especially not an obvious one. The idea was almost certainly already thought of and possibly already developed at the time. The need to synchronise (and combine) logic analysis and scope analysis is not new at all, even I had the idea (and played around with the concept) with my DSO and LA projects back in the late 80's. And I was just a teenager with no industry clue, and pre information revolution. It was blindingly obvious that a DSO could also synchronously store logic data.
It is common for marketing to go and ask such questions after or during the product development to get a feel for if they are on the right track.

See here:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/97apr/apr97a1.pdf

Mixed-Signal Oscilloscopes
Further investigation into this avoidance of logic analyzers revealed the opportunity for a new kind of test instrument that
would expand the channel count of the oscilloscope without losing its inherent appeal. A series of market research activities
were launched to determine how to fill this gap between oscilloscope and logic analyzer. Clearly, engineers were limited by
the number of channels on their oscilloscopes but they were not always adopting a logic analyzer as the solution. What
eventually emerged is an entirely new product category that combines elements of oscilloscopes and logic analyzers.

[billclay]

Finaly,Trend plot on a Agilent.  Looks realy good

You can't move off trendplot & histogram screen once you've started it in the Fluke 884X, I think Agilent lets you move off the screen without losing the data.  Also, I found the trendplot and histogram almost useless on the Fuke because of the fixed resolution and auto-scaling of the graphs.  Let's see if the 34461A does it any better.

[billclay]

Isn't there a fan in this unit , as opposed to the 34401A.

Dave ought to tell if it's as noisy as the 34410 (or just noisy) , before people starts returning their goods 

Seems like old 34401A users liked the silence ....

/Bingo

Yea, I love equipment without fans!  No noise and no ingesting dust!

The 34460A does NOT have a fan, but the 34461A does.

[EEVblog]

The 34460A does NOT have a fan, but the 34461A does.

It's not that loud or distracting, just a low level whir. Less than Rigol 1052E for example.
In a silent room, yes, you can hear it, but if oyu have any other gear it would just get lost in the background.

[free_electron]

THAT would certainly be a good place for them to start.  There are many new op-amps and chopper amps that, in combination with an LTZ1000A could improve the accuracy of this DMM by an order of magnitude.  Then, there is the well-known technique of artifact calibration.  There have been massive improvements in resistor technology.  As far as I can tell-- NONE of these have been used in this "new" DMM.  {...sigh...}

have you ripped it apart ? taken a look at the schematics ? if no : shut up.

This machine is a replacement for the 34401. Nothing more. The reason ? because 50% of the parts in the 34401 are now obsolete. The vfd's are gone ( remaining stock depleted ) , half of the chips in the machine are EOL ( the cpu's, gpib  amongst others...  even the rs232 level shifter is eol) and they are close to being out of the ASIC's and the precision hybrid as well.

Expect to see the 34401 being switched to last time buy on the Agilent website very soon...
the key selling point is that it is a 100% compatible 34401a . the intended audience is people that have automated setups running and need drop-in replacement without code changes.

if you want a machine with better specs : take a look at their other machines like the 34411 or the 3458 ...

[mikeselectricstuff]

THAT would certainly be a good place for them to start.  There are many new op-amps and chopper amps that, in combination with an LTZ1000A could improve the accuracy of this DMM by an order of magnitude.  Then, there is the well-known technique of artifact calibration.  There have been massive improvements in resistor technology.  As far as I can tell-- NONE of these have been used in this "new" DMM.  {...sigh...}

This machine is a replacement for the 34401. Nothing more.

I don't think I've ever seen a datasheet that puts so much emphasis on a product being the same as the previous version... surprised they didn't call it the 34401B!

[free_electron]

B versions are typically small changes , little improvement here and there. Replacing of one or two parts that are obsolete. the 60 is a completely new design. the display and user interface is completely different so it warrants a complete new number.

But you are right. the key selling point is : drop in replacement for 34401.

[saturation]

Yes, the older sales brochures pushed the 34410a to replace the 01a but there are enough known incompatibilities that needed software rewrites that likely were significant enough to require a true drop in replacement be made; add graphical capabilities too as all their bench DMMs lack it [ graphics is pushed heavily in their sales brochures].

http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5989-4038EN.pdf

This machine is a replacement for the 34401. Nothing more.

I don't think I've ever seen a datasheet that puts so much emphasis on a product being the same as the previous version... surprised they didn't call it the 34401B!

