HP 547a current tracer

[Shock]

Just picked up an HP 547a current tracer. Has anyone got one of these?
I tested it on a bad circuit and quickly found which IC's were operating in seconds, amazing for 40 year old technology.
Quite fun to play with, I might make a little PCB for test conditions at some stage.

I'm also looking for a nice clear scan of the service manuals if anyone has them.

Not my video, but for those that don't know what it does:

[PaulAm]

I have one.  I use it along with the 546a logic pulser to find shorted tants on power rails.  Normally takes me longer to get everything set up than to identify the shorted cap.

There's also a 545a logic probe to complete the set, but I think that's the least useful of three. 

BTW, if you go to agilent.com and put in 547a in the search box, it will get you to a scanned manual.  The quality isn't the best, but it's readable.  There's also an app note on using it.

[Kilroy]

Excellent tool, especially when used in conjunction with a pulser. 

[TerraHertz]

I have one. They are nice, huh?
Isn't the picture of the manual yours? I have the small manuals for all the other HP probes in my pic below, except the 547A. It's on my list to buy the next time I'm doing a manuals fetch. The other ones of those little manuals all include the schematics, so I'd think the 547A one does too.

[Shock]

Is there any point in getting the HP 10525T over the HP 545A?  Whats the difference?

I have all 3 of the second set 545a, 546a and now a 547a, plus the comparator and other misc accessories in pristine condition.
No paper manuals, I don't want the paper versions permanently either as I'm in the middle of going totally electronic.

I could clean these up but they are in desperate need of being redone, the 545a is shocking.
Is anyone interested in, or has access to a scanner to make some better/decent scans of these manuals in particular?

I have a nice scanner, others are probably interested in a good set as well, probably even HP by the looks of it

Isn't the picture of the manual yours? I have the small manuals for all the other HP probes in my pic below, except the 547A.

Unfortunately no, but if I did it would have been your lucky day.

[TerraHertz]

Is there any point in getting the HP 10525T over the HP 545A?  Whats the difference?

No. The 10525T is older, uses a filament light bulb. That's just in that set because I collect old logic analysis tools.

(Edit: for eg see pic below)

I have all 3 of the second set 545a, 546a and now a 547a, plus the comparator and other misc accessories in pristine condition.
No paper manuals, I don't want the paper versions permanently either as I'm in the middle of going totally electronic.

I could clean these up but they are in desperate need of being redone, the 545a is shocking.
Is anyone interested in, or has access to a scanner to make some better/decent scans of these manuals in particular?

I have a nice scanner, others are probably interested in a good set as well, probably even HP by the looks of it

A lot of the scanned HP manuals on Agilent's site are so bad I decided there has to be some kind of vindictive/sadistic motivation going on there.

Isn't the picture of the manual yours? I have the small manuals for all the other HP probes in my pic below, except the 547A.

Unfortunately no, but if I did it would have been your lucky day.

There's a long list of paper manuals I have, that I plan to scan. These ones are on the list, once I get a 547A manual (which is easy.)
But it will be a while before before I get to them. There are a few real unobtainium manuals I got recently, that I want to do first.
Also, you'll hate me, but I refuse to package them as pdfs. I use html+images, zipped up and bundled in a RARbook.
An unbundled example here: http://everist.org/archives/scans/Boonton_Q_Standard/
and bundled ones: http://everist.org/archives/scans/RAR-books/

Whether it's wise to go all electronic with manuals - that's another question. For myself I choose not to. If I can't find a paper copy I'll use whatever electronic form I can find. But there are many drawbacks to electronic documents. Some intrinsic, some due to almost universally crappy quality of scanning and compression, or the immature viewing tools, and some more abstract reasons to do with trust and dependability over the long term.

[Shock]

There's a long list of paper manuals I have, that I plan to scan. These ones are on the list, once I get a 547A manual (which is easy.)
But it will be a while before before I get to them. There are a few real unobtainium manuals I got recently, that I want to do first.
Also, you'll hate me, but I refuse to package them as pdfs. I use html+images, zipped up and bundled in a RARbook.

Whether it's wise to go all electronic with manuals - that's another question. For myself I choose not to. If I can't find a paper copy I'll use whatever electronic form I can find. But there are many drawbacks to electronic documents. Some intrinsic, some due to almost universally crappy quality of scanning and compression, or the immature viewing tools, and some more abstract reasons to do with trust and dependability over the long term.

Good idea with the rar books and that works for me as well as I can easily create a pdf from your images (or leave them as is).
I only use pdf because of convenience.  The format is about 25 years old now so I don't see them as going anywhere anytime soon.
I know I can always rip images out of them again if I have to.  But yeah I'm techy so I know the benefits of keeping them in a somewhat original scanned format.

But really why I'm doing it is convenience and space, I can access them anywhere and don't have to pull anything off the shelf.  Recently I just got rid of two book shelves full of paper.

As long as you have a data backup strategy then keeping electronic manuals is no problem.
Good idea to use a system that can check file integrity. Cloud storage could be a good "just in case" option as well.
But part of going electronic is the more people that do it the easier it is for everyone, rather than what is happening now.

If your happy to share, let me know when you get them done I'll grab a copy and admire your handy work .

[TerraHertz]

Good idea with the rar books and that works for me as well as I can easily create a pdf from your images (or leave them as is).
I only use pdf because of convenience.  The format is about 25 years old now so I don't see them as going anywhere anytime soon.
I know I can always rip images out of them again if I have to.  But yeah I'm techy so I know the benefits of keeping them in a somewhat original scanned format.

