Hi I'm here with Peter daily I look after the air, on-site service, everything else but I'm also one of them Metrology team. The metrology lab here at Agilent in Melbourne Yes and it's one of the few in one of the well and actually this three in the country that are that are accredited 20 Hertz to 50 gigahertz. Two out of those three belong to us. one is a mobile facility and the other one is this facility here.

The other. the other facility that's accredited for that region is the National Measurements Laboratory. I mean--you surplus? Alright, let's go in. This is the standard slit.

Whoa. standard slab. Let's go folks. and it's a balmy.

21 degrees in here, 21 degrees plus or minus. one and a half degrees one and a half degrees which is different from a general laboratory under NATO rules and and err err err rules is 25 degrees plus or minus sorry 23 degrees plus -5 degrees 5 to 80% humidity. I'm surprised it's so wide for the humidity for both temperature and yeah, the humidity in his electronic environments. Not a not a physical laboratory right? So it's not as critical for humidity as a physical laboratory would be as in physical standards, physical dimensions, weights and measures.

Oh, that hardness there probably more impacted by humidity than where we are more concerned with things being too dry, them being too wet because it gives us an ESD problem. electrostatic discharge. If it's too dry within our laboratory, it's if you look at the floor that's this particular floor. It's an ESD floor that's bonded, bonded properly, and allows us to maintain a nice - what's an ESD safe tomorrow? the average: the average time and you when you pull your jumper off and you feel as that you're discharging about 3,000 volts worth of potential? So is these important to us? But our environment in our standards lab is very tight temperature-wise because the precision required with the standards we're working with.

that is particularly with the high level. sorry the precision multimeters we're talking about 3/4 50 eighths and thermal voltage converters and air resistance standards. Now there's they're all tied to one of seven fundamental SI units, And they are. They are particularly sensitive to temperature, particularly the the voltage and thermal converters.

That's that's why this and resistance. That's why this part of our laboratory has such a tight environment. We also have some general gear in here as well. We do instrument calibrators and our instrument calibrators Multi multi vendor.

What we call multi vendor products. They're not actually an Agilent product With calibrating. We started calibrating them because we needed the calibration done and we needed the calibration done in a competent manner. Having done that, we've got to the stage where okay.

so we've got accredited for it and customers started asking us to do their calibrators. Became a huge challenge for us that we okay, so we're not actually supporting our product, We're supporting our customers who in many cases are competitors because they can't get that sort of service that they need that accreditation, that precision from the supplier. So they come to us - it's escalated. Got out.

it got out of here. It's We're now doing them. not only for ourselves locally. We're doing it for other hubs overseas.

We're doing it for our customers within Australia our competitors within Australia customers from Singapore India, Malaysia the United States and they are sending us the calibrators. I Find it remarkable that they send their calibrators all the way here to Australia to become just very good. It's very good. They're just very good at location.

Take it seriously folks, as you'll find out, this is where they calibrate calibrators. Even even with the even with the calibrators, you think a calibrated low frequency device to 20 Kilohertz. Maybe most labs are accredited to 20 Kilohertz for oscilloscopes. That's great.

If you've got a 500 mega Scylla scope, how's your calibrated going to take care of it? Alright, so many of the calibrators have options on the scope calibration 600 Meg or 1 gigahertz. All right, So we need we. Our accreditation for RF enables us to give that precision on those scope calibration all the way up to daylight. Almost daylight.

Almost daylight. That's that's for that. calibrate. Aside the RF side, we're one of.

As I said, we're one of three hubs in Australia that's that's accredited from 20 Hertz to 50 gigahertz for RF power and s-parameters and you've got two of them. We've got two Of them. portable which is their portable laboratory. The other ones this laborious is great.

We'll have a look at that in another video. Yes, so should we have a look at the RF stuff RF stuff at this this station. Here our calibration, engineers and technicians use this system. This is primarily for power sensors.

You know your average power sensor is a device like this. This is an N type sensor 8480. One's good for a Dengue guys. Some people will tell you that the best way to calibrate this sensor is to hook a reference sensor up to a source and measure it and then compare your results which is a method of of of calibration.

