Vintage teardown- Keithley 130A - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: reagle
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 04:11:09 am
content: Just finished a writeup on a Keithley 130A teardown on my blog:http://kuzyatech.com/vintage-keithley-130a-teardownA few post-cleanup pictures for your enjoyment:On a related note, does anybody know a good resource for history for Keithley DMMs? Tried looking on their page without much luck

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 04:40:31 am
content: Thanks for sharing, very unique DMM you got there especially with that 2 dials.Is that 7106 socketed ? Can't see it clearly.

author: don.r
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 04:47:20 am
content: I know I'm in a minority but I love the Keithley brown era. Cheers for the vintage through-hole tech porn.

author: retiredcaps
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 05:17:00 am
content: Modemhead has a non working Keithley 135 DMM (lcd is bad). His pictures are athttp://mrmodemhead.com/blog/gallery/keithley-135-dmm/PS. I dislike the brown color scheme.

author: retiredcaps
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 05:35:29 am
content: Quote from: BravoV on December 30, 2013, 04:40:31 amIn his text description, it saysSurprisingly, there is not much there: A Maxim ICL7106 of 1985 vintage in a socket, Ti TL061CP JFET opamp, and a Motorola MC14070 Quad X-OR gate.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 05:40:07 am
content: Thanks retiredcaps, I missed that.Quote from: retiredcaps on December 30, 2013, 05:35:29 amI guess the most expensive part is that precision voltage divider resistors on ceramic substrate, isn't it ?

author: retiredcaps
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 05:53:26 am
content: Quote from: BravoV on December 30, 2013, 05:40:07 amYou were probably staring at the porn pics and didn't read the text!! Sort of like buying Playboy for the articles.

author: retiredcaps
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 05:54:41 am
content: Quote from: reagle on December 30, 2013, 04:11:09 amThanks for the teardown. I just love these type of blog entries/articles.I can spend hours reading/looking at the stuff.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 05:56:07 am
content: Quote from: retiredcaps on December 30, 2013, 05:53:26 amDamn ... I'm busted !

author: retiredcaps
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 06:23:00 am
content: Quote from: reagle on December 30, 2013, 04:11:09 amI don't know the history and would love to find out more later on my own time, but I found an 1980 ad for the Keithley 130 herehttps://archive.org/stream/radio_electronics_1980-04/Radio_Electronics_April_1980#page/n19/mode/2upIn the same magazine, it is clear that Fluke is still selling the old 8000 series with the pushbuttons and Keithley takes a shot in their ad by stating "Both range and function are easily selected with one hand - no complicated pushbuttons."Notice the big "And that's no fluke".Like I said, I just love researching and reading all this multimeter stuff.drtaylor who worked at Fluke on the 8060A stated that it was Beckman (on the very next page of the radio electronics magazine) that forced Fluke to switch to a rotary design.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/old-fluke-multimeters/msg320145/#msg320145Perhaps, it was also Keithley that forced Fluke to get away from the push buttons?

author: reagle
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 30, 2013, 02:19:07 pm
content: Thanks for the links! It looks like 135 is a rather different beast, older too.I added the archive link to my postQuote from: retiredcaps on December 30, 2013, 05:17:00 am