But really why I'm doing it is convenience and space, I can access them anywhere and don't have to pull anything off the shelf.  Recently I just got rid of two book shelves full of paper.

As long as you have a data backup strategy then keeping electronic manuals is no problem.
Good idea to use a system that can check file integrity. Cloud storage could be a good "just in case" option as well.
But part of going electronic is the more people that do it the easier it is for everyone, rather than what is happening now.

If your happy to share, let me know when you get them done I'll grab a copy and admire your handy work .

Bump to say, I bought a HP 547a manual. It's in the US post to my US reshipper, where it will sit for a while as I buy some other stuff for consolidation in one package to ship to Oz. Slowly...

[notsob]

just had a search and found my original 545A, 546A and 547A manuals, let me know what you need

[Shock]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Notsob, TerraHertz may be able to sort me out. I'm just after some decent quality scans of the manuals as the HP ones are pretty poor.

[notsob]

For those who want them these are basic 300dpi manual scans - but definitely better than the crappy ones at HP
http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/516646/545A-Logic-Probe---300dpi-rar.html
http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/516647/547a-Current-Tracer---300dpi-rar.html
http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/516648/546A-Logic-Pulser---300dpi-rar.html

[TerraHertz]

Here's the 547a schematic anyway, nice and crisp.
As often happens, I got sidetracked before I finished bundling the rest of the manual into one file.

Edit: Hmm, you have to click on the image link under the pic, to get the full size file.  348KB.

[Shock]

Thanks, have thrown it in with the scans so far.

[free_electron]

i have the paper manuals. not replicas but the real ones. i can scan em at any resolution you want.

i use the current tracer in combination with the pulser quite often. short in a power rail ? pulser on it and sniff where the bulk of the current goes ... typically shot tantalums.

[krivx]

How does the sensor work? Is it just a winding at the tip? I wonder if these could be easily replicated. They are surprisingly expensive on eBay.

[electronic_eel]

Would anyone mind to upload high quality scans of the 545a, 546a, 547a manuals again? The files as megafileupload posted above aren't available anymore. I'd recommend directly uploading them to KO4BB, then they'll be available for a long time.

How does the sensor work? Is it just a winding at the tip? I wonder if these could be easily replicated.

Yes, I'm interested in that too. The schematics don't say anything about the tip.

[Shock]

Would anyone mind to upload high quality scans of the 545a, 546a, 547a manuals again?

Here are the scans done so far by Notsob, they are cleaner than the HP versions or at least the 547a which was pretty bad.  TerraHertz will do a better job than this when He gets around to it.

http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/574249/HP-545A-546A-547A-zip.html

How does the sensor work? Is it just a winding at the tip? I wonder if these could be easily replicated.

Yes, I'm interested in that too. The schematics don't say anything about the tip.

From the manual it says:
Current-STEP SENSOR. The Current-Step Sensor comprises a pickup core and winding, and eddy-current shield. The signal to be traced is sensed by the pickup winding and core.

[kripton2035]

just combined the jpeg pages into one pdf document for the 547 and compressed it to a reasonable size
enjoy !

[electronic_eel]

just combined the jpeg pages into one pdf document for the 547 and compressed it to a reasonable size

Thanks.

the ESR Repository @ http://kripton2035.free.fr/esr-repository.html
the LCR Meter Repository @ http://kripton2035.free.fr/lcr-repository.html

oh, you are the one keeping these repositories - nice site. Here are two more continuity testers:
http://www.mikrocontroller.net/attachment/206936/pruefs01.pdf
http://taco-nauert.com/datenblaetter/BS0401N_Bauanleitung.pdf
Both output a frequency proportional to resistance.

[kripton2035]

thanks for these links
the second one is nice
the first one: do you have the caracteristics of the transformer ? will be difficult to make without a reference or an example...

[electronic_eel]

the first one: do you have the caracteristics of the transformer ? will be difficult to make without a reference or an example...

Unfortunately not. I don't have any more info and I don't have a working model. Just found it posted here: http://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/323560#3523501

[SeanB]

Probably 20 turns of 48SWG wire wound around a 3mm ceramic former, surrounded with a shield made from aluminium tape with a kapton tape laid on top so that you do not make a shorted turn. One and a half layers of shield and then the tape going for 3 turns over it. then you need to connect the shield to ground, and have your 2 coil wires leading off to the inner of a shielded cable.

[electronic_eel]

Probably 20 turns of 48SWG wire wound around a 3mm ceramic former,...

Thanks. I'm not so much into HF stuff, transformers and so on - why an air-core and not some kind of metal or ferrite core?

[SeanB]

Low inductance......... Thus better high frequency performance. You might find some ferrite slugs that are 2mm diameter and wind a coil on them for specialised work.

I did once use a ferrite bead and a 5 turn coil to make a current probe that would fit on a TO220 lead, using a 47R resistor at both ends and some really thin 50R cable to make it easier to handle. Worked at 100kHz on that switcher to see the current through the device  without disturbing it much.

[Barry Ward]

The complete theory of operation and design is here: www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1976-12.pdf

Seems buildable if we can find some tiny ferrite U cores...

I'd like to see it built as a battery powered unit using modern amps and maybe a tiny cell phone speaker.   You can often tell a lot from the detected audio signature of even a complex digital, RF or microwave signal.