[volt-nuts] Fluke DVMP Care Plan

Bill Gold wpgold3637 at att.net
Thu Oct 20 16:02:19 EDT 2016


Ken:

    I had my 732B calibrated at FLUKE in Everett WA last year.  I had the
Z540 with before and after data cal done.  The price was $695 which included
FLUKE shipping the 732B back to me, one day service.  FLUKE wanted me to
ship it to them overnight delivery by 10 AM which cost $250 UPS.  But after
that I decided that I would ship it either overnight afternoon delivery
(which is cheaper) or 2 day delivery (which is even more reasonable).
Hindsight is always better, just like Monday morning quarterbacking.

    I know that my battery can last 3 days real easy by discharging it for 3
days and monitoring the battery voltage.  I think that FLUKE is just trying
to make sure that some units are not shipped with old, marginal batteries.
Then the battery would go dead and the "before" data could not be supplied
to the customer.  The one surprise was that my unit had the handle missing
and FLUKE installed a new handle and included that in the total cal cost.
The stupid handle retails for $120 and the hardware is another $27.

    Bottom line here is that I don't care if the "calibration stickers" are
inplace or not when FLUKE receives the unit, so if the battery wouldn't hold
a 3 day charge I would replace it and test it before I send it in again.  I
would use the 2 day service.

    The uncertainty would be how well the bank of 4 732Bs that they compared
my unit with at the Cal Lab.  But since those don't leave FLUKE and are
certified every 90 days (probably to the FLUKE JVS), according to the
certificate, my guess is that the voltage would be within .3 PPM depending
upon how much drift your unit would have during transit.  Since I have 4 ea
732As, collected over the years, and I had checked the stability before I
sent the 732B in, I was pretty sure that my 732B was very stable over 13
days, less than 0.1ppm.  When I got it back I began comparing it again to
the bank of 732As and it remained within 0.1ppm for 90 days.  But after that
it has started to drift steadly upwards around 0.7 ppm per year.  Since I
have a very good history on the bank of 732As I can see that the 732B is
most of the drift against the average of the bank.  Of course all IMHO and
the best data reductions I can make.

    The final test of my data keeping would be to send the 732B again and
see if I am close to "The Volt" as defined by FLUKE.  Someday when I am
curious.

    The whole turn around time was 10 days portal to portal to me.

Bill

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ken Peek" <ken.peek at diligentminds.com>
To: "volt-nuts" <volt-nuts at febo.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2016 11:26 AM
Subject: [volt-nuts] Fluke DVMP Care Plan


> I own one 732B that needs calibration.  Fluke wants about $500 for the
> ISO-9001 calibration, but it would be about $250 EACH WAY to ship it
> to/from them with the proper insurance (so, about $1000 total).
>
> Mitch Van Ochten mentioned that the Fluke DVMP program might be a good way
> to do this.  [http://download.flukecal.com/pub/literature/2001531_A_w.pdf]
>
> Does anyone have an idea about how much this costs to calibrate just one
> 732B, and what kind of uncertainty I might expect?
>
> -Ken
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