[plesa]

I like  idea of instrument with large display, similar to other products like SMU B2900A or generators 33500B.
For such a price range is seems to be realy good replacement for 34401.
Do not continue with trolling about precission of the instrument, it is entry level bench top DMM.
Manufacturer cannot "kill" their other product with 1k USD multimeter with high-ends like 3458 (8k USD) or K2002 (6k USD)
I agree that both multimeters are quite old - but there is still demand from customers and these customers are more traditional.

[fpga]

I think that Agilent could have done better-- they could not only have made a "replacement" for the 34401A, but made a code-compatible version that is far more accurate than the 34401A, and at the same price point (and nearly at the same cost)

It is marketing that decides what features to put into each instrument for each price level.

It is obvious on this model that there are things they could have done to make the instrument significantly better, but they wanted to save those features for future higher end models, such as replacements for the 34410A and 34411A.

From reading the datasheets, manuals, and viewing the videos, it is clear that they wanted to defend their commitment to delivering the 34401A to their volume customers. If they had a "functionally" new instrument, those customers would be pissed off when they EOL the 34401A. For some people, better specs does not mean a better solution if they need to retrain their employees or re-write their test software.

[free_electron]

@diligentminds. Sorry i came over rude. But i took your post as 'instrument bashing without backup'.
The new machine does not aspire to be better than a 34401. Its goal is to be a 100% replacement for the aging 34401. Like i said the 34401 will disappear soon as they are running out of parts for it. Yet industry demands it. There are rpoblems plonking in a 34410 or 34411 instead of a 34401 as there are software incompatibilities ( sending 10nplc to a34410 is different dan 10nplc to a 34401. What is slow 61/2 on the 34401 is fast 61/2 on the 410... This gives problems. Also some of the other new machines have no more gpib. The new 6x has gpib (albeit an option).

It is purely designed as 100% code and function replacement.
So they are not going to put in ltz references as it is not needed. Nor does it need to ne more accurate than the 34401. As they will not alter the program code driving the testsetup the extra precision would be lost anyway. If the code is written to extract 51/2 digit in fast mode. It does no good to plonk in a machine that can doe 71/2 digit. The code only extracts 51/2 . So they dont want to pay for functionality that will not be accessed. Like i said: goal no1 of the machine is 100% compatibility. Sure they threw in some extra stuff that did not add to the bomcost. But adding an ltz style reference would have mandated higher cost. The twrget price was 34401 territory.

If you want better performance , faster reading, better tolerance they got other machines.

And by the way , the service manul IS up for the machine. No schematics though but there are some color pictures of the inside , some repair , replace tips and an explanation of how it does certain things.

I have it on good authority that we will see a replacement for the 3458 as well....

[plesa]

I have it on good authority that we will see a replacement for the 3458 as well....

Can you share rough timeline for this replacement? Month(s), year(s)?

[mikeselectricstuff]

RS (UK) are showing 75  34461A's in stock at GBP705.
No 34460a but they are listing the LAN upgrade for it! (looks like this is a license job)

[mikeselectricstuff]

With all the talk of compatibility with the 34401 I'm surprised there isn't an RS232 option - wouldn't exactly have been hard. Maybe even by plugging an FTDI cable into the USB host port - FTDI have WINCE drivers so wouldn't be much effort to support it.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Farnell now have a couple of 34460A's

[mikeselectricstuff]

With all the talk of compatibility with the 34401 I'm surprised there isn't an RS232 option.

..well it appears that there is,all they need to do is add software support for it...

[quarks]

I did add the new Agilent to my DCV chart for my own gear to see how it compares in the 1 year specs.
I also added the Keithley 2002 8.5 Digit DMM, because I was surprised to see that it is not that much better then the 6.5 Digit meters shown.

edit: correction in chart
edit: added DCI chart

[robrenz]

That Keithley line looks too erratic,  I would check your cell formulas and spec interpretation

[quarks]

here is the chart with Fluke 8508A

[quarks]

That Keithley line looks too erratic,  I would check your cell formulas and spec interpretation

I checked the formulas and had a mix of 1 + 10 PLC accurracy numbers, but there is not much difference (now with 10PLC data only), see new Chart in original post plus specs here

[robrenz]

My appologies, it is that bad over 20V

[mikeselectricstuff]

With all the talk of compatibility with the 34401 I'm surprised there isn't an RS232 option.

..well it appears that there is,all they need to do is add software support for it...

