Well..to start with, our 9610 crapped out with a bad oscillator within 3 months of us getting it..fortunately under warranty, but Fluke sent it back to the UK for repair..
Last week, a 5 amp, 60 volt linear amplifier got quite hot (split it in two), and of course, no longer under warranty..I ordered two new chips, and hopefully it was the chip that went bad, not the circuitry it was supporting (BTW, it protected the two fuses in line with it :-o )..
What I am wondering, has anyone else had problems with their 9610, and if so, what kind?
What with the USAF writing this in to many of it's procedures, I don't want it down for extended time, and there are no schematics that I have been able to find.
Thanks all,
Mike
I think there is another thread that touches this topic.
(maybe crossover thread Fluke had a mention on using Wavetek designs)
I held back but for now I'll just say with the 9610's and 9640's I've lost some faith in Fluke (sorry Doc).
Relays failing, self tests failing. No service data available. AF shoulda got 5-10 year warranty with minimal turn around time.
Com data says something like ... the relays have a finite but long life time. It kinda implies not to use standby. But it also says yeah we know we have a bad batch of relays but eh.
We haven't seen any problems with ours thus far, but I can tell you that there was a collective groan when we received the 9640. I guess we still haven't recovered from the debacle known as the 9500B. The AFMETCAL procurement team, for lack of a better word, has really disappointed lately. They overpromise and underdeliver. Kinda like Obama.
With the relay problems Wings discussed, Standby mode is the way to go. By turning it completely off, you are increasing your chances for a relay failure when you power it back up and it goes through the Self Test routine. Once you get it on and it passes, let sleeping dogs lie. The fewer times you activate the relays, the less chance you have for failure. Sad, I know, but that's what Fluke is becoming. I think the ghosts of Wavetek are haunting them. Like the Red Sox had the Curse Of The Bambino, Fluke has the Curse of Wavetek. Let's just hope it doesn't take them 100 years to right the ship like it did in Boston. You can trace Fluke's steady decline right back to that dreadful acquisition.
We've got 3, a 9610 & 2 9640. All 3 are currently down, 1 for relays, 1 for self test failure, and 1 that we think the 50 ohm bulkhead might be damaged. We don't normally have this much trouble wih them, but they started crapping out 1 by 1 as we got ready for our AFMETCAL audit(which is starting to look like a scantily clad Roseanne Barr).
I got lucky on mine..it was just a linear amp that crapped out (the five lead one on the power supply..60V @ 5A)..usually there is another suspect that causes this (i.e. a shorted capacitor or the like) but apparently, it decided to protect the fuse.
It's running fine, and we're going to recalibrate it today.
Mike
In the year that I have been using the 9610 here we have had to send it back to the manufacture for repair twice. Both with massive self test errors
I noticed on the latest Fluke trade-in program they're offering a 10% discount on trading a 9640 for the 9640-LPN. Reckon they've corrected all the Flukie-boo-boos in the LPN version?
Lab received a new 9640A-LPN. Working great for the most part. Having read the comments here, the Lab has gone to leaving the unit in standby mode. Last week one of our techs popped the circuit breaker on the bench with the 9640A-LPN. When I went to use it with SureCal for doing SSB Phase Noise. the unit was dumb on the IEEE. Doing a front panel reset, Self-test or trying GPIB RST or CRL command returned and error. Also, IDN returned an error. Only power cycling the unit cleared the IEEE error. Any ideas how to provent this or clear this in the future.
Planning on putting a UPS on as soon as we can get one.
PapaBear
Kwajalein Atoll
USAKA
[email protected]
I called baout that trade in program and to me it sounds like a rip off? Trade in a Fluke 5500 on a 5700 and you get like 3500$$ off?? The Fluke 5500 is worth a lot more than $3500??? Seems almost like a scam??
I haven't been in Metrology for very long (1 year) but from my non-expert opinion the new fluke items suck. I have a 9610 at my lab, and it started failing 1 self test. We looked into it, and we had to limit it's frequency because of it. The warranty specifically states that the specific self test that failed was not covered. . . oh my how amazing it is. . . And with these "COOL" new designes with the detachable heads, on the 9610 and 9500 we have noticed that the our heads are getting messed up close to the SMA connection (self test failing, wiggle the cable, self test passing, need to get a new 9530). Oh what a great purchase.