Re: Agilent E4406 fails to turn on - CULPRITS IDENTIFIED
They were probably operated above their ripple current rating.? Doing that will dry them out every time. ? Mike
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From: [email protected] < [email protected]> On Behalf Of Tim Tuck Sent: Monday, September 16, 2024 7:51 PM To: [email protected]Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Agilent E4406 fails to turn on - CULPRITS IDENTIFIED ? Hi all, Thanks to Milan's pointer I de-soldered the two electrolytic capacitors on the little PSU daughter board and they were faulty. The 47uF@C5 was only 22uF and the 33uF@C6 thinks its a 100ohm resistor!? Pic of board below before I de-soldered C6. 
thanks to all for suggestions. regards Tim
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Hello Michael, I have a HP8970 at home in my radio shack (M0XPA) and I use it for my experiments and preparing LNA and down converters for contests and field days.
I watched your video and the 8970 Companion is a very nice piece of software, which adds tremendously to the usability and recording of measurements. My compliments to you.
Now I would really love to use your program.......
I don't have any linux experiences nor use it., so now I need some advice.
How do I get this to run on a dell notebook? (win7)
Is there a way to trick MS to live in a Linux environment?
I do have drivers for MS for my GPIB bus....I use the GPIB toolkit (KE1FX) to plot my HP spectrum analyzer, which works well.
Is there anywhere (Link?) that describes what I need and to install to have the 8970 Companion to work?
Cheers
Peter M0XPA
PS: I am out of my comfort zone when it comes to Linux and programming. More a HW person.
I've written an open source Linux program to control the Hewlett Packard 8970 Noise Figure Meter.
It can create plots of noise figure and gain from the acquired HP8970 data.
Now available on Github
I describe it here on YouTube
RPMs for Fedora Linux are available at
?
Michael
?
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Re: HP 141T Power Supply Help Needed
Probably not related strictly to the PSU, so happy to make a new thread if needed.? ?
I've gone over the A5 board at a high level.? ?Checked all the test points and all but #7 appear to be as expected on the scope.
One of the schematics has voltages at the wiring pins, and those also look ok.? ?I have not checked per-node voltage within the circuit yet.? ??
Is this "fairly conclusive evidence" that A5 is generally OK?? ?I don't want to dwell on it, I'd thought that maybe Blanking or Pulse were having issues?
but now i'm thinking not.? ??
More power supply related, I don't see any oscillation on the HV oscillator.? ?The labelled 7v is closer to 12v so I'm thinking the problem is around Q13, 14 or 15.? Q15 looks kind?of not good, seeing .1v breakdown with a DMM diode test in-circuit.? ?I know thats?not the best test, but it does seem to work for most of the other transistors I've tested.??
The worst bugs make the instrument diverge from the schematic, often in ways that would look like nonsense if you drew it there.
"From
over 40 years of fault finding and repair experience in a wide range of electronic products, not just instrumentation, the weirdest symptoms often have a really simple root cause!"
?
This
has been my experience as well! Makes it very easy to go down a rabbit hole. Which is why I always do a thorough visual inspection first. Also checking mechanical components of switches, pots, etc. Giving them a good clean right off the bat and testing those
first can save you a lot of headache.
?
-Frank
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Re: Python + Prologix: Was Re: GPIB scripting software?
Hi again.
The BIG advantage of a Prologix adapter (or clone) is that for simple tasks, it will work with anything that recognises it as a "Serial Device", and dumb terminal program.
One with programmable macro's is most useful though, it's amazing what you can do with that sort of program!
Such as? for Windows, or...
CuteCom for Linux.
It is OS agnostic (no custom drivers needed) and can work as a device, as well as a controller.
So you could configure it as a "listen only" device, then you have a crude bus monitor tool, for when you have something weird going on between some other software and instrument.? It won't show you the handshake sequence, but will present you with all the data bytes flying up/down the bus.
Hint, the later devices have some EAROM built in, so you can save it's configuration.? That almost gives you a Plug-n-Play bus monitor if you need, just fire up a simple ASCII terminal emulator, that can show valid representations of the usual ASCII control characters.)