We actually have a system place that is a NIST system which uses three sensors. Mr. Bean the National Institutes of science and technology in it in the United States that's that's their National Measurements Laboratory. So we use a NIST approved system which was developed by Agilent In those days, what will HP But it was developed by H between the early days and and accepted by NIST and it uses a ratio method.

So we have a reference power sensor. We have a ratio power sensor and a validation power sensor. Now a validation power sensor is the same precision as a reference power sensor. So once we calibrate our system, the first thing we do is put our validation sensor on this.

So every time we do, every time a new bit of kick. Every time we do a new sensor for a customer, we're doing a validation on a reference sensor against a validation sensor for not jut for not just the power, but also for the VSWR of the sensor. VSWR is a significant component on if you use the simple method, you're not. Actually, you're not actually taking into account the uncertainty associated with the VSWR of your device under test, which seems crazy.

Why would you do that? Well, We could choose easy, all right. So we've got internally. It's probably about for nearly about $400,000 worth of equipment devoted to calibrating our customers power sensors. We are expensive by comparison.

We are expensive to our competitors for for for calibrating power sensors. Not all of our competitors use a similar method to this, but it's serious. If you're serious, that's right. So you've got to have a low frequency, a low frequency source.

You've got to have a two channel power meter. You've got to have a boy high frequency source, some associated amplifiers. You've got to have reference password isn't you know? The password is a password. Alright, mysterious justice, right there are.

We need to know the effective source match of that reference. So to do that, we have to. we have to combine nine parameters associated. no parameter parameter, just four.

So we do the this one 1 S2 to S3, three parameters and all the other parameters associated with that intermingling. You know vector quantity to come up with the effective source match of that power splitter As before. That's before you start, before you actually think how you actually got to do science in the background. Alright, so as part of that, we use the VNA systems.

They've Na-na-na systems and you do that each time a new customers. No, no, no, no, that's only once. That's that's on it scale, period. So we don't done that.

We had that data, that data is in the system, and as as we spoke earlier, that calibration is only valid two points in time. Yeah. so if we get to this point in time and it's faulty, we're in trouble. We have to look back.

We have to look back in time and find out everything that we've tested using that faulty bit of kit and what the impact is. You know, in terms of our customer terms of our custom. That means on very rare occasions we will recall the equipment that we've calibrated and say we've had a faux pas. All right, Something.

Something's gone tough on us. We're confident that you met The measurement we gave you is good, but we need to recall your unit and recalibrate it with that charge because it's it's our responsibility. It's part of our quality system that we if we find a fault with a piece of equipment, we will record. So that's those two points in time.

It's in our best interest. Talk after that get because it's a lot of work involved in doing that, just just doing the analysis side of it. So it's in our best interest to look after a gear properly. So we do that.

our Precision Calc. It's double use. Example I gave earlier. we've got Precision Cal Kit in our mobile facility that's been in use since 2000 and it had one foot, one fire and in that time and that was a catastrophic failure of a connector.

So that's not a not aware and tear thing and it boils down to the way you look after your equipment. We're talking it. We're talking about connector science before connector care. But tell us about why it's so important.

Take care of your connectors All right. If you're looking at looking at it, you you pay a lot of money for these devices. I Don't know if you can focus in there. can you see that that's a Metrology grade connector? Metrology grade N type connector.

Now most of the most of the in type connectors out there production-grade or less often you see an inside connector. It's got a point on it, got a sharp point on the end of it, like a taper. Alright, if you're working with precision equipment and you buy a $20 connected saber that that's got that type of pointy bit on it. you're actually going to cost you.

Sort of cost yourself a lot of money because you put that dodgy sorry that less precision connector onto your metrology grade connector. You're going to blow it away. One of our customers at turnaround was one stage because we visited them every year and did all their equipment including their Cal kits. They were spending between 10 and 15 grand a year on repairs to their Calc.

It's after repairing, just repair the things that we picked up as part of the calibration. they turned around of us and said these these products are unreliable and a bit of a red red red flag level and that we said it's not the product and we use the example of S. So we sat down with them. walk through the problem, walk through their connector savers that they were using, walk through with their operators, gave them training on-site taught them about connected care, and if you're if you imagine particularly with precision equipment a male and female connectors.