..but at the moment it's a debug port.....

Code: [Select]

U-Boot 2010.03 (Oct 09 2012 - 12:48:30)Agilent P510

CPU:   SPEAr320
DRAM:  128 MiB
Unknown id: 0xffffff. Using ST_M23P40
Flash: 64 KiB
NAND:  INTERNAL ECC 128 MiB
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
SerNum:MY99999999
Chip:  AA Board Rev: 4
init  RTC: 2013-06-18 20:02:38.47
Net:   No ethernet found.
splash RTC: 2013-06-18 20:02:39.51
Press space to stop autoboot:  0

NAND read: device 0 offset 0x320000, size 0x10000
 65536 bytes read: OK
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 00600000 ...
   Image Name:   PBOOT
   Created:      2012-05-22  16:06:43 UTC
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    38780 Bytes = 37.9 KiB
   Load Address: 00000000
   Entry Point:  00000000
   Uncompressing Kernel Image ... OK

Starting kernel ...


Debug serial initialized ........OK
No RTC on 320

Microsoft Windows CE Bootloader Common Library Version 1.4 Built May 22 2012 09:
09:57
Microsoft Windows CE 6.0 Ethernet Bootloader for the Agilent P500 board
Adaptation performed by Agilent Technologies (c) 2008

Reading NAND configuration

System ready!
Preparing for download...
No RTC on 320
 Loading image 1 from memory at 0xD0620000
O
BL_IMAGE_TYPE_BIN

X
XXOXOOOXOXOOOOOOOXOXOOOOOOOXOOOXOOOOXXXOOOOOOOOOXOOOXOXXOOXXOOOXOXXOXOOXXOOOOOOX
OOOXOOOXXOXOOOXOOXOOXXOOOXOOOOOXOOXOOOXOXOXXOXXXOOOXOOOOXXOOOOXOOOOXOXOXOOOOOOXO
OOXOOXOOOOOXXOOOOOXOXOOOOOOOOOOOXOXOOOOOOOXOXXOOOOOOOXOOOOXOXOOOXOOOXXXXXOXXOOXO
OXOXXXXOOOOX
OOOOOXXXXXOOOXOXOOOOXOOOOXOOOXOOXOOXOOOXOOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXrom_offset
=0x0.
XXImageStart = 0x80361000, ImageLength = 0x14FD1FC, LaunchAddr = 0x80362000

Completed file(s):
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[0]: Address=0x80361000  Length=0x14FD1FC  Name="" Target=RAM
 Loading image 1 succeeded.
ROMHDR at Address 80361044h
Preparing launch...
No RTC on 320
Launching windows CE image by jumping at address 0x  362000

Windows CE Kernel for ARM (Thumb Enabled) Built on May  7 2012 at 12:47:43
Setting up for a Cold Reboot
Done Setting up for a Cold Reboot
Windows CE Firmware Init
BSP 1.0.0 for the SPEARHEAD600AB board (built Mar 14 2013)
Adaptation performed by ADENEO (c) 2005
+OALIntrInit
-OALIntrInit(rc = 1)
Initialize driver globals Zeros area...
pDrvGlobalArea 0xa0060000  size 0x800 (0xa0060800 -0xa0060000)
Initialize driver globals Zeros area...done
 OALKitlStart
Firmware Init Done.
OALIoctlHalEnterI2cCriticalSection init i2c cs
ERROR: C:\WINCE600\PLATFORM\COMMON\SRC\SOC\STM\SPEARHEAD600\DRIVERS\GPIO\.\sh600
_gpio_hw.cpp line 170: GPB driver, RegQueryDword('ISTPriority') failed, status:2

