On 28 Feb 2007 18:27:45 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
Gave us:

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?

Links to recommended circuits, pictures and sources would be
appreciated.

Since this is a need for anyone who has test equipment, I hope to see
a good discussion on this subject.


If you have used test gear, and you do not intend to PAY to have it
calibrated, you be best off leaving it all the **** ALONE!

On Feb 28, 9:50 pm, MassiveProng
wrote:

If you have used test gear, and you do not intend to PAY to have it
calibrated, you be best off leaving it all the **** ALONE!

As alone as you on a Friday night?

On 28 Feb 2007 19:23:41 -0800, Gave us:

On Feb 28, 9:50 pm, MassiveProng
wrote:

If you have used test gear, and you do not intend to PAY to have it
calibrated, you be best off leaving it all the **** ALONE!

As alone as you on a Friday night?


I think there is a fly buzzing around the room. Perhaps it's only
flatulence.

Of no consequence either way.

If you have used test gear, and you do not intend to PAY to have it
calibrated, you be best off leaving it all the **** ALONE!

LOL

You're a real ray of sunshine, aren't you?

Now go out and play in traffic while we adults talk about serious
stuff..

TMT






On Feb 28, 8:50 pm, MassiveProng
wrote:
On 28 Feb 2007 18:27:45 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
Gave us:

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?

Links to recommended circuits, pictures and sources would be
appreciated.

Since this is a need for anyone who has test equipment, I hope to see
a good discussion on this subject.

If you have used test gear, and you do not intend to PAY to have it
calibrated, you be best off leaving it all the **** ALONE!

On Feb 28, 9:47 pm, "Too_Many_Tools" wrote:
If you have used test gear, and you do not intend to PAY to have it
calibrated, you be best off leaving it all the **** ALONE!

LOL

You're a real ray of sunshine, aren't you?

Now go out and play in traffic while we adults talk about serious
stuff..

TMT

On Feb 28, 8:50 pm, MassiveProng

wrote:
On 28 Feb 2007 18:27:45 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
Gave us:

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?

Links to recommended circuits, pictures and sources would be
appreciated.

Since this is a need for anyone who has test equipment, I hope to see
a good discussion on this subject.

If you have used test gear, and you do not intend to PAY to have it
calibrated, you be best off leaving it all the **** ALONE!

I agree with Prong on this one. I've worked in repair and broadcast
for 35 years. Unless you have a compelling reason to change it, leave
it alone. Of course, this assumes it's good stuff to begin with like
Fluke and Tek.

The only time I altered a Fluke 8060 was an eBay purchase. When
testing some new boards, I was reading 4.998 on the 5 volt ref. Never
saw any boards that far off and then tried the other Fluke which was
as expected. The eBay meter got a little 'tweak' but that was very
unusual. BTW, the 5V ref on the boards was an ADI AD588 which is
almost good enough for the 8060. I would use it to cal a 3.5 digit
meter with no qualms.

GG

Glenn Gundlach wrote:
I agree with Prong on this one. I've worked in repair and broadcast
for 35 years. Unless you have a compelling reason to change it, leave
it alone. Of course, this assumes it's good stuff to begin with like
Fluke and Tek.

A few years ago I got stuck with the Telequipment scope, the last junk
available. It was sadly out of calibration. I whipped up a few voltage
dividers and took other stuff and spent an hour calibrating the vertical
channels and horizontal timebase. I got my work done. The head tech
wanted to know how, and I told him, and he hit the ceiling, ran to the
other room, grabbed the scope and sent it out for calibration.

He was strangely silent when the scope came back. When I asked him
outright about it, he didn't look up from his work when he mumbled
something about the vertical being 0.4% off reference.

Mission-critical? Send it out. Need for extreme precision? Send it out.
But if 2-5% is good enough and you've got some time and imagination,
you can get it awfully close to where you need it.

--
"...global warming is an apocalyptic faith whose preachers demand sacrifices
of others that they find far too painful for themselves."
-- Andrew Bolt, in Australia's Herald Sun

On 28 Feb 2007 21:47:49 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
Gave us:


If you have used test gear, and you do not intend to PAY to have it
calibrated, you be best off leaving it all the **** ALONE!

LOL

You're a real ray of sunshine, aren't you?

Now go out and play in traffic while we adults talk about serious
stuff..

