If anyone has a burning desire for a HP5328 with a volt meter module (and a GPIB board) please contact me off list.
Regards Mark Spencer Sent from my iPad On 2015-04-23, at 3:18 PM, Bob Albert via time-nuts <[email protected]> wrote: > From your comments, it seems that finding a voltmeter board to add to my > 5328A isn't worth the trouble. I have been looking for one even though I > have plenty of voltmeters. I assume the option allows measurement of the > signal inputs but still probably isn't worth all the agony of changing the > panel, etc. > > Am I making sense? > Bob K6DDX > > > On Thursday, April 23, 2015 12:48 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 4/23/2015 12:20 AM, VK2DAP wrote: >> Dear time-nuts, >> >> I have a question about the HP5328A and HP5328B universal counters. >> >> 1) Generally speaking, would it be correct to say that when a product model >> number changes from A to B, that represents an improvement or major update >> to a product? >> >> 2) I am interested in the "delay" option that is mentioned in the user >> manual for the HP5328A (option 040). My question is simple. Why does this >> option not feature in the HP5328B, but only as option 040 on the HP5328A? >> > > > Now you have asked a very interesting question. Since you > are new to time-nuts, you probably don't know I worked > for HP/Agilent/Keysight for 35 years. It would be > a gross oversimplification to assume that an A/B change > is an improvement, although in some cases that may > be true. Often it has more to do with certain parts > becoming unavailable. You should also know that there > is typically a 5 year support life after the product > goes out of production. It is very common that they > will increment the suffix to get the 5 year clock > running so they no longer have to support very old > instruments. This was certainly the case with the > 5061B cesium standard. The nixie displays were > unobtainium and we couldn't support the 5061A because > of this. I don't know specifically about the 5328A > vs B. However, I was the project manager for the > 5334B counter. The way that came about was that I > just happened to notice that there were various design > aspects of the 5334A that wasted a lot of money. I > didn't work in the counters section at the time, but > nevertheless I annoyed the R&D manager by pointing > out these money leaks. I guess he got tired of hearing > me complain and one day he offered my the job of project > manager on a 5334B model. We needed to reduce cost > because we were losing military contracts to Racal-Dana. > I changed certain design details in the B model where > I could save money. The idea was to simply keep the > performance the same and not add features. There were > many things I inherited from the A model that I left > alone if I couldn't reduce the cost. We were also on > a very tight schedule. This prevented me from replacing > the 4 separate microprocessors in the 34A with a single > one. (Very long story as to why this was) > > Now to get to your question about why a feature in the > A version would not carry through to the B version. > The 5334A had an option of a digital voltmeter, which was > put in essentially "because we could", but then justified > after the fact by claiming that customers wanted it > because some of them ordered the option. I never thought > this made sense and used my authority as 5334B project manager > to get rid of it in the 5334B. Since HP also sold > voltmeters, they could always buy a voltmeter from > our voltmeter division. There are a bunch of reasons > why the 5328B would lose a feature that the 5328A had, > but the point is that this doesn't break any "rule". > > Rick Karlquist N6RK > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