OK, it takes a bit of effort to decipher it, but it's better than nothing, if you've not got a built in diagnostic/analyser tool for your main GPIB interface, such as the National Instrument supplied tools, "Ni IO Trace" etc (used to be called Ni-Spy) that come with their interface software.? I do not know what HPAK supply that is equivalent.
If I were you, I'd hang onto it, as it is still a useful tool in its own right, even if? you usually use one of the big name devices for the main tasks..?? Add a small single board computer (Raspberry Pi, or others) and configure it as a "Device", and you have the beginnings of a custom GPIB device, for "Whatever" needs.
All the best.
Dave KBV.
PS:??? There was a "lot of noise" a while back, about weather or not to add the ability to use Prologix adapters to PyVisa.? I have no idea if that ever happened, but I do remember a lot of people not liking that idea for some reason.
--
Created on and sent from a Unix like PC running and using open source software:
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Recent versions of windows - Win10 Pro/Win 11 Pro that support Hyper-V could in theory be used to run Linux side by side with your existing system.
?
You¡¯d need SR-IOV capable hardware, and either a PCIe to PCI adapter(Startech makes one that I¡¯ve had good results with in windows systems) plus an NI PCI-GPIB plus a hacked up bracket, or an NI PCIe GPIB card and the special micro 25 pin to 488 cable. With either of those, you¡¯d assign the PCIe bridge chip to the Linux virtual machine with discrete device assignment, meaning it¡¯s no longer available to windows programs.
?
It would be easier and probably cheaper to use an old PC with a PCI slot and just run Linux for such programs.
?
While I can¡¯t speak for the authors, in general, if a program isn¡¯t built in something like Python, unless it is built using windows libraries that are intended to be cross platform, it is unlikely to be ported to windows. It¡¯s not that it can¡¯t be done¡it¡¯s just that adds a lot of work for an author that wasn¡¯t motivated from the beginning to do it that way. A fork as a windows version is certainly possible, but then you probably will not see updates unless you do them yourself, or attract a user community.
?
Perhaps I¡¯m a bit jaded¡about 15 years ago, some people were working on a high performance ADC board, made the design decision to use an Atmel microcontroller that cost a half a dollar more than an XMOS chip that included a right to use a windows usb audio class 2 driver. Ultimately, they probably ate up a year figuring out the USB stack. The worst of it was that the microcontroller didn¡¯t have enough buffer to run a hacked usb stack that would transport data in a way windows could use.
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Re: Python + Prologix: Was Re: GPIB scripting software?
Thank you Dave, that is exactly what I feared. The HP82357 adapter is sooo much easier to use.
I offer my Prologix adapter for sale....
My best,
Harke (having a lot of fun with these HP USB-GPIB adapters!)
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On 17/09/2024 13:21, Dave_G0WBX via groups.io wrote: Re Python and GPIB via ... Prologix devices.
? "Open the port with the python "serial" library, and send direct GPIB commands to it."
Sadly, It's not quite as simple as that, as anyone who has worked with Prologix (and clone) devices will tell you.
You first have to discover the serial port the adapter appears at*, and after establishing communications with that, then configure it for the instrument (or instrument's) on the bus you will be using, so it can handle any vagaries of their individual GPIB command/response language.
* And that can sometimes change unexpectedly if your OS re-enumerates the connected USB devices for any reason!? And not only on Windows!? (At least on Linux, and maybe Mac's, there is the wonderful "udev rules" facility to nail their feet to the ground!)
Also, in the case of multiple instruments on the bus (sig-gen and power meter for example) you will need to reconfigure at least the GPIB bus address to communicate with, that the Prologix adapter uses, whenever you want to communicate with another instrument. (And maybe in extreme cases, the command terminator methods too.)
Only once you have the interface configured for an instrument, is it then "mostly" transparent sending/receiving data between instrument and computer.
If you need to send or receive binary data, then that's another ball of string to unravel.
As before, read the Prologix documentation 'in full', before you start!? Especially regarding filtering any data to send, and "escaping" certain byte values to prevent the Prologix device itself interpreting part of any sent binary data (to the instrument) as it's own commands!
There are libraries about that can handle most of that for you, but there is often still some customising and tuning needed to get the best performance, especially with measuring instruments, they all need time, not all by default wait for a new valid measurement to be made after your request, before replying.
Also, even SCPI is not always fully/faithfully implemented in some instruments.
