Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
HI Victor,
From what I can see, the problem seems to be contamination on the
contact surface.? The bad sections are darker than the good ones.?
I don't know if this is someone spilling their coffee on it or
oxidation.? Either way it doesn't work.? The symptons you describe
are exactly what I was seeing.???
I found the part here:
I don't know anything about the seller.? There are others selling
the same things.
Tom
On 7/30/2019 12:43 PM, victor smith
wrote:
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Yes, Dave, Please provide that info, it would be of great
interest!
Tom, I guess the fact that you were able to find a replacement
panel means that you never found the actual cause of the switch
failure, am I right? If they are metal contacts, I wonder how/why
the voltage is coming back to the schmitt trigger but at a level
which is just below the threshold voltage to toggle it...What
would reduce that voltage, I wonder?
_._,_._,_
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
HI Dave,
Thank you.? I have another one of these to fix.? Where I have the most trouble is getting the front panel separated from the chassis.?? I have the same problem with the 34401A.?? Instructions are much appreciated.
Tom N3AJA
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On 7/30/2019 12:43 PM, Dave W6TE wrote: OK Tom,
I'll work up a little word document today and post it with some photos.
Dave W6TE
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Tom B Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 9:40 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Hi Dave,
If there is an easy way to take the front panel apart I would like hear about it. I have found it to be a real pain. Please send me your instructions.
Tom Bryan
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Update, armed with the schematics (which dont apply 100% to this model, but are close) I was able to trace out the whole power push button circuit. I can definitely say that the problem is that the voltage? available to the front panel switch is being loaded down somewhere on the front panel. The switch itself seems to be fine (several ohms resistance, but in this circuit that is not an issue). The source impedance of the supply voltage to the button is 51.1K. With the panel connected that voltage drops to below 2 volts. With it disconnected, it's 5 volts. I dont think anything else is supposed to be sharing that supply line. A good unit shows no change with it's panel connected or dsconnected.
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Re: [test-equip-trader] more TE purging
I'm interested in the 4284A/4285A LCR meter pair, but have a few questions.
What options and fixtures are included?
What was the test procedure?
Does your asking price include shipping in CONUS?
Will you accept PayPal?
Regards, Reg
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Yes, Dave, Please provide that info, it would be of great interest!
Tom, I guess the fact that you were able to find a replacement panel means that you never found the actual cause of the switch failure, am I right? If they are metal contacts, I wonder how/why the voltage is coming back to the schmitt trigger but at a level which is just below the threshold voltage to toggle it...What would reduce that voltage, I wonder?
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
OK Tom,
I'll work up a little word document today and post it with some photos.
Dave W6TE
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-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] < [email protected]> On Behalf Of Tom B Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 9:40 AM To: [email protected]Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on) Hi Dave, If there is an easy way to take the front panel apart I would like hear about it. I have found it to be a real pain. Please send me your instructions. Tom Bryan Victor,
The front panel?€?s on those meters are very easy to take apart and re-assemble. It only takes a few minutes. I do it almost every day as I work on these meters. If you need a step by step directions let me know and I would be happy to advise.
Dave W6TE
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of victor smith Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 9:30 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Hi Dave,
If there is an easy way to take the front panel apart I would like hear about it. I have found it to be a real pain. Please send me your instructions.
Tom Bryan
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Victor,
The front panel?€?s on those meters are very easy to take apart and re-assemble. It only takes a few minutes. I do it almost every day as I work on these meters. If you need a step by step directions let me know and I would be happy to advise.
Dave W6TE
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of victor smith Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 9:30 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Victor,
?
The front panel¡¯s on those meters are very easy to take apart and re-assemble. It only takes a few minutes. I do it almost every day as I work on these meters. If you need a step by step directions let me know and I would be happy to advise.
?
Dave W6TE
?
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From: [email protected] < [email protected]>
On Behalf Of victor smith
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 9:30 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
?
