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Calibrating vintage multimeter (derp.foo)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've recently acquired an uncalibrated Philips PM2534 (edit: the battery-backed factory calibration data was lost due to the battery running out). I'm looking into somehow getting it calibrated. However, the calibration procedure is rather involved, and requires such things as an exact 300V DC (the service manual recommends using a Fuke 5700).

Anybody know of a way to have this multimeter calibrated? I'm a hobbyist and don't really need such things as traceability and certificates.

Edit: I live in the Netherlands.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How much precision do you want to achieve?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The device is supposedly a 6½ digit DMM yet I currently don’t even trust the first few digits when comparing it to a 3½ digit handheld Brymen DMM. Being reasonably sure that it’s at least more accurate than the Brymen would be nice, so 3½ digits.

I’ve got another desktop DMM, a 5½ digit GW Instek GDM-8255A, on the way, so I could conceivably just use that one as my local “standard” to calibrate against.

The problem however is that the Philips requires a large amount of references to calibrate against (just calibrating DC voltage requires 0V, 3V, 30V and 300V references). Building all references to recalibrate the whole thing would be rather involved, so I was trying to find an easier way.