Test Equipment where battery failure causes SERIOUS problems
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Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)
For many bits of kit, a battery is used to run a real time clock, and a failure is not a big deal. But for others it can be quite serious. It would be useful if we had a list of HP equipment where battery failures cause serious problems. Here are 1.5 entries.
1) HP 70700A digitizer when power fails on that, the code is lost, so it needs to be reprogrammed. Someone in Germany done mine for me, but it meant shipping it overseas to get it repaired. So if you have an 70000 series MMS with one of those, make sure the battery is replaced and done so without losing the data in SRAM.
2) HP 3457A 6.5 digit multimeter whilst not so catastrophic, a report I read recently on one of the newsgroups from someone, said he sent a 3457A in for calibration, and the company was not happy as the failure of the battery added an hour to the calibration time. They were going to charge for this, but in the end they did not.
So a battery failure causes a loss of calibration data, and perhaps a higher charge to get a 3457A calibrated, since everything needs adjusting, not just the odd range which might be out of spec.
Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT, UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)
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