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HP 4145B on life support...organ donor urgenlty needed

Well, it finally happened: the floppy disc drive on my HP 4145B Semiconductor Parameter Analyzer ate itself for lunch. I'd left it running for months, because I wasn't sure how long it would last after the previous repair, and with the Labor Day shutdown at the lab, it indeed came up very, very sick.

Those floppy drives are tough to find, because they're what always break. Does anybody know of a place to get one?

Alternatively, given that I've already spent my capital budget for the year, any suggestions on a simple way of making nice accurate I-V curves without using Labview?

Thanks,

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs
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What is so special about the drive?

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Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Most likely a proprietery format known only to HP. Other than labview you are left to using a real plotter?

Adam

Reply to
Adam Stouffer

Can you do a GPIB dump and run the data into GnuPlot? National Instruments has a GPIB package, combined with a ethernet to GPIB converto box, that allows you to do GPIB calls via command line. We use this technique to do data dumps or screen grabs from various instruments. A batch file to grab data and run gnuplot makes this task easy.

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Mark
Reply to
qrk

Also there are several people around with programs that emulate HPGL Plotters that can take the data from a GPIB dump.

Here is one but he doesn't list your instrument. It may still work. And I've seen others around.

formatting link

Robert

Reply to
Robert

The disk format is not dictated by the drive unit but by the FDC controller and software. And it'd be surprising that HP used something else than a common disk drive.

I'd simply try any ordinary 3.5" drive and it should work. Guess this won't break your budget too much :-)

--
Thanks,
Fred.
Reply to
Fred Bartoli

"Fred Bartoli" wrote in message news:450657be$0$18630$ snipped-for-privacy@news.free.fr...

Well said. There should be a newsgroup in the comp.periphs hierarchy where people really know about diskette drives. If a plain PC drive doesn't work, it's probably a very minor matter of jumper settings or something. BTW, is it 360K, 720K, or 1.4MB?

Reply to
mc

Nah, the electrical interface is completely nonstandard. It's a pre-PS/2, pre-Macintosh drive. The disc format is weird--single density, for a start, because of the drive limitations.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

I'd be perfectly happy with a scope camera, for that matter. This gizmo _boots_ off the floppy, so without it, it's completely flatline.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

Hello Phil,

Can't help you with a spare but I'd go out on EBay and look for a few dilapidated units that are cheap. Busted CRT, whatever. These drives were used in lots of HP gear. There is also a "bone yard" vendor that sells parted out HP and Tek spares but I don't remember the name. Pretty much like finding an alternator for an old Studebaker.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Even if the interface is different, some proprietary drives are built on common drive chassis and you might be able to transplant the PC board. I have revived a number of oddball 3.5" drives by carefully cleaning the old lubricant and replacing it with the molly grease for VCRs or Lubriplate for the thinner lubes.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

I always heard the floppy is essential. However, you can't get one from HP/Agilent?

Reply to
miso

Do you have the 4145B schematics? I don't know how much it's different but it probably shares a lot with modern drives' interface. Even the 4145A of which Win did send me the FDC board drawing could be easily made to work with a modern 5.25" HD drive. And I guess with a

3.5" drive too.

Or maybe, if you have one at hand, you could try some of the 9121-9122 floppy drives.

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Thanks,
Fred.
Reply to
Fred Bartoli

Phil Hobbs hath wroth:

The disk format is called LIF. There are flakey conversion tools for reading the LIF floppies such as LIF2DOS and LIFUTIL. I've only used it once. However, I couldn't find any info on whatever hardware HP used to create the LIF floppy. I'm fairly sure it's NOT a proprietary interface, but might be wrong. The LIF format is used on a substantial number of HP boxes and not just on the HP 4145B. If you can't find a replacement drive for the HP 4145B, try one of the other models that supports LIF.

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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

I didn't see the entire thread but how sure are you that the drive is toast? Maybe it just didn't like its diet. :)

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Reply to
Sam Goldwasser

Ive heard this tale a few times here now, I'm surprised no one has emulated one with a micro and 1.44mb flash chip.

Colin =^.^=

Reply to
colin

Sounds like you're describing the 4145A drive; the 4145B drive looks much more advanced to me, and will format today's ordinary high-density floppies. I can't say, not having the 4145B manual service section (know where to get a copy?), just for the 4145A.

Anyway, this may be a good time to encourage you to join the growing effort to eliminate the 4145A and 4145B disk drives entirely. In the case of the 4145A, which goes to the floppy for every little thing (ker-chunk... wait...), not to mention the dead drives, it's a very big deal, but even for the 4145B, where you can't startup without the floppy, it's still a deal.

My idea is to replace the floppy and the controller, using the simple 8-bit interface to the floppy-controller IC, where one could program a uC to simulate the controller and its responses "from the floppy drive"...

Why not contact Fred and enlist him in this,

F. Bartoli Consultant 98, rue du Charrat F38960 St Etienne de Crossey Tel : (33) 08.70.77.82.07

--
 Thanks,
    - Win
Reply to
Winfield Hill

colin a écrit :

Currently working on one for the 4145A. If Phil (or others) has some info I don't have about the 4145B, I'll look at how to make it working with both units. I just have the operating manual found on agilent's site so any schematics scan is welcomed.

--
Thanks,
Fred.
Reply to
Fred Bartoli

Were automotive alternators used in Studebakers? Weren't they using generators with commutators?

Bob

Reply to
Bob Scott

Somebody should do a nice little USB curve tracer, with optional capacitance and junction temp measurement.

Ditto RLC bridge, spectrum analyzer.

Somebody makes a really cool RF power meter like that, just a bump in the end of a USB cable.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

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