(Reading the capability string is often not or poorly implemented.)
"Have Fun"!
Dave 'KBV
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?
Hi Michael,
really nice program, with some advantages over KE5FX program.
Unfortunately it is for Linux ;-)
Probably someone can port it to Windows?
?
73 Ernst
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Python + Prologix: Was Re: GPIB scripting software?
Re Python and GPIB via ... Prologix devices.
? "Open the port with the python "serial" library, and send direct GPIB commands to it."
Sadly, It's not quite as simple as that, as anyone who has worked with Prologix (and clone) devices will tell you.
You first have to discover the serial port the adapter appears at*, and after establishing communications with that, then configure it for the instrument (or instrument's) on the bus you will be using, so it can handle any vagaries of their individual GPIB command/response language.
* And that can sometimes change unexpectedly if your OS re-enumerates the connected USB devices for any reason!? And not only on Windows!? (At least on Linux, and maybe Mac's, there is the wonderful "udev rules" facility to nail their feet to the ground!)
Also, in the case of multiple instruments on the bus (sig-gen and power meter for example) you will need to reconfigure at least the GPIB bus address to communicate with, that the Prologix adapter uses, whenever you want to communicate with another instrument. (And maybe in extreme cases, the command terminator methods too.)
Only once you have the interface configured for an instrument, is it then "mostly" transparent sending/receiving data between instrument and computer.
If you need to send or receive binary data, then that's another ball of string to unravel.
As before, read the Prologix documentation 'in full', before you start!? Especially regarding filtering any data to send, and "escaping" certain byte values to prevent the Prologix device itself interpreting part of any sent binary data (to the instrument) as it's own commands!
There are libraries about that can handle most of that for you, but there is often still some customising and tuning needed to get the best performance, especially with measuring instruments, they all need time, not all by default wait for a new valid measurement to be made after your request, before replying.
Also, even SCPI is not always fully/faithfully implemented in some instruments.
(Reading the capability string is often not or poorly implemented.)
"Have Fun"!
Dave 'KBV
--
Created on and sent from a Unix like PC running and using open source software:
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Re: GPIB scripting software?
Did anyone mention EZGPIB?
Windows only, works with NI and Prologix (but not all clones though, without some effort.)
It does work with NI USB-GPIB devices, running in a Windows VM guest on Linux.? The NI baggage, only needs installing in the Windows guest VM, not on the host.
The scripting language is Pascal based, so easy to learn.? All the GPIB handling is done for you, so it's just the basic instrument programming you need to figure out.
Free too.? Sadly it's author has passed, but his site lives on.
A lot of other good info there too.? Including worked examples in the download for several popular instruments and tasks.
Dave B.
(Used it once or twice for soak testing high power RF/Microwave amplifier repairs.)
--
Created on and sent from a Unix like PC running and using open source software:
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Re: GPIB scripting software?
Do you have a simple example at hand? I used the Prologix adapter
in the past with KE5FX toolbox but never with pyvisa. I prefer to
use Python as I want more data processing options than available
with the kit.
H
On 17/09/2024 04:27, Andrew Hakman
wrote:
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Python + prologix adapter is about as simple, portable, and
dependency free as it gets.
Open the port with the python "serial" library, and send
direct GPIB commands to it.
No need to install any drivers or i/o libraries, basically
just plug and play!
On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at
12:25?AM Anders via <anders.gustafsson= [email protected]>
wrote:
I do the same with my own Prologix-clone
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Re: GPIB scripting software?
With free Python libraries like sci-kit, numpy and matplotlib you
probably do not need Matlab (licensed) anymore. The Matlab clone
Octave is for free. With the mentioned Python libraries it takes
only a couple of lines of code to read a touchstone file and plot
the 4 s-parameters on a Smith chart. There are examples to design
an microwave lna based on these libraries (yes some more lines are
needed). Nice stuff, I only scratched the surface so far.
Harke
On 17/09/2024 03:15, Roy Thistle wrote:
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On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 02:12 AM, Ulf Kylenfall wrote:
I saw a thread about Matlab
Not sure of the advantage of Matlab... unless you want to do
some fancy (or not so fancy) processing on the data.
If you do, and can write Matlab code... or just drive it from
the Matlab Console... then Matlab would do it.
