Keysight / Agilent U8000 series power supplies - UART debug mode?

[nidlaX]

Does anyone know if the U8000 series power supplies have some sort of option for debug / testing control over the UART? I can see that they use it for firmware download, but I imagine that they must have included some provision for automated testing / QC / calibration of the boards without having to fumble with the front panel. A real service manual would be informative, but Keysight only provides the user manual on their website.

[skennedy]

I don't think the U8000 series has anything particularly user friendly remote control features. Probably why they are actually not crazy expensive like most of their other supplies. There was some discussion awhile ago regarding the schematic for these supplies https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-u8002a-ps-schematic/. Maybe this might help?

[nidlaX]

I don't think the U8000 series has anything particularly user friendly remote control features. Probably why they are actually not crazy expensive like most of their other supplies. There was some discussion awhile ago regarding the schematic for these supplies https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-u8002a-ps-schematic/. Maybe this might help?

Thanks, but I don't foresee the schematic being of particular use. In normal power on mode, the UART is completely unused, as far as I can tell. These AD micros only allow you to read back what you've written to flash during the first programming instance. Thereafter, flash read-back is disabled to prevent you from dumping the firmware. I do wonder whether there are any workarounds for that.

What I'm looking for is along the lines of a combination of button presses or data to send via the UART on power up or a jumper somewhere to configure the firmware into some sort of debug control mode. Failing that, getting a dump of the firmware would be excellent.