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Old Fluke Multimeters

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vindoline:
drtaylor, I'd like to add my voice to the others that have thanked you for producing such a great piece of equipment. I've had my 8060A since the mid 80's and it's performed flawlessly for almost 30 years. A while back I was worried that if something happened to my meter I would not be able to get parts to fix it. I bought a second "broken" meter on eBay for a few dollars as a parts donor. It only took about 45 min to restore that meter to near mint working condition. I suppose I should keep my eyes open for another parts donor! I'm afraid the eBay prices may go up soon though! Enjoy all the praise, you earned it.

John Q

retiredcaps:

--- Quote from: drtaylor on November 04, 2013, 05:22:24 pm ---Release article published in Electronics Magazine.

--- End quote ---
I started reading your article, but quickly realized that I will need several passes to comprehend it.  Right now, my level of understanding it is like "see spot run".   :-DD 

Nonetheless, it is a very interesting read and I appreciate you scanning it.

Do you by chance have the 6 page technical analysis of Fluke 8020 in Electronics magazine as well?  I asked about it here

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/looking-for-6-page-technical-analysis-in-electronics-magazine-of-fluke-8020/

Is there a chance that the Technology at Work article written by Fluke HQ is wrong when they mention the 8020 and it is really the 8060A article that you scanned?

ModemHead:
Yes, thanks much for including the article scan.  I too will have to read it more than once, but I love it when someone explains in detail how something works.  Especially when it clears up mysteries after having tried to figure it out myself.

Dr. Frank:

--- Quote from: drtaylor on November 04, 2013, 05:22:24 pm ---8060 Documentation:

Copy of original schematic. This did not survive to production as I had to modify the 7660 circuit due to noise. But it is mostly intact to what ended up as the final schematic, which can be found in 8060 Manuals. It's funny now that I laboriously hand drew all those schematic symbols, some with a template. I got a lot of flak about only using a single squiggle for resistors, but I thought the meaning was just as clear.

Release article published in Electronics Magazine. This had some editing errors. The very last paragraph talks about Teflon Resistors which don't exist. Should read NPO Ceramic Caps and Teflon Trimmer caps. I think there are other minor errors. The editor took the text I wrote and "improved" it for publication without additional proof reading.

Cal Procedures for the 8060 and 8062 used by production. Written by yours truly.

My original concept sketches for the 8060. The earlier one proposed a dual slide switch on the side, but was deemed too radical a change from the 8020 series. The second was the one I did most of the design on and only at the last instance was the functionality changed. You can see a quite complex LCD in this, but the SM-4 couldn't drive that many segments at duplex.

I hope this proves interesting for aficionados  of old Fluke meters. My design process has always been design the front panel and define the feature set first, then see if you can come up with electronics that support it. That process I still follow today.

--- End quote ---

DrTaylor,

thank you for sharing, just love hand drawn schematics..

I've just picked out old FLUKE schematics of the 332B and the 845AR, and they also as if they were drawn by hand.

Was FLUKEs philosophy of that time, perhaps?

Frank

drtaylor:

--- Quote from: Dr. Frank on November 05, 2013, 05:22:32 pm ---
DrTaylor,
thank you for sharing, just love hand drawn schematics..
I've just picked out old FLUKE schematics of the 332B and the 845AR, and they also as if they were drawn by hand.
Was FLUKEs philosophy of that time, perhaps?

Frank

--- End quote ---

Frank, This was the early 80s. Everything was done by hand. At Fluke the Engineer would design on paper, I used 11X17 graph paper, and when Fluke wanted to turn it into final schematics, we would give it to a draftsman to beautify. My editing tool was an eraser. Fluke was very adamant about keeping a design notebook due to patent and lawsuit protection.

In 1984 Computer tools were scarce, expensive and required a lot of training. Fluke was just beginning to use them when I left. The 8020 through 8060 PCB designs were hand taped 4 up on Mylar. Probably the most advanced tool I used was a spreadsheet to perform error analysis. I also used a PDP11 based word processor. WYSI NOT WYG. My trusty HP11C was used for all calculations. It's still functional 30 years later and I use it every day. Talk about a great tool! When HP offered new HP15Cs last year, I snapped up one just in case ol' Betsy croaks. The new HP15C doesn't have as nice a feel on the keys as my 30 years old HP11C, but it does work just like the old. But I digress...

The custom IC designs were done on computers, (like the MAC used in the 8060) and were plotted on large pen plotters to check the design. I remember bending over a large light table looking at IC features and working with the IC designer on fine points of design. Quite a different world then. My phone is more powerful than that huge PDP11.

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