开云体育

This is being sent to the CCTech, Tektronix, HP, and Test gear mailing list.

I have available, for PICKUP ONLY in Kent, Washington (about 30 miles southeast of Seattle), a nice HP DraftMaster pen plotter, a couple of packs of paper (sizes C and D), and a boxful of pens.

This needs to be MOVED! I need the space far more than I need a plotter.

If no one claims it, I will have to dispose of it as best I can, even if this means tearing it apart and recycling its guts. I know that sounds harsh, but I've seriously reached the point to where this unit has to go.

Please get back to me by E-mail ASAP. If E-mail should bounce, please call me on (253) 639-2996.

This is the LAST time I'll be offering this. I need to hear from whoever wants it in the next day or so, or it's gone.

Thanks much.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy,
Blue Feather Technologies --
kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m
"If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"

On Sun, 24 Dec 2006, Jack Hudler wrote:

Ditto! I was just looking at some. not anymore.

If this is a professional buy, don't forget to tell the salesman
why you are rejecting his product.

Geoff

--
Geoff Blake G8GNZ located near Chelmsford, Essex, U.K.
Please reply to: geoff (at) palaemon (dot) co (dot) uk
Using Linux on Intel & Linux or NetBSD on Sun Sparc platforms

Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See <>
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Ditto! I was just looking at some. not anymore.



_____

From: hp_agilent_equipment@...
[mailto:hp_agilent_equipment@...] On Behalf Of d.seiter@...
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 3:49 AM
To: hp_agilent_equipment@...
Subject: Re: [hp_agilent_equipment] OT - Need Help/Info For Keithley 155 Null
Detector/Microvoltmeter



Well, I don't currently own any Keithley equipment, and based on this, I'm going
to keep it that way. Same goes for the companies I do consulting work for...

-Merry Christmas (or your own holiday) to all!

-Dave

It is interesting that the larger test equipment OEMs seem to be quite enlightened about releasing manuals (and more) for old gear, and it is the 2nd and 3rd tier vendors that are concerned about their IP.

Maybe it goes to show that if you are not ashamed of what you do, you don't mind showing the world. Those that would rather not maybe have reasons to fear the scrutiny.

Certainly a good reason not to specify Keithley in my company.

Didier KO4BB

Robert P. Groschen wrote:

On Sun, 24 Dec 2006, Jos Raven wrote:

I the late 1980's the company I worked for needed a new Private
Mobile Radio system.
Over 1.2 million Dollars worth of it.
I was the senior tech for the PMR and insisted that the winning bid
would have to give all
of the relevant software at source code level. Else, no deal.
That they did.

Around a similar time, I was in a similar position, but only about
?100,000 worth.

I was partly responsible for the selection of the type of
equipment purchased. The choice was between manufacturer 'A' at
around ?7000 each or manufacturer 'B' at ?11,000 each.

After considerable negotiation we got manufacturer 'B' to supply
at ?7000 each, plus a five year warranty, plus free service
manuals and hardware updates should they become necessary or
desirable (I had dealt with that manufacturer before!). This to be
applied to all future purchases as well.

However, when the equipment started failing, we discovered that
the sales dept had neglected to inform the service dept of the
conditions of sale and that caused all sorts of problems (to
them!), I had copies of all correspondance :-)

Another company I have had service problems with, like Keithley,
was a smaller US 'scope manufacturer - when they said that they
were not prepared to provide service information, I told the sales
manager, that while that situation remained, we were not prepared
to buy their equipment, and we didn't.

Finally, as another patrt of my job, I had to provide lists of
equipment for purchase by our Ministry of Defence. To do this, I
had to frequently go to many manufacturers to update quotations
for various items. This was usually done by my secretary.

One day she brought a letter in from one of the suppliers, one
which I had not dealt with before, which was signed by the sales
director. Basically it said that I had requested several quotes
over the past few years and no order had ever resulted from them -
this was not true, but the resulting orders were not traceable
back to me.

The letter went on to say that the company policy would be not to
supply me with any more quotations unless an order would be
forthcoming.

I rang the guy and was answered by a gentleman with a terribly
upper-class voice. He was the sales director. I patiently
explained my role and said that it was not my place to query his
sales policies, but without the information I had requested, I
could no longer include his product on the contract equipment
lists that we supplied to the M.O.D.

I got my quotation and a bottle of Rum for several Christmases
after that.

The moral of the story is that not all the high cards are held by
the manufacturers. For what it's worth, I applaud the view taken
by HP/Agilent, Fluke and other companies and recommend their
products to my customers.


Geoff
--
Geoff Blake G8GNZ located near Chelmsford, Essex, U.K.
Please reply to: geoff (at) palaemon (dot) co (dot) uk
Using Linux on Intel & Linux or NetBSD on Sun Sparc platforms

Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See <>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This E-mail and any attachment(s) are strictly confidential
and is intended solely for the addressee(s). If you are not the
intended recipient please notify <postmaster(at)palaemon.co.uk>
and the sender by return and permanently delete the message.

