02-26-2015 12:37 PM
NI PXI-5695 Specifications, RF Attenuator (NI document 375125C-01) indicates a calibration interval 1 year.
1. Is there a published National Instruments calibration procedure for the PXI-5695 RF Attenuator?
2. The PXI-5695's that we have purchased did not come with calibration data or a calibration certificate. Is there an option to purchase the PXI-5695 with calibration data?
Thanks,
Darrow Gervais
02-27-2015 01:00 PM
Hello Darrow,
There is not a published calibration procedure for the PXI-5695 RF Attenuator. You would need to send in your PXI-5695's to be calibrated by National Instruments. Here is NI's Calibration Services page: http://www.ni.com/services/calibration.htm. If you choose to have your device calibrated, you can choose from several types of calibration reports: http://www.ni.com/services/calibration_compare.htm.
For new devices, NIST certificates are kept in an online searchable database here. National Instruments products are calibrated at manufacturing, so a newly purchased device will be NIST traceable. The certificates are searchable by the serial number of the device. The following link has more details on NIST Traceability Certificates: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/3459F092CEDE62C6862575A0006900F6.
Best regards,
07-02-2015 05:27 PM
Is that really the best customer policy to have for this device? Most manufacturing facilities require that their test equipment which constitutes part of the RF circuit be calibrated in 3 or 6 month intervals in-house. You can understand how shipping the product back to NI for periodic calibrations is unreasonable. Most other vendors provide a service manual which has a chapter detailing the process for periodic calibrations. We have had this problem for other products provided by NI like DAQ and voltmeter cards for example. It becomes a headache that manufacturing test engineers would rather not deal with.
You realize that when you stand a hard line on serviceabilty in the field, like this, that the customer will go elsewhere for test solutions. I already see this trend happening in-house where I work. The next generation of test stations will have a decreasing amount of NI hardware in the racks. I hear lots of management mumblings about this. I personally like the convenience of working with NI hardware when programming automation, but you guys don't give us a good defense to argue with a customer policy like this.
Mike B.
07-06-2015 04:24 PM
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your feedback and my apologies that this is an inconvenience for you and your team. I will make sure that this feedback is passed along to both R&D and the appropriate product owners.