Agilent U1272A crappy soldering

[Barny]

Even you got the multimeter for free, you have warrenty at the multimeter.
The multimeter ist practical a materially discount and part of the contract.

[BravoV]

Even you got the multimeter for free, you have warrenty at the multimeter.
The multimeter ist practical a materially discount and part of the contract.

Let alone warranty, how about the words like "top tier" or "product consistency" ?

Do these jargons still exist in their dictionary ? 

[eliocor]

In mine 2 pieces of U1272A the soldering is in perfect state!

Also please DO NOT confuse RoHS (Pb Free) compliant soldering (which seems rather dully) with the SnPb one which is shiny.

[digsys]

I opend my Agilent u1272a and the soldering is CRAP!
I have never seen this bad quality in a HP ore a Agilent product :-(

Something is fishy with yours !! The ICs have nice leaded solder, while the rest of the components use sand mixed with spit.
Weird. It can be a 2 part process .. maybe ICs soldered by hand? Questions.

[wraper]

blackdog, where and when did you get yours?

[Barny]

I've checked my U1272A

The soldering is not shiny but looks ok.
Only one chip looks a little bit suspicious.
But it is not that bad like the one from wraper.

The Board is rev 005.
On the box was a little yellow sticker.
One sticker at the bottom of the box says: Cmpl Date:20130409
That means my U1272A is a little bit more then two weeks old.

[Edit]
In my U1272A is no tephlon band like in Daves U1272A.
There are no other seal too.
The case is from 10.10 and the battery cover is from 01.13 rev A
The stand is rev A too.
[/Edit]

Sorry, my camera is not that good.

[mike_kawasaki]

I taked apart my new Agilent U1272A multimeter and saw that places where parts were not populated looks weird. Inspected it with microscope and wow, all soldering is pure crap. On some places it looks like that parts will fall off if I touch them. Seems that soldering paste they used was well expired. I can't believe this , shame on you Agilent. All images are here:

Wraper,

Request:  Can you share the serial number? And it would be also wonderful to get your contact information in case an Agilent support engineer needs to talk to you directly.

I work at Agilent and take great pride in our quality.  This looks unacceptable based on your pictures.  I'll commit to forwarding information immediately to our Manufacturing Quality team and have them investigate based on the serial number.

At a minimum - return to Farnell and ask for a replacement unit!  If you have ANY issues let me know immediately.  I can insure that Farnell does a return and Agilent approves return of the unit (so that there is no cost to Farnell).

As a side note:  The "free" multimeter is only a marketing promotion to leverage our strong product supply presence.  It has NOTHING to do with the multimeter quality.  All the multimeters are the standard units.

My apologies for your experience!

Feel free to write me at on the EEVblog with personal note if don't want to publicly share any information.

Mike Kawasaki
T&M Marketing Manager
mike_kawasaki@agilent.com

[wraper]

Hi, Mike

Serial number: MY53010059

Alexander

[mike_kawasaki]

Hi, Mike

Serial number: MY53010059

repair.incolab@inbox.lv
Alexander

Alexander, thanks!  I'm sending to the Division Team right now... they are in Malaysia so already started the weekend, but know for a fact that the Marketing Managers works on the weekend (I used to live in Singapore and we used to talk on Saturday mornings while doing conference calls with the US Friday afternoons -- don't miss that!!).

Hope Latvia is beginning to receive some warmer Springtime weather.  My friends in Amsterdam mentioned there's been some nice weather during last few weeks.
Mike

[wraper]

Thanks, Mike!
Weather here is rather interesting. We had winter until mid April and then bang! something more like summer in one day. And now we have floods. But today weather is more like in autumn.

[mike_kawasaki]

Thanks, Mike!
Weather here is rather interesting. We had winter until mid April and then bang! something more like summer in one day. And now we have floods. But today weather is more like in autumn.

Alexander, glad you got one day of summer.  We are so spoiled with weather here in California.  It has been a dry winter and the weather has been absolutely gorgeous, actually too warm as plants bloomed few weeks early.  Last weekend we hit 32C.  On a personal level (as a golfer and runner) am LOVING the dry and warm weather.  Now if someone could just lower the crazy house prices in Silicon Valley... friend just bought a 900 sq ft home in Palo Alto, had to offer $1.3M (asking was $1.0M) and all-cash to win the deal! 

I'll be working part of this weekend so commit to get an update whenever I hear from the Division.

Mike

[T4P]

Hey mike, when i was putting back my review set U1273A together without applying excessive force one of the screw heads snapped. Seriously 
You think Agilent might take it back?

[paul30003]

I tore down my cheap uni-t and the soldering was much better than this

[ddavidebor]

guys, a lot of this meter have this problem.

i think agilent has REALLY SERIOUS quality control issue on his portable meter, and this is not acceptable in a company that had make some of the best pcb board in his history.

[mike_kawasaki]

Hey mike, when i was putting back my review set U1273A together without applying excessive force one of the screw heads snapped. Seriously 
You think Agilent might take it back?

T4P, when you state it is a "review set" does this mean you received it for free??  If you give me the serial number I can check on the warranty status, or you can enter into the Agilent.com site.  In the past, worked with another customer who received a free demo unit (think it was for Element14 testing) and there was a service issue; we verified that the unit comes with full warranty and we replaced for no cost.

Noticed you're from Singapore.  I spent 4.5 wonderful years in Singapore, just returned to US in Dec 2011.  We'd move back if Agilent would pay for the move again...  I'm especially missing my S$3 Indian lunches, ice kachang and jumping in the pool almost every day of the year.

Mike

[ExtremeXS]

Hi Mike,

I have a serial number very close, also recently purchased from Farnell:

Serial number: MY53010054

I've only had a very quick peek and not unclipped the case fully, but looks like it may also have a solder paste issue as per the pictures.

Cheers,
Mark

[Barny]

My Serial starts with MY531100 which implies that it is build ca. 100000 Parts later.
Is this possible?

[EEVblog]

Mike Kawasaki
T&M Marketing Manager
mike_kawasaki@agilent.com

Thanks Mike. Good to see Agilent responding proactively with the community (yet again)
I wish more companies did this.

[EEVblog]

I have a serial number very close, also recently purchased from Farnell:
Serial number: MY53010054
I've only had a very quick peek and not unclipped the case fully, but looks like it may also have a solder paste issue as per the pictures.

Please post some photos if you can.
It is most likely a batch issue.

I just had an idea...
What if SMD assembly lines also had automated cameras that snapped and archived a photo of every board/panel as it came off the line?
This sort of issue could be pinpointed pretty quickly.

[quarros]

I just had an idea...
What if SMD assembly lines also had automated cameras that snapped and archived a photo of every board/panel as it came off the line?
This sort of issue could be pinpointed pretty quickly.

You would run out of space before you know it, or had many low resolution photos that not necessary pinpoint all of the possible issues...

[EEVblog]

You would run out of space before you know it, or had many low resolution photos that not necessary pinpoint all of the possible issues...

A run of 10,000 panels at say 4MB each image is only 40GB. So you could get 500K panels (say 5 million boards) onto a single 2TB hard drive.
Completely doable.

[ExtremeXS]

Yeah mine (MY53010054) does look the same as Alexanders, I will try and get a photo or two as requested.

Cheers,
Mark

[quarros]

You would run out of space before you know it, or had many low resolution photos that not necessary pinpoint all of the possible issues...

A run of 10,000 panels at say 4MB each image is only 40GB. So you could get 500K panels (say 5 million boards) onto a single 2TB hard drive.
Completely doable.

Hmmmmm It seems I haven't thought it trough.
You're right because 4 meg is enough for most small boards to reach acceptable resolution
for fault finding, and bigger boards for bigger instruments on the other hand wont be manufactured
that many so the individual pictures for those can be bigger...

Sorry I was a little hasty with my statement.

[SeanB]

Even keeping a single actual panel as well is doable, as you just keep the last one out, and then slip it in an envelope with the details ( panel without the value added things like switches, displays and such are not too expensive) and file it. It then allows you to check later if needed, and you just can either make up as a unit later if desperate or just put it through a shredder when you eol the product range and no longer do any support or cal of it. On a batch of 10 000 panels it will be cheaper than the hard drive and server space.

[T4P]

Hey mike, when i was putting back my review set U1273A together without applying excessive force one of the screw heads snapped. Seriously 
You think Agilent might take it back?

T4P, when you state it is a "review set" does this mean you received it for free??  If you give me the serial number I can check on the warranty status, or you can enter into the Agilent.com site.  In the past, worked with another customer who received a free demo unit (think it was for Element14 testing) and there was a service issue; we verified that the unit comes with full warranty and we replaced for no cost.

Noticed you're from Singapore.  I spent 4.5 wonderful years in Singapore, just returned to US in Dec 2011.  We'd move back if Agilent would pay for the move again...  I'm especially missing my S$3 Indian lunches, ice kachang and jumping in the pool almost every day of the year.

Mike

Yeah, i recieved it for a review. MY52380014 is the SN i think. Busy on OCN these days
I read the agilent TOS and it said "user damage" ... i don't really think it was my fault though ... the head just snapped
Dec 2011, hmm. Just about 5months in when i stepped into electronics 
$3 lunches? No more man  Now my lunches even as a student starts from 3$ ...

Even keeping a single actual panel as well is doable, as you just keep the last one out, and then slip it in an envelope with the details ( panel without the value added things like switches, displays and such are not too expensive) and file it. It then allows you to check later if needed, and you just can either make up as a unit later if desperate or just put it through a shredder when you eol the product range and no longer do any support or cal of it. On a batch of 10 000 panels it will be cheaper than the hard drive and server space.

I don't know man. Surely as Agilent you will definitely have some spare servers lying around with storage space in them. This is 2013 ... c'mon ...
Even i use a Xeon as my daily rig ... Scratch it ... he's got a 3930k at half discount, lol.