You may not disclose, forward or copy this E-mail or any of its
attachments to any third party without the prior consent of the
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--- In hp_agilent_equipment@..., "Mike Harmon"
<mharmon@...> wrote:

Hi Group,

I contacted
Keithley about the omission and was told by John Sobola that all
schematics had been removed from downloadable manuals on Keithley's
site, as well as the instruction manuals for all current Keithley
products.

This is really disappointing because I used to think very highly of
Keithley instruments. I even owned some of their picoammeters (since
sold at a ham fest).

Keithley products are quite popular in the semiconductor test market
so I can only surmise that they have experienced the usual IP thief
that a number of semi companies have and therefore are suspecious of
people wanting maintenance info. OTOH, items this old are hardly a
threat to their well-being. Makes you wonder what planet they're
from.

Keithley isn't alone however. Krohn-Hite is also real quick to blow
off people who want maintenance documents for their old gear. I have
several of their 4000-series oscillators (nice signal sources BTW)
and phone calls and e-mails met with the usual brick wall blow-off.
I did the usual end-run around this by buying the manuals off E-Bay.

Ironically I've gotten great service & support from (of all people)
Leader Instruments. I have a few audio-range test instruments and
scopes and I've gotten full maintenance manuals from them just for
the asking (e-mailed to me in pdf format). Their gear is
*very* "fixable" - no ASICs or FPGAs; all discrete topology. Not in
the range of HP/Agilent or Tektronix but fun little toys just the
same.

Best Regards,

Bob Groschen
Monument, CO

I the late 1980's the company I worked for needed a new Private Mobile Radio system.
Over 1.2 million Dollars worth of it.
I was the senior tech for the PMR and insisted that the winning bid would have to give all
of the relevant software at source code level. Else, no deal.
That they did.

Jos Raven

At 11:00 24-12-2006 +0000, you wrote:

The message about Keithley manuals submits a generic problem: some
rare manufacturers (HP, TEK) at the beginning gave fabulous service
manuals and HP was at the top :

snip

I the late 1980's the company I worked for needed a new Private Mobile Radio system.
Over 1.2 million Dollars worth of it.
I was the senior tech for the PMR and insisted that the winning bid would have to give all
of the relevant software at source code level. Else, no deal.
That they did.

Jos Raven

At 11:00 24-12-2006 +0000, you wrote:

The message about Keithley manuals submits a generic problem: some
rare manufacturers (HP, TEK) at the beginning gave fabulous service
manuals and HP was at the top :

snip

I the late 1980's the company I worked for needed a new Private Mobile Radio system.
Over 1.2 million Dollars worth of it.
I was the senior tech for the PMR and insisted that the winning bid would have to give all
of the relevant software at source code level. Else, no deal.
That they did.

Jos Raven

At 11:00 24-12-2006 +0000, you wrote:

The message about Keithley manuals submits a generic problem: some
rare manufacturers (HP, TEK) at the beginning gave fabulous service
manuals and HP was at the top :

snip

The message about Keithley manuals submits a generic problem: some
rare manufacturers (HP, TEK) at the beginning gave fabulous service
manuals and HP was at the top : have a look for example
at the 8340 manuals or 8350 plug ins and you can do everything. The
necessary protection of the intellectual property resided in many
modules (with schematics!)that a x "normal" company cannot repare or
reproduce (try to change this damned pin diode causing most failures
in the HP YTM switching between 10-2,4 and above);
at the 868X manuals : a totaly silly person can find a failure (this
generators were intended for the military market...).
Since the 90 the policy was quite different : the clips were costly
and repair became difficult because software diags : remarquable but
you need almost half a million of $ (70000 MMS family). Nevertheless
you theoreticaly could repair at component level and HP had not the
vicious politic of Rohde und Schwartz : if you want to recalibrate
one RS instrument ( you have everything therefore) you must enter
the cal code. Which one ? HP was fair : it was by default nothinf
(8340...) 000 or the name of the rig (3458...) RS refused and still
refuses to give it and you can try with a computer during a day but
now the rig is blocked and you have to return to beg the pardon of
your fault and like the time of Middleage to pay... RS manuals have
a prohibitive price and are therefore useless.
At the same time Wiltron (68XXX for ex) had a different politic :
have a look at the manuals : no schematics anf reference to a long
explained and as part referenced software, a special plug to get
into the CPU with a computer. I would like to do the job, I have got
all the (HP!) instruments therefore : impossible, Wiltron's
answer :you cannot buy the soft and the plug... Before(66XX) they
were vicious in another manner : have a look at the ALC board, the
schematics and the cal pages of the manuals : trimming of almost 15
pots of 30 present is not explained !!
Nowadays the politics are everywhere the same : no schematics, no
description of the structure and company proprietary software repair
but the actual intruments are built to last a couple of years like a
computer..
Well, I could write a lot more but the only solution for a crazy
(you can only be crazy !) amateur of beautiful instruments and a
small company composed of enthusiastic people is to buy only
intruments, still with schematics, which were largely sold so you
can get a reasonable chance to get spares or another rig ; the
almost unique answer is HP, despite the fact that at time Y they
were not always rhe best (compare a 86147A and a 8340A...). You must
stop around or before 1990 but this politic will last till 2015/2020
and after ? No actual rig will appear on the second hand market and
if they appear, they will be since years broken and unrepairable
(time is now finished of swapping boards : the cards are known
together and will refuse to work with an unknown).
For the bigs, answer is clear : leasing or rental and no more
internal repair or, if your are big enough (Alcatel in France) : I
only buy 50 X generetors by you, RS, if I get the keys and the
software but is it worth to pay an internal cal service ???