TMT


Serious? Look, dumb****, if you are concerned with calibration,
then you should be concerned enough to do it right. Asking here the
way you did means that you are beyond your depth to start with.

If you are too stupid to take your device to a place where freshly
calibrated devices are, and check it against them, you are too stupid
to be attempting to do it with some patched up method in the home
without cal manuals from the makers of all those devices. Far too
stupid.

So **** you, pops.

You prove that numeric age does not an adult make. The traffic I
play in runs at 30GHz, so you are screwed with that presumption as
well. I had calibrated meters back in 1970, and knew more then than
you do know.

On Mar 1, 6:18 am, MassiveProng
wrote:
On 28 Feb 2007 21:47:49 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
Gave us:



If you have used test gear, and you do not intend to PAY to have it
calibrated, you be best off leaving it all the **** ALONE!

LOL

You're a real ray of sunshine, aren't you?

Now go out and play in traffic while we adults talk about serious
stuff..

TMT

Serious? Look, dumb****, if you are concerned with calibration,
then you should be concerned enough to do it right. Asking here the
way you did means that you are beyond your depth to start with.

If you are too stupid to take your device to a place where freshly
calibrated devices are, and check it against them, you are too stupid
to be attempting to do it with some patched up method in the home
without cal manuals from the makers of all those devices. Far too
stupid.

So **** you, pops.

You prove that numeric age does not an adult make. The traffic I
play in runs at 30GHz, so you are screwed with that presumption as
well. I had calibrated meters back in 1970, and knew more then than
you do know.

Damn...you back already? Well I guess the traffic was light today.

Well MiniPrick since you are here taking up bytes, why don't you prove
to us how really brilliant you are?

Why don't you rub both of your brain cells together and come up with a
setup that a home lab can use for general cal purposes? You ARE smart
enough to do that, aren't you? Don't disappoint all of us now....we
are waiting....so either put up or shut up "Genius".

And oh yeah....that's Mr. Dumb**** to you MiniPrick....now get to
work. LOL

TMT

On 1 Mar 2007 19:22:16 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
Gave us:

And oh yeah....that's Mr. Dumb****


You're an idiot. You're busted.

Proven beyond your depth.

You are too stupid to even know that if you DID make a cal source
device, you would have to get it calibrated to make it worth a ****.

There is no backwoods calibration of perfectly good gear. All there
is is some hillbilly ****tard like you ****ing up what was once
perfectly good gear by thinking you have one tenth the brains you need
to do such a chore correctly. You do not.

So **** off.

MassiveProng wrote:
On 28 Feb 2007 18:27:45 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
Gave us:

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?

Links to recommended circuits, pictures and sources would be
appreciated.

Since this is a need for anyone who has test equipment, I hope to see
a good discussion on this subject.


If you have used test gear, and you do not intend to PAY to have it
calibrated, you be best off leaving it all the **** ALONE!

You're amazing. You don't even know what equipment, qualifications or needs
he has, yet you're right there with THE answer. Lets take an example. I
have a 20 year old Hitachi scope as you know, the voltage cal is way off
(~20%) in a couple of ranges. Are you suggesting that I should drag it
across town, spend $200 and be without it for 2 weeks just to get it
adjusted by some obstinate, E-1 grade line tech, instead of using a brand
new DMM w .03% accuracy to tweak it myself? I'm quite sure that my Micronta
is up to the task to be honest.

If someone doesn't need traceable calibration, then why should they pay for
it? Especially if they have the resources to do it themselves. I'm
thinking of buying a cheap used Rb time base from e-bay so I can cal my old
Protek freq counter and adjust the timebase on my Hitachi scope, it's
certainly cheaper than having it done. Using a PIC driven by an ordinary
can xtal, and a quartz wris****ch of known accuracy, I was able to tweak the
xtal to within about 1-2ppm over the course of a week or two. Of course you
know that's impossible, don't you?

On Thu, 1 Mar 2007 06:05:56 -0600, "Anthony Fremont"
Gave us:

You're amazing. You don't even know what equipment, qualifications or needs
he has, yet you're right there with THE answer. Lets take an example. I
have a 20 year old Hitachi scope as you know, the voltage cal is way off
(~20%) in a couple of ranges. Are you suggesting that I should drag it
across town, spend $200 and be without it for 2 weeks just to get it
adjusted by some obstinate, E-1 grade line tech, instead of using a brand
new DMM w .03% accuracy to tweak it myself? I'm quite sure that my Micronta
is up to the task to be honest.