?
A free... pretty faithful clone of Matlab is Octave.
Unless you need Simulink , and Toolboxes... then free doesn't
cost very much.
?
These two packages are for 'vector based' programming, if
that's your thing.
?
Otherwise, and maybe, with all the Python libraries
available... Python is pretty good too.
?
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Re: Artek Manuals and HP 3325B
Agreed this should move from this sight? but I am only interested in 588 B ?
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From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Radu Bogdan Dicher
Sent: 17 September 2024 03:55
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Artek Manuals and HP 3325B ? Paul, I have one working (mostly) 588 (not "A") and one not working?so well (= for?parts). Both projects at this point, and it's likely I'll not keep them once, hopefully, repaired. My main HP counter does everything I need.? I think we'll need to take this conversation?to the EIP forum, either way. Or risk getting reprimanded here, I suppose. ? Hi Radu ? I found the EIP 588 B manual on a sight in 2017? and informed Dave about it I have uploaded all the EIP manuals to Groups.io site EIP-Microwave excluding the EIP 588 B service manual And there is a note explaining that the manual is at Artek as I have both the counter and the manual I assume you are not on the EIP sight? if you have a EIP 588 B available then I could be in the market for it Regards Paul ? From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Radu Bogdan Dicher
Sent: 17 September 2024 01:52
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Artek Manuals and HP 3325B ? As I have a couple of EIP 588s in the queue at my bench, I've been looking for the SM out there. Did a quick search, and bam!, one of the free libraries to the rescue!... And as I look closer, in the preview, what do I see? It's an upload of Artek's proprietary PDF. As conspicuous as shady stuff like this can get.? ? I pushed?the cost of the manual to Linda (PayPal through their website), but she wrote?me?back?telling me she's in the hospital?(as Ron states), and that it'll be at least a week until she can send it to me. I told her no worries whatsoever, health always comes first. And certainly, that's longer than my impatience is currently willing to sign off on, but I now feel I'm on the right side of things downloading that file from the free repository, knowing that I fully paid Artek (Dave/Linda) for it.? I'm sure most, if not?all in this community would essentially proceed the same way. ? The Artek office mgr was out due to medical and is back now, filling orders once or twice a week. I'll let them know to expedite if possible.
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Re: GPIB scripting software?
I have a couple of working HP82357A USB/GPIB interfaces available to sell. ? ?75 ea. based in UK if anyone is interested. Regards Nigel ?
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From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Roy Thistle via groups.io
Sent: 17 September 2024 02:04
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] GPIB scripting software?? On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 03:27 AM, Askild wrote: Python is another possibility.
Yes. If the instrument you are using does SCPI, then it's not to hard to write some code in Python to do some basic measurements. AFAIK, if you have the working GPIB hardware.
Keysight 82357B USB/GPIB Interface
or
Keysight 82350B PCI GPIB Interface and have downloaded and installed?
pyVISA (Python Library for VISA), free
Keysight VISA (Virtual Instrument Software Architecture) an API for instrument control, has GPIB The software might be free; but, the devil will be in the details, if you have to manually install them. Here is a basic Python program get an instrument to measure voltage using SCPI (Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments) command set,if the instuments you are using supports it. Not sure the 897B does.
Any program bugs, are free, like the other software. # Initialize VISA Resource Manager
rm = pyvisa.ResourceManager() # Find? instruments
instruments = rm.list_resources()
print("Available Instruments:", instruments) # Open session to an instrument (assuming GPIB device at address 3)
instrument = rm.open_resource('GPIB0::3::INSTR') # Write a command
instrument.write('MEASURE:VOLTAGE?') # Read response
response = instrument.read()
print("Instrument Response:", response) # Close? session
instrument.close() You can do something similar coding in C, and compile it; but, there's way more fiddly bits to get wrong.
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Hello Michael,
Thank you very much for your effort to build this nice software.
It comes very handy when you need to use the 8970.
Any chance you can build also a Debian/Ubuntu package?
73,
Razvan
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On 17/09/2024 04:07, vk2bea via groups.io wrote: I've written an open source Linux program to control the Hewlett Packard
8970 Noise Figure Meter.
It can create plots of noise figure and gain from the acquired HP8970 data.