Well, I don't currently own any Keithley equipment, and based on this, I'm going to keep it that way. Same goes for the companies I do consulting work for...

-Merry Christmas (or your own holiday) to all!

-Dave

Thank Agilent that they are working to do the opposite!

Agilent is truly enlightened in this respect.

I'm very highly inclined not to specify Keithley instruments in the
future at the
company I work at. I understand all the reasons why a company might
prefer to
withhold service information (although I think withholding the
instruction manuals
is a stretch). However, those reasons don't make happy customers.

Don Cramer
Beaverton OR


If anyone is truly determined to reverse engineer something, not
releasing the drawings is only a minor pain. It only hurts the small
guy, not a potential Chinese copier. If someone did that to me, I'd be
inclined to trace it out and put it up on the web for all to see.

FWIW,
-John

Thank Agilent that they are working to do the opposite!

I'm very highly inclined not to specify Keithley instruments in the future at the company I work at. I understand all the reasons why a company might prefer to withhold service information (although I think withholding the instruction manuals is a stretch). However, those reasons don't make happy customers.

Don Cramer
Beaverton OR

PS: Happy Holidays to all on this list, and especially to those at Agilent who's heritage of fine instruments we celebrate.

Hi Group,

I have a Keithley 155 Null Detector/Microvoltmeter which has some
problems. I downloaded a manual from the Keithley web site, but when
I looked for the schematic, I couldn't find it. Section 5 of the
manual says the schematic is shown in Figure 5-3, but it's not there
in the manual provided on Keithley's download site. I contacted
Keithley about the omission and was told by John Sobola that all
schematics had been removed from downloadable manuals on Keithley's
site, as well as the instruction manuals for all current Keithley
products.

When I asked if he could send me one, he said I had to provide the
company with a bunch of info as to who I was, what company I
represented, what I did, and why I wanted a schematic. I sent him the
info he requested (it was for my own personal use), but did not
receive a reply from him for a couple of weeks. I wrote him back and
asked him if he needed more info, and he finally told me that the
company had decided not to make the schematics available. I suspect
if I had lied and told him that I was the engineering director of
Company X and we had $750,000 worth of Keithley gear in the lab, he
would have overnighted the schematic to me.

I have no idea as to why they would have done this, but it pretty much
makes the downloadable manuals useless without the schematic. As it
stands right now, I have a sweet little meter sitting on my bench
which is completely brain-dead!

Please let me know (OFFLINE) if you can help me out. I don't want to
start another flame war.

Thanks,
Mike, WB0LDJ

Greetings,

Thanks to good advice from this forum, my 895 printer is working great
on black and white. The red color works on both of my C1823 color
cartridges. Blue works on one. Neither works with the yellow. I have
tried cleaning the jets with 92% isopropal alcohol without result.
Suggestions?

Jerry

I could quite possible start off from where BAMA ends.
However, I do need to find out how to automatically add manuals in a safe
way, since I cant devote too much time for it.
I'm guessing that I would need some help from you people as moderators, in
order to allow manuals to be published for download.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

As some of you probably are aware of, I do have a repository for NAK gear
and some test equipment as well.

I'm currently on SERVAGE with quite a lot of disk space and bandwidth
available.

With best regards

Tomas Larsson
Sweden
my main work-site, sorry currently only in Swedish,
working with refrigeration.
My citroen XM repository, in Swedish.
for downloads etc.
ftp://ftp.servage.net for uploads use "naks" as both password and username.
Or you can use the free www.yousendit.com service.

Verus Amicus Est Tamquam Alter Idem

Does anyone have a manual for the HP 5353A channel-C plugin for the 5345A
that covers serial number 1816 (or the change notes needed to cover it with
05353-90002)? I could use a couple of pages copied or scanned, if at all
possible...

-- john, KE5FX

Greetings,

I am still seeking copies of the Omation schema III pcb design package manuals. I am having lot lot of success bringing the program up under command prompt but am having much difficulty with SLIB and other utilities.

Jerry Massengale

John,

Please send me the "ACCOUNT TITLE ". I am interested in at least one set of
the HP 8505A CRT overlays.

Thank You,
Mark Hawk

Morris:

Contact me off list re: 524 counters.
erastber@...

Gene, W???QFC (OK on QRZ)
Spring Hill, Florida 34606
WEB SITE: