Hi
Today, after owning a Keysight U1273A multimeter for almost a year, I noticed they have released firmware version 3.01. They're stating the release date of 2014-10-09 but they have to had posted it no more than a month or so ago as I was checking it fairly often. Go figure. They're stating following changes over the previous version 1.95:
version 3.01
- Add Filter setup mode option DC, DCAC and OFF
- Bug fixed for incorrect LPF icon under dBm dual mode
- Bug fixed for incorrect dipslay when AHOLD exit from LOG view under TEMP function
- Bug fixed for incorrect Average auto range in AVG under ACV function
- Bug fixed for incorrect Average auto range in AUTO
- Change identity to Keysight
In the instructions on the webpage, they tell you to use the U1173B IR-USB cable. The update program tells you the same in red font. The thing is, I don't have it but I have the U1177 Bluetooth adapter so I went ahead and tried it anyway. Yes, I know. Don't judge me. As you could probably guess by now, I bricked the meter. Kind of. And then resurrected it. I don't encourage anyone to try updating using unsupported tools, like me, but I know of at least one case of bricking the meter using the recommended USB cable as well on this very forum:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/failed-firmware-update-on-u1273a-and-agilent's-response/In my case, the update program detected the meter just fine. After I clicked "Update", it apparently put the meter in a bootloader mode, then said I should power-cycle before OK'ing the dialog box. That's when I got stuck with the "D...." (like the unlucky fellow from the thread I'm linking) and since when the update program refused to do anything useful further, failing to detect the meter and spewing various error messages instead. First, I remembered that I've changed the default baudrate of the Bluetooth adapter from 9600 to 19200. While I'm not sure that was critical for the eventual unbricking, it couldn't hurt either. Of course, it doesn't apply to you if you're using the USB cable you were supposed to in the first place. Set the slide switch on the adapter to the middle "Setup" position, connect to it from your favourite terminal application via the virtual COM port (I use PuTTY) and issue ATL1 if it responds to ATL? with anything other than "1". Now, the trick was to watch the BT adapter's green "Link" LED. I'm not sure whether the USB cable has some kind of activity light as well, otherwise there'd be more trial-and-error involved, I guess. So, I turned the meter off, re-launched the update software so it started its autodetect procedure. As soon as the link LED on the adapter went steady, I quickly switched the meter back on and that's what triggered the software to re-detect the unit properly and proceed with the actual update after I pressed "Update" for the second time. At last, an hourglass appeared after the "D..." and the progress bar on the PC program started to fill up terribly slow (whopping 64 bytes/s as the firmware itself seems to be 128kB in size) and some 2048 seconds later it greeted me with the Keysight (instead of Agilent) logo and new version number. Then you're supposed to perform a reset to defaults from the menu.
As a form of punishment, I'm hereby subjecting myself to the default startup tune for the duration of one month. I hope at least I could help someone.
Regards,
Zbig