ERROR: C:\WINCE600\PLATFORM\COMMON\SRC\SOC\STM\SPEARHEAD600\DRIVERS\NandFlash\.\
sh600_NandFlash.c line 57: ConfigTimming - Unable to open device registry entry
ERROR: C:\WINCE600\PLATFORM\COMMON\SRC\SOC\STM\COMMON\DRIVERS\NandFlash\.\stm_Na
ndFlash.c line 1039: LLD_GetInfo - Unable to open device registry entry
++SER_Init: context Drivers\Active\10
SER_Init, dwIndex:2
GPIO_Select0 Register 0xB300_0024: 0x80000000
Control Register 0xB300_0010 : 0x00000040
RAS Select Register 0xB300_000C: 0xffffacf4
CORE_CLK_CFG 0xB300_0024: 0x80000000
SER2 got sysintr:0x00000013
SER2 Serial Port, new baud rate:0x1c200  (UARTCLK:83250000 IBRD:0x2d FBRD:0xa)
++SER_Init: context Drivers\Active\11
SER_Init, dwIndex:3
GPIO_Select0 Register 0xB300_0024: 0x80000000
Control Register 0xB300_0010 : 0x00000040
RAS Select Register 0xB300_000C: 0xffffacf4
CORE_CLK_CFG 0xB300_0024: 0x80000000
+OALIntrRequestSysIntr IRQ (1) already used by SYSINTR (19)
SER3 got sysintr:0x00000014
SER3 Serial Port, new baud rate:0x1c200  (UARTCLK:83250000 IBRD:0x2d FBRD:0xa)
OHCI\system.c, GCFG_USBH1_SW_RST
OHCI\system.c, GCFG_USBH2_SW_RST
-EDeviceLoadEeprom 00:30:D3:24:69:A4
Phy found addr 7 (ticks=3435)
WaitForLink Start (ticks=3436)
No Link (ticks=4439)
<--EDeviceInitialize

GMAC DMA status register = 0x0
Resetting the USB-device silicon
sh600_pdd, IOCTL_BUS_POSTINIT
ERROR: C:\WINCE600\3RDPARTY\Agilent\HPP\Common\Drivers\stm320_UsbFnBusDriver\.\u
fnbus.cpp line 1137: failed opening \Agilent Flash\SPD\usbOverride
                                                                  stm320_UsbFnBu
sDriver, set IST priority 96

With some debug commands....

Code: [Select]

?       - alias for 'help'
adc     - performs A/D conversion on channel
base    - print or set address offset
bdinfo  - print Board Info structure
bdt     - enables or disables output pins on UART1
boot    - boot default, i.e., run 'bootcmd'
bootd   - boot default, i.e., run 'bootcmd'
bootm   - boot application image from memory
bootp   - boot image via network using BOOTP/TFTP protocol
cdp     - Perform CDP network configuration
cmp     - memory compare
coninfo - print console devices and information
cp      - memory copy
crc32   - checksum calculation
dcache  - enable or disable data cache
dhcp    - boot image via network using DHCP/TFTP protocol
echo    - echo args to console
editenv - edit environment variable
erase   - erase FLASH memory
expi    - program EXPI Clock
factory - factory - program factory data into NAND memory

fatinfo - print information about filesystem
fatload - load binary file from a dos filesystem
fatls   - list files in a directory (default /)
flinfo  - print FLASH memory information
fpga    - loadable FPGA image support
fsinfo  - print information about filesystems
fsload  - load binary file from a filesystem image
go      - start application at address 'addr'
help    - print command description/usage
hwreset - Perform HW RESET of the CPU
icache  - enable or disable instruction cache
iminfo  - print header information for application image
imls    - imls - list all images found in flash

imxtract- extract a part of a multi-image
itest   - return true/false on integer compare
loadb   - load binary file over serial line (kermit mode)
loads   - load S-Record file over serial line
loady   - load binary file over serial line (ymodem mode)
loop    - infinite loop on address range
ls      - list files in a directory (default /)
md      - memory display
mm      - memory modify (auto-incrementing address)
mtest   - simple RAM read/write test
mw      - memory write (fill)
nand    - NAND sub-system
nboot   - boot from NAND device
nfs     - boot image via network using NFS protocol
nm      - memory modify (constant address)
ping    - send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to network host
printenv- print environment variables
protect - enable or disable FLASH write protection
rarpboot- boot image via network using RARP/TFTP protocol
reset   - Perform RESET of the CPU
rtc     - print time from RTC
run     - run commands in an environment variable
saveenv - save environment variables to persistent storage
saves   - save S-Record file over serial line
setenv  - set environment variables
sleep   - delay execution for some time
source  - run script from memory
splash  - load splash image on display
tftpboot- boot image via network using TFTP protocol
usb     - USB sub-system
usbboot - boot from USB device
version - print monitor version
xload   - xload - program xloader image into NAND from memory



[Rufus]

bdt     - enables or disables output pins on UART1 so Bryan D Thompson can program the 8051

Lol - has it got an 8051 in there? Maybe in the FPGA?

[mikeselectricstuff]

There's an LPC900 on the front panel board.