Do not buy the Keithley 2100 DVM

It must have been programmed in PL/M

martin

OK, I won't buy one.

It's a Chinese rebrand. The hardware seems good, but the firmware is absolutely brain-damaged, and the engineers at Keithley are powerless to fix it.

I have 4 of them. No Keithley, ever again.

John

And yet my Keithley 177, (cost a fiver two years ago!) is the best DVM I've ever used. Probably 'cos it's uses those big, bright, red LED thingies to display numbers and numbers only and it's got a whole row of those clickey, interlocked, mechanical, selector switch do-dahs and it can be zeroed using a mechanical device called a pot' and it does real microvolts and (even better ) I never had to read one of those damned "operating manual" things.

Sorry to shout, but I was furious!

The original instrument seems to be here:

But it has more features (including themocouple temperature and GPIB).

It's so sad that the hardware seems great, but the firmware is a disaster. This must be tarnishing the Keithley brand. I will never buy anything from them again.

Do you know which micro it uses? I'm wondering if it would be possible to reprogram with custom firmware. Of course, if Keithley can't fix it...

I has three microprocessors. It would be a lot cheaper to trash-can the Keithleys and buy the new Flukes.

John

With nothing to loose maybe one could make shoot at trying some own firmware? If it becomes bricked it can be used a doorstop ;)

I like that line of thought, but the reverse engineering cost is going to atrocious. I could buy many Chinese made Flukes or other copy/knock-offs for that amount of money.

I'd rather try to embarass Keithley into fixing their own hideous user interface.

If they had any sense, they would send every 2100 owner a 2 Gig USB memory stick. On it would be the necessary firmware upgrades to make the damned thing usable. The instructions would say...

1. Plug stick into the 2100's USB slot
2. Power up the 2100

1. Keep the memory stick, with our apologies for your inconvenience.

Of course, they won't do anything like that, partially because they don't know how, partially because they don't care.

John

It seems they have figured out what to do with them; extracted from an email advertisement:

----------- Keithley?s Model 2100 6½-Digit USB DMM. Every lab could use one. But sometimes you want to set voltage and/or current when making resistance measurements. You could turn to either:

• Keithley?s Model 2400 SourceMeter Instrument, or * Model 6517 Electrometer/High Resistance Meter

Can?t afford a DMM and one of these instruments? Yes, you can!

From now through September 30, 2008, purchase one of these instruments and get a Model 2100 6½-Digit USB DMM at no extra cost!*

But hurry! This offer ends September 30, 2008. Order now for fastest delivery!

----------------

You cannot reply because you're using Google Groups to interface to Usenet, and Google Groups finally fixed that problem of Thread Necro-whatever.

Read up on Usenet newsgroups (even google.com indexes webpages on it) and how they are not the same as "Google Groups." Newsgroups are a lot easier and faster to read and write with a news reader.

And even if it did, not everyone checks Google before buying something...geez.

I turned mine on this morning and all it does is beep continuously and show this:

ftp://66.117.156.8/Stupid_2100.JPG

I'm actually relieved... I can finally dumpster the piece-o-crap.

John

Really? I'll take it off your hands - The VFD may be good for repairing some of their other models. What do you want for it?

"More than twice as fast as the competition" is Chinese for "you can't read the display."

John

If you are really going to trash it, I'd like to have it.

--

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There are two kinds of people on this earth: The crazy, and the insane. The first sign of insanity is denying that you're crazy.

I solved the problem:

ftp://66.117.156.8/KeithleyFix.jpg

ftp://66.117.156.8/MadeInUSA.JPG

John