Now available on Github
<
VK2BEA/HP8970-Companion>
I describe it here on YouTube youtube.com/watch?v=AWXNZeE0VKs <
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWXNZeE0VKs>
RPMs for Fedora Linux are available at//copr.fedorainfracloud.org/copr
<>
Michael
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Re: Twelve(+/-) bins of original HP/Agilent manuals free for pickup in San Diego
I'm also desperately looking for calibration software for the 4263A / B and the 4339A, and similar models etc...
?
?
Jared.
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Re: GPIB scripting software?
Agree. Very simple. I use it a lot.
Word of warning: Older HP instruments (and probably others, pre SCPI I'd say) do NOT like the "auto-reply" and you should disable that.
Mark
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Python + prologix adapter is about as simple, portable, and dependency free as it gets.
Open the port with the python "serial" library, and send direct GPIB commands to it.
No need to install any drivers or i/o libraries, basically just plug and play!
On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 12:25?AM Anders via <anders.gustafsson= [email protected]> wrote:
I do the same with my own Prologix-clone
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Re: Twelve(+/-) bins of original HP/Agilent manuals free for pickup in San Diego
Hi Stan,
wow thats a big collection. If only i woul live nearby ...
Is there any calibration software on the disks? The 4263a, 4338a, 4339a and many others can't be calibrated without.
Or the manual for a 4282a?? The available scan is unreadable.
I would be very happy to get them and make them available for everyone.
Roland
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Re: Artek Manuals and HP 3325B
Paul, I have one working (mostly) 588 (not "A") and one not working?so well (= for?parts). Both projects at this point, and it's likely I'll not keep them once, hopefully, repaired. My main HP counter does everything I need.? I think we'll need to take this conversation?to the EIP forum, either way. Or risk getting reprimanded here, I suppose. Radu.?
Hi Radu ? I found the EIP 588 B manual on a sight in 2017? and informed Dave about it I have uploaded all the EIP manuals to Groups.io site EIP-Microwave excluding the EIP 588 B service manual And there is a note explaining that the manual is at Artek as I have both the counter and the manual I assume you are not on the EIP sight? if you have a EIP 588 B available then I could be in the market for it Regards Paul ? From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Radu Bogdan Dicher
Sent: 17 September 2024 01:52
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Artek Manuals and HP 3325B ? As I have a couple of EIP 588s in the queue at my bench, I've been looking for the SM out there. Did a quick search, and bam!, one of the free libraries to the rescue!... And as I look closer, in the preview, what do I see? It's an upload of Artek's proprietary PDF. As conspicuous as shady stuff like this can get.? ? I pushed?the cost of the manual to Linda (PayPal through their website), but she wrote?me?back?telling me she's in the hospital?(as Ron states), and that it'll be at least a week until she can send it to me. I told her no worries whatsoever, health always comes first. And certainly, that's longer than my impatience is currently willing to sign off on, but I now feel I'm on the right side of things downloading that file from the free repository, knowing that I fully paid Artek (Dave/Linda) for it.? I'm sure most, if not?all in this community would essentially proceed the same way. ? The Artek office mgr was out due to medical and is back now, filling orders once or twice a week. I'll let them know to expedite if possible.
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Re: 8566B Attenuator Service
On Monday, September 16, 2024 at 02:47:48 PM PDT, Chuck Harris <cfharris@...> wrote:
If you were working for the telephone company, Easy does it is a good motto for this work. -Chuck Harris (not a Bell guy, but taught contact burnishing by one.) Well...as a former "Bell guy"...(12 years Western Electric Installation)....17+ years Central Office Tech...I kinda agree Tho what I used on relay contacts in the #1 and #1A ESS Switching Systems was BOND PAPER strips soaked in suitable liquid contact
cleaner...most of said relays had Palladium plated contacts rather than gold plating tho...
Jim
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Re: GPIB scripting software?
Python + prologix adapter is about as simple, portable, and dependency free as it gets.
Open the port with the python "serial" library, and send direct GPIB commands to it.
No need to install any drivers or i/o libraries, basically just plug and play!
On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 12:25?AM Anders via <anders.gustafsson= [email protected]> wrote: I do the same with my own Prologix-clone
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Paul Bicknell
Jared Cabot
jim