How many Fluke meters can you daisy chain to a 5520A?

[USMCPMEL]

When I was at Transcat years ago they wanted you to bill like $1500 per day at onsites. I had just started out and I think that year I billed about 10 times my pay but back then I was making $12 an hour.

[Duckbutta]

I'm with sdmetrol, if you work for a company with a quota, you are working for the wrong company. I worked commercial calibration for a few years but would never do it again. It really soured me on the whole accreditation process and the quality of calibration services that are available commercially. These were accredited labs with a national footprint. If you look at their scope on their websites it looks impressive but I know what goes on behind the scenes. It's a joke and definitely not metrology, but not because they daisy chain multimeters, but because they are selling their customers a bill of goods.

[Bryan]

I have discussed this with management.  The answer is all of them.

[USMCPMEL]

Duckbutta
Almost every compeny I have worked for has had some sort of a quata usually it is not directly spoken but if you fall behind a certain amount they would mention it to you. That being said I do not think it compromised quality. We followed procedures. I even changed some of the Fluke handhelds to military procedures becuase I felt that the frequency response was not being checked in the Manufacturers procedures. Now you are always going to have people that just check a few points and throw a sticker on but I have never worked for a company that I was pushed to the point that I felt I had to do that. If I had been I would have quit.

[Duckbutta]

I too worked for Transcat and know how they operate. Does anyone think it even remotely possible to calibrate thirty network analyzers manually in two days? I've seen guys do it. It's like stealing money. I think they were getting like $850 apiece or something for each one. Not bad for two guys and two days of work. No wonder management looked the other way. They knew what side their bread was buttered on. Even though we worked for them we all used to call the company Transcam. A very apt description.

[sdmetrol]

Just wanted the general feeling of the ratio SD Metrol .
What would you say the average ratio is ?  Im sorry if I offended you
with that question. And Im a repair guy . I like to keep separate from
cal to give the repair a unbiased judgment in cal. AKA no fudge factor .
But  Im a Lowry 1983 grad . So I do know cal pretty good , but not physical
dimensional as I believe you are . Strickly a RF guy and various calibrators
in the calibration realm. So please don't feel offended when I say ratios .
I know a lot of Cal Labs work as such and I do agree that it shouldn't matter.
But also 3 rd Party Calibration is a business and has to be profitable in order to survive.
Just was curios what the rate was out there for seasoned cal techs . And its
best to state a ratio without people giving actual salary or hourly numbers .
So I hope your following me about my  question  and why it was stated as such .

No offense taken.  I was just voicing my opinion about the ratio because I have been on both sides of that equation.  Sometimes the ratio is very high for technicians that are not really performing adequate work (the fault of the tech in my opinion), and sometimes the  tech is performing excellent work but has a low ratio because the pricing is not adequate (fault of the lab in my opinion).

I received my initial training in Physical/Dimensional but now have over 25 years experience in DC/LF and consider myself well enough versed in RF/Microwave to know the actual work involved and related costs of performing it correctly.

In the commercial world, we are performing verification (performance testing/comparing to a known standard) much more than actual calibration (adjusting to a known standard) so it is difficult to compare the two.  Our lab is setup so the performance testing techs are adequately equipped to test their workload in the field and get the gear back into use quickly (something you better be prepared to do if you want to be successful in the commercial world) and they bring the rejected items back to the lab where a calibration tech can take the time to make necessary adjustments/repairs without having the time constraints of a production oriented environment impeding the quality of the work.  Of course there are some exceptions to this (easily adjusted in the field, unmovable objects, etc.).

In our case, the performance testing techs usually have a higher ratio than the bench calibration techs, but we do not place that much weight on their respective ratios when determining performance.

[Top Gun Test]

SDMETROL
Well done explanation !!! That was very clear and made a lot of sense .
Business , calibration , quality and methodology. Very well done .
I appreciate the explanation . 

[jimmyc]

specs of an item are based on "normal conditions"  a meter calibration is expecting xxx impedance for any given range or function.  when you change that (as in high temp conditions) you must do the math.  that is why labs are kept within fairly close temp/humidity.  now maybe you can externally monitor, say the sensing internally will compensate from y to z, but you should be able to prove everything. 

[USMCPMEL]

THANK YOU Jimmy!! That actually at least has some input into my original question. I understand this is not a good practice i am not recomending technicians start doing it. I was just trying to get a feel for how it would actually effect the output of the 5520A. Most people on this thread are just telling me it is wrong do not do it but not actually making any kind of valid argument why. I understand it might change the output MIGHT so prove it to me. Give me actual evidence to supoort your argument for a few days there I thought I was talking to people from an Oboma rally!! All arguments with not true evidence to back anything up.

[Econnor1]

Duckbutta! You da man. As for daisy chaining. As you were saying, it depends on what is being daisy chained and how the item is being used. I have daisy chained up to 6 fluke 27, 77, 87, PSM45, sperry 61-609, snap on EEDM586D and such. The only thing is the resistance checks, obviously. Like you stated earlier, "they are just DMMs." Now if they were being used to measure something down to the 6th decimal then obviously a good calibrator would not do such a thing as daisy chain. Most of these models are used to check battery voltage or the voltage of an alternator/generator. Even in the Army TMDE diasy chain is frowned upon but used often. DEPENDING on the item being tested and its use.
I guess the best way to find out how many COULD be tested would be to contact Fluke and have them prove it. Seeing that most DMMs in this discussion were flukes and a 5520A is being used. We have the 5720/5725 setup and the 5520A. I would prefer using the 5520A any day of the week. Love that 20A option. As stated before. The voltage drop is so minimal in comparison to the DMM being tested that it doesn't really matter. Now if testing say a 3458A or an 8508 then one would be more apt to use proper procedure.
That's right. I said Army TMDE. 

[CalibratorJ]

If I would not do it with an auditor (QA, A2LA, ACLASS, ISO, FBI, CIA, or my supervisor) standing over my shoulder then I don't do it anytime. We forget sometimes that in this small field all we have is our name. I know every time I put a label on a piece I am saying it is tested to be within the specs provided in the applicable procedure. If I do not know what the effects are, I'm not going to do it. The effects of daisy chaining may be negligible, but until I sit down and waste days proving that it is irrelevant, it is relevant. Days? Yes, considering the umpteen thousand models of handheld DMMs out there.
Besides, in the time it takes the average Joe to setup a daisy chain, he probably could be at least halfway through the stack of meters, if not more.

[sdmetrol]

I agree with you CalibratorJ.  Daisy chaining has never been something I cared to do.  The first time I tried it,  one of the meters had a bad solder joint in the input connector and it screwed up all the readings and I needed to check each one individually anyway.

[griff61]

If I would not do it with an auditor (QA, A2LA, ACLASS, ISO, FBI, CIA, or my supervisor) standing over my shoulder then I don't do it anytime.

This...

[CalLabSolutions]

Good Answer Griff.. 
And yes... I would do it in front of an auditor.

[sdmetrol]

Wow griff, your last post smacks of racism and I'm surprised that is tolerated here.  Grow up and join the 21st century please.