Tom,
Thank you so much. You have confirmed what my own investigation led me to suspect. Long Story Short: I did take off the front panel (always fraught with ways that things can go wrong, I always think something is going to crack) and then managed to carefully
remove the LCD Display subassembly, revealing a really hard to disassemble metal shield covering the switches. At that point I decided that rather than break a good power meter trying to repair the front panel, the better part of valor would be to put everything
back together and start looking for a replacement front panel!
The good news is that I did manage to reassemble everything without damaging the delicate ribbon connectors, etc.
And now you have confirmed with your experience, thanks telling me about the irreparable switches! Now I don't feel so bad!
As far as that manual, (the E4418) The ones I see on the Keysight site do not have sub-assembly parts lists or schematics, just the final assembly parts. Is there a manual somewhere else with schematics?
I am now in the market for a 441A front panel, (or a 4418 panel), if any group members know of one!
In the meanwhile, I have a nice power meter that needs to be unplugged after use!
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
and finally, thanks, Tom, for that link, which turns out to be the set of schematics I have been begging for!
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Tom,
Thank you so much. You have confirmed what my own investigation led me to suspect. Long Story Short: I did take off the front panel (always fraught with ways that things can go wrong, I always think something is going to crack) and then managed to carefully remove the LCD Display subassembly, revealing a really hard to disassemble metal shield covering the switches. At that point I decided that rather than break a good power meter trying to repair the front panel, the better part of valor would be to put everything back together and start looking for a replacement front panel!
The good news is that I did manage to reassemble everything without damaging the delicate ribbon connectors, etc.
And now you have confirmed with your experience, thanks telling me about the irreparable switches! Now I don't feel so bad!
As far as that manual, (the E4418) The ones I see on the Keysight site do not have sub-assembly parts lists or schematics, just the final assembly parts. Is there a manual somewhere else with schematics?
I am now in the market for a 441A front panel, (or a 4418 panel), if any group members know of one!
In the meanwhile, I have a nice power meter that needs to be unplugged after use!
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Victor,
I just went through the same thing with one of these. It looked like the Schmitt trigger should be working but it wasn't.
The EPM series power meters do not use carbon button switches. It uses domed metallic contacts built into the flexible printed circuit. The button just pushes the dome in to make contact. They cannot be repaired. I bought a Chinese knock-off replacement on Ebay. This works fine but one minor annoyance is that the standby LED is red instead of orange that HP used.
BTW - The front panel is a real pain to take apart.
Schematics are available. Get the E4418B manual and it is close enough for what you are doing. Front panels are identical. See ;attach=496769
Tom
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The battery seems to be fine, over three volts. And besides:
I made some progress on this thing. Knowing that I was looking for a logic shift whenever the power button was pushed, I found the line on the front panel connector that showed a state change whenever the button was pushed, and after several minutes of probing around, discovered the Schmitt Trigger IC on the main board that was toggled by that line. I am lucky, because I have a second, working power meter of the same type. So I was able to determine that the problem was that the "bad" unit is only shifting the Schmitt input between 0 and 1.6-1.7 volts. A good unit shifts between 0 and 4 volts. I can turn the unit on and off at will with a 1k pull-up resistor applied to the Schmitt input pin. That tells me the main board part is probably ok. So it looks like I will probably need to pull the front panel off to investigate why the level coming back to the main board is so low. Resistances all seem the same comparing good and bad units, which is puzzling. But since I really am working blind, and there are more than one power circuits (with separate ground/return paths), I may just not be measuring at the right places. With the panel off, I can try to trace the paths for that button and figure out if it's a bad contact (I assume carbon rubber pad to circuit trace type, just based on the feel of it) or some other issue. The cable and connector look OK.
Wish I had a schematic.....
Vic
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Re: So far O.T. it's in another universe but...
I use a pump hairspray bottle and old toothbrush. Less risk of damage to 0.25 mm wide PCB traces which was where the flux was on the CD player.
After it looks clean with a 7x Hastings triplet, I spray it some more, pat it dry with a towel and then follow with a hair dryer.
The first cleaning of the CD player looked as if it was clean, but experience showed otherwise. No way though for me to see underneath the chip. But the 2nd cleaning was successful. I heavily saturated it.