You are to be disappointed. The scale dial on that scope is likely
fitted with resistors, and one of them has shifted, which shifts all
the dividers on the dial below it.

It is not a calibration issue. It is a repair issue.

So shove it up your ass, you E-1 grade dip****.

Your micronta? Bwuahahahahahah!

MassiveProng wrote:
On Thu, 1 Mar 2007 06:05:56 -0600, "Anthony Fremont"
Gave us:

You're amazing. You don't even know what equipment, qualifications
or needs he has, yet you're right there with THE answer. Lets take
an example. I have a 20 year old Hitachi scope as you know, the
voltage cal is way off (~20%) in a couple of ranges. Are you
suggesting that I should drag it across town, spend $200 and be
without it for 2 weeks just to get it adjusted by some obstinate,
E-1 grade line tech, instead of using a brand new DMM w .03%
accuracy to tweak it myself? I'm quite sure that my Micronta is up
to the task to be honest.


You are to be disappointed. The scale dial on that scope is likely
fitted with resistors, and one of them has shifted, which shifts all
the dividers on the dial below it.

Given that the symptom is not as you describe, then I figure you are
probably wrong, again. If so, I imagine I can fix it.

It is not a calibration issue. It is a repair issue.

You just know it all don't you?

So shove it up your ass, you E-1 grade dip****.

Just had to get that anal jab in there, huh?

Your micronta? Bwuahahahahahah!

Since 3% accuracy is considered good in the scope world, I think it would do
fine.

On Thu, 1 Mar 2007 06:43:01 -0600, "Anthony Fremont"
Gave us:

Since 3% accuracy is considered good in the scope world,

Huh?

I think it would do
fine.

Bwuahahahahahahaha! Hilarious!

On Mar 2, 6:21 pm, MassiveProng
wrote:
On Thu, 1 Mar 2007 06:43:01 -0600, "Anthony Fremont"
Gave us:

Since 3% accuracy is considered good in the scope world,

Huh?

Yep, didn't you know that scope you are using is only a few % accurate
on the vertical scale?

I think it would do
fine.

Bwuahahahahahahaha! Hilarious!

Hardly, it would be perfectly adequate for the job actually.

Dave

On 1 Mar 2007 23:53:14 -0800, "David L. Jones"
Gave us:

Yep, didn't you know that scope you are using is only a few % accurate
on the vertical scale?


You guys must be behind the times.

On 1 Mar 2007 23:53:14 -0800, "David L. Jones"
Gave us:


Hardly, it would be perfectly adequate for the job actually.


Wrong. That could easily leave the scope over 6% off.

It takes a much finer source to calibrate a device than the final
accuracy of the device being calibrated, dip****.

MassiveProng wrote:
On Thu, 1 Mar 2007 06:43:01 -0600, "Anthony Fremont"
Gave us:

Since 3% accuracy is considered good in the scope world,

Huh?

Yeah, maybe you should do some reading.

I think it would do
fine.

Bwuahahahahahahaha! Hilarious!

Anthony Fremont wrote:

If someone doesn't need traceable calibration, then why should they pay
for
it? Especially if they have the resources to do it themselves. I'm
thinking of buying a cheap used Rb time base from e-bay so I can cal my
old Protek freq counter and adjust the timebase on my Hitachi scope, it's
certainly cheaper than having it done. Using a PIC driven by an ordinary
can xtal, and a quartz wris****ch of known accuracy, I was able to tweak
the
xtal to within about 1-2ppm over the course of a week or two. Of course
you know that's impossible, don't you?

I don't think the oscillator on a PIC would be good to 2ppm absolute
accuracy even with a very good xtal, unless you FIRST calibrate it against
something that has already been calibrated, therefore it doesn't get you
far. It will however be good enough to calibrate your scope since that
would only need 1% or so, and any old crystal should achieve that, even
with a fairly primitive oscillator. For frequency calibration, your best
bet is to receive an off-air standard, for example GPS or in many countries
there are low frequency standard transmissions (50kHz, 60kHz, 77.5kHz or
others, look up which ones are available in your country). It is quite
feasible to build your own receiver for these. These transmitters are
maintained to a higher accuracy than any piece of hardware that a hobbyist
could afford (e.g. 2 parts in 10^12).
http://www.npl.co.uk/time/msf/ctm001v05.pdf

Chris