Tim Shoppa wrote:
On Feb 28, 9:27 pm, "Too_Many_Tools" wrote:
I have a well stocked test bench at home containing a range of analog,
digital and RF test equipment as I am sure most of you also do.

Well the question I have is how do you handle the calibration of your
equipment? What do you use for calibration standards for resistance,
voltage, current and frequency?

It depends entirely on what you need the equipment for.

If for any legal reason you need NBS traceability, then the question
of how and how often is already answered by your regulatory agencies.

If you don't, then I cannot imagine that a couple off-the-shelf
precision resistors, voltage references, and frequency references
(total cost: $10) would not be good enough for sanity checking for
almost any pedestrian uses.

If you're the sort who keeps equipment on your bench just to calibrate
equipment on your bench just to calibrate equipment on your bench,
then any rational argument about traceability is pointless because
you've already set yourself up in an infinite circular loop.

Tim.


A lot of good points have been made already so I'll just add a small one.

Don't mess with calibration of quality equipment unless you have reason
to believe the calibration is off AND THAT IS ADVERSELY AFFECTING YOUR
WORK PRODUCTS. An amazing amount of electronics work has been done using
equipment with non-current calibration stickers, some of which was out
of calibration.

If metrology is something that interests you as a hobby, then jump into
it and have fun. Tim's last paragraph ought to be printed and framed.

Chuck

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