However you remove the flux, the important thing is to clean any visible flux or other residue from the PCB *before* you do any other troubleshooting. And don't assume residue is soluble in isopropyl. I've seen stuff where water from a potted plant left a film of dirt.
As device geometries push more devices to 1.8 V you can expect to see more such issues.
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Oh, and Thank you to Tom, sorry, I missed that you were the respondee!
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Peter, thank you.
The battery seems to be fine, over three volts. And besides:
I made some progress on this thing. Knowing that I was looking for a logic shift whenever the power button was pushed, I found the line on the front panel connector that showed a state change whenever the button was pushed, and after several minutes of probing around, discovered the Schmitt Trigger IC on the main board that was toggled by that line. I am lucky, because I have a second, working power meter of the same type. So I was able to determine that the problem was that the "bad" unit is only shifting the Schmitt input between 0 and 1.6-1.7 volts. A good unit shifts between 0 and 4 volts. I can turn the unit on and off at will with a 1k pull-up resistor applied to the Schmitt input pin. That tells me the main board part is probably ok. So it looks like I will probably need to pull the front panel off to investigate why the level coming back to the main board is so low. Resistances all seem the same comparing good and bad units, which is puzzling. But since I really am working blind, and there are more than one power circuits (with separate ground/return paths), I may just not be measuring at the right places. With the panel off, I can try to trace the paths for that button and figure out if it's a bad contact (I assume carbon rubber pad to circuit trace type, just based on the feel of it) or some other issue. The cable and connector look OK.
Wish I had a schematic.....
Vic
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Re: Testing a 2-01C Diode
Vacuum tube diodes have a space region between the cathode and anode, which limits the current that can flow until the voltage between the two is high enough. See the I-V characteristic curve at the below link. <>
Notice that the 410 has separate meter scales for the 1V and 3V ranges, and doesn't really get linear until above 3 volts, and doesn't really respond at all below 100 mV. There would be current flow with a 3 volt power supply, but perhaps in the microvolts with a 3.3K resistor.
Try testing with a much larger resistor, in the meg-ohms, and with a higher voltage.
John
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On 7/29/2019 9:18 AM, n4buq wrote: I tried setting up a test for the diode using approximately a 3VDC source (a very weak 9V battery I happened to have on hand) with a 3.3K resistor in series between the anode and cathode (naturally, with the heater connected and sufficiently warmed up). I could not measure any voltage across the resister regardless of the polarity of the source voltage. I also tried it with the DVM in series with the resistor/voltage source and still could not detect anything even close to 1ma. Thinking that was more-or-less conclusive of a bad tube, I tried this with a NIB EA53 (adjusting the heater voltage accordingly) and still could not see any significant current flow regardless of the polarity of the source voltage. Unless _both_ tubes are bad (unlikely but I can test the EA53 in the working probe to verify that one), then I think this test setup is somehow invalid (although I don't see how with such a simple setup). I'm not where I can get to my workshop for a while so can't report more findings until I get back there but thought I'd pass this along. Thanks, Barry - N4BUQ ----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry" <n4buq@...> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2019 8:15:28 PM Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Testing a 2-01C Diode
I plan to test it per the suggestions. It is possible, though, that I might have damaged it feeding the 50-ohm terminated output of the 3310B directly to the tube tip as I expect that would have produced more than 1mA unbridled current from the generator. I did that before I read about the 1mA rating.
This poor probe, though, had multiple problems so the tube might have been bad when I got it. I mentioned that the spring connector was falling out of its slotted socket, but I also discovered that the cable's braid was not connected to the sleeve of the plug so the heater couldn't work. I can't tell if it was that way from the factory or whether someone did that intentionally (and I can't figure why anyone would want to do that). Connecting that let the heater start working but have not successfully gotten a signal through the tube.
If the tube still checks bad, then I'll be looking for a replacement tube.
Thanks again, Barry - N4BUQ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Harris" <cfharris@...> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2019 5:34:44 PM Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] Testing a 2-01C Diode
Well, it is a detector, not a rectifier. A very special detector in that it works from about a milivolt through a kilovolt.
-Chuck Harris
n4buq wrote:
That's the way I thought of it. It's just a diode and should act like one if it's good. What gets me is the relatively tiny forward DC current rating. For tube construction, that just seems odd - especially considering it's rated at 1000V.
Thanks, Barry - N4BUQ
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Re: [test-equip-trader] more TE purging
I think there are builders in ham radio still, but many build because they can't afford commercial gear. That also means very limited TE. There are items on that list I wish I could buy too.
Paul
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On 7/28/19 9:17 PM, Jim Ford wrote: Ditto for me regarding the 83712B sig gen.?Will check into the cal kit items, though.Jim Ford?Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original message --------From: ¸é±ð²Ô¨¦±ð <k6fsb.1@...> Date: 7/28/19 6:09 PM (GMT-08:00) To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] [test-equip-trader] more TE purging I would love a 4284a but out of my price range......I will continue with my kluges..... ¸é±ð²Ô¨¦±ð On 2019-07-28 10:24 a.m., Pete Manfre wrote: Not even any offers¡? not many builders/experimenters remaining out there I guess.? > > > Still have the following available¡ all tested and working properly.? Pics on request. > > >? ? ?4284a? lcr(z) $1650. Into storage trailer this week > >? ? ?4285a? lcr(z) $1650. Into storage trailer this week > >? ? ?83712b. 20GHz sig. gen, $1800¡ offers?? > >? ? ?sold > > >? ? ?sold > >? ? ?8720d 20GHz VNA. $6150¡ offers ? > >? ? ?8562a 22GHz spec an, $1250¡ into trailer this week > >? ? ?All tested and working fine. Once into trailer¡ next of kins' problem > >? ? ?Thanks for looking, >? ? ?Pete wa2odo
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Check the battery to make sure it is good.? If it is good, try
removing the battery jumper and then try to turn it off.?? The
membrane keyboard is a weak point of these power meters.? I found
replaces on ebay for around $50US.? They are not a lot of fun to
change.?? These are great power meters, well worth fixing.
Tom Bryan
On 7/29/2019 9:20 PM, Peter Gottlieb
wrote:
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Too bad! ?I wonder if there is a hidden menu or only settable
over GPIB. Seems more likely a fault of some sort though.?
I have one of these so if it gets to the point of internal
measurements I can help.?
On Jul 29, 2019, at 8:56 PM, victor smith < vcs3@...>
wrote:
Peter, good idea! But no, I looked and don't see
any mention of power on options in the configuration menus.
That is how it acts, though, and these were used in an
untended system rack type of situation, from what I have been
told. But I just dont see any settings for anything involving
turn-on or standby.
_._,_._,_
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Too bad! ?I wonder if there is a hidden menu or only settable over GPIB. Seems more likely a fault of some sort though.?
I have one of these so if it gets to the point of internal measurements I can help.?
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On Jul 29, 2019, at 8:56 PM, victor smith < vcs3@...> wrote: Peter, good idea! But no, I looked and don't see any mention of power on options in the configuration menus. That is how it acts, though, and these were used in an untended system rack type of situation, from what I have been told. But I just dont see any settings for anything involving turn-on or standby.
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Re: Need help with HP 441A Power Meter not turning off (or sometimes not turning on)
Peter, good idea! But no, I looked and don't see any mention of power on options in the configuration menus. That is how it acts, though, and these were used in an untended system rack type of situation, from what I have been told. But I just dont see any settings for anything involving turn-on or standby.
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Re: HP8165A and HP8620A - repairing HAMfest acquisitions
Pete,
?
You should have bought more of my stuff!? 
?
Best
Regards,
Bob Groschen Monument, CO
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From: saipan59
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2019 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] HP8165A and HP8620A -
repairing HAMfest acquisitions
?
On
Mon, Jul 29, 2019 at 12:25 PM, Bob Groschen wrote:
Was this the PPRAA Megafest at Lewis-Palmer
High? Yes! Pete
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