I'm not being sexist when I say this is what they called male and female connector. The biggest source of damage to a male female connector is moving the whole body because when you've got a male and female together and you move it like that, you can feel the friction in your finger. That's exactly what happens within the connector. So your connector return loss instead of being the order 49 DB suddenly becomes 40 to be 30 DB in some cases 20 DB Because the return loss is directly related to the physical dimensions and that's right, and you're scraping off.

Yes, you're causing wear and tear. We caused him wear and tear which changes dimensions of the connector which particularly higher frequencies now. Dave You're a low-frequency guy, but it's not so much at low frequencies, but say below 45 mega. it's not that big a problem above 45 Megan When you started getting the gigahertz region and you start to see these things, they start to impact above to geek and you'll see it's almost a straight line after that when that when they people would misuse the connectors, the impact of that with a with a network analyzer like this one here, you might pay.

This is an Ene of it's a low frequency Network analyzer. You might pay 30 grand for that for that product to get it and and it's a key part of your business. the performance of this as a product is directly related to what you're putting out to your customers. Now that one worn connector on your calc, it suddenly instead of having a return loss of 49 DB on that load if you've got a return loss of 20 DB Oh yeah, all right, it's and did you loads.

not real good. And if you're using a load that's not real good as a reference your network analyzer thinks because it's way it's built that that return loss default characteristic for this device, they've built into it so it's looking for something that's better than 49. DeGroat DB It's good if it's got something that's 20. DB Hooked up to it Suddenly, the the performance of your device under test is significantly better than what it really is.

Aha. So you led into a false sense of assurance. You said yes, looks good, Your confidence level actually actually disappeared. Yes.

All right, your constant comfort level in the product that you're selling is actually going out the window. And if you don't have a quality system in place that can track what product you've used that one bad connector on you may be in a situation We have to recall a lot of product and the recalling product is something companies don't like doing. We don't We don't like doing it. We have done on one occasion.

but it's part of our quality system all right. So can you show us the difference between a metrology grade connector and a regular connected? Or we've got some goodies over here in the drawer. What's in the drawers? Lots of fancy connectors. These This is an another N type connector.

This is a field grade connector and it looks it looks like a precision piece of kit. It's not. Does it fit, Looks like a decent quality one I would say I could scratch and if that looks pretty good, yeah it's It's probably good for for general use up to about a key goods. An N-type precision in top connector.

It's generally rated to 18 gigahertz. All right. So you need that different collet and sleeve that's in there and those the precision of that device they're compared to that device there determines return loss the connector each time. each time you have a connection in your system with a poor return loss, you're losing something.

You're losing information or or quality within it within your RF system. So and the difference is it's the precision of the of the dimensions inside. Generally you'll have a instead of just having a knurled nut on it, your hope you'll have a nut there that is made to fit a torque wrench, a torque wrench So you don't actually screw the entire connector on you Simply go. You go yeah and then rotate.

Going back to the problem our customer had with these operators and everything else, the easiest way to put an N type connector on is to grab the body of the device and just spin it. Yeah, all right, which is exactly what you're doing with that if you're wearing. If you even if you're grip grip, grip one finger in your hand and turn it, you feel that friction. That's exactly what happens the connector.

So we and you're changing the return loss directly. By each time you do that, it's each time you introduce wear and tear. So we we use a couple of spanners to to alleviate that with a with a precision devices and we just talk wrench them up. Its each type of connector has a different torque wrench.

The types are connected that we generally use. seven Mil which which is an APC seven mil connector which is a six sexless connector that goes to a 10 gig. Very good, very very precise connector. not in general use.

That's probably more standards laboratories than anybody else. The most common connector we you will come across in this industry is the N type connector the which is the Navy connector, B and C and T and C not generally used for precision devices. They I used low frequency devices. They can be good to.

The connector itself can be good to about 500 meek before you start to see any any real real damage. We generally don't don't use them in that frequency range in here. but the other devices that we use we use three and a half more connectors and 2.4 more connectors. This is related to the cross-sectional area of the context.

All right. So it's not not seven mile wide. All right, it's it's the area of it's seven. All right.

The end type is N type. Navy connected was developed in the 40s. The OPC seven or seven Mil connector was also developed 50s. I Think on pit bull-only the air will I'm only young for myself and the three Now the three and a half Mil divert developed from other connectors.

All right. so that the frequency limitations of each each range. So generally speaking and n type connectors good to a 10 gig. In some cases it's good 22 you the three and a half mil, 26 and a half kick can be good 233 gig to and they were started to get into the cabe end connectors which are compatible with three and half milk.

Then you get to the 2.4 2.4 Milka Nectars are good to 50 gigahertz which is the top end of a frequency range. Here we can go higher we can go to one little one little connectors but we have to get some younger mythologists in for that because it's all going to be a very fine connector and and some one of my vintage is a bit bit challenge bit challenge of those connector. so we get to supervisor people with good eyesight when it comes to that. So this kit here is basically for just calibrating RF power since that's the that's the main part of it but we also do s parameters for four filters couplers.

would you do cables and stuff like that? Yeah cables We can do cables. We we did TDR measurements on cables. So customers have delay lines and they need us to so they need to submit to you know how often does a delay line change when incentive boxes got to connectors on it But we have to calibrate it for the customers class of quality system. We do couplers.

we do attenuators, filters. these are all S parameters. So the forest parameters that we work with the S 1, 1, S 2, 2 S 1 2 and S 2 1 which is the four directions in in that two dimensional network we haven't gone into X X parameters in Australia. We haven't had a need so we can provide the calibration and traceability for X-parameters but our devices don't need X parameter testing, so we are purely credit for S parameters in that range.

All right. So that's four hundred thousand bucks worth a kit just to calibrate. That's right, That's right, that's believable. There's a bit of science behind it as well.

It's all science. A libration is that's what sets a Standards lab apart from a regular calibration lab, right? Well, no, the science is the same. It's the precision. Its precision that's different.

Precision, All right. So any quality system, any calibration that you do is a measurement against a reference. Yes, All right. If I give you a steel rule and say it's been measured to a traceable standard, that's fine.

It's if I measure dings to another steel rule and say this is good for four thirty thirty centimeters plus and minus five millimeters. All right, that's fine. The difference is if I sent it off to standards the Barrett Laboratory, it'll be 30 point Zero. Zero.

Five centimeters. Just plucking an Amaretto out of nowhere. The plus at plus or minus: So many microns against the laser interferometer, so it's the difference in precision more than the method. The methods methods.

There always has to be a repeatable method. There always has to be a documented method. There always has to be a quality system that backs it up. There's no point in a box coming in and me deciding I know how to do it and just plugging in in calibrating it and saying here, here's your box All right, It's it's really, you've got to have that documentation behind it because that's the basis of your quality system.

The part of Equality System is you have to keep a record of what you do. You have to keep a record of the calibration report and the certificate. We did that in the PDF format and it's globally backed up. So currently we've got about seven years worth of all the customer work that we've done in the last seven years.

anywhere. Internal work on a global server that's it's maintained and backed up and is accessible by customers as fast as I can get in the web. Now that brings you the question: if someone turns around to you and charges you an extra 150 or 200 dollars to provide a report, Are you paying? Are you paying for a copy of their PDF report or are you paying for for something else? All right. So we as a standard our standard offer as the calibration is to provide not only the quality system, the calibration, but we provide the report and the certificate as either a hard copy, the soft copy, or both.

Alright, so the soft copies available to customers that go on with our system called in phone line. So if you've got a customer, the huge database and a calibration lab or production laboratory has to maintain its records. So years and years of records get bigger and bigger and bigger and harder. The store.

It's acceptable to extorting by. PDF It's acceptable to have a third-party store them. So some of our customers are now using us for the storage of of their records. Oh, because we have to store them anyway.

that's right, and they can actually do it themselves. We'll do it themselves. They they can through Infoline. They can access that information as fast as they can, type type their login into it, and pull up the full history of that device.

we're supposed to maintain it for. it's at least seven years. Within our quality system, we're getting stuff maintained at least 10 years. In some instances, when we started doing it, when we started doing the on-site work, we'd do 200 jobs.

We would come back with this much paper because that's how much paperwork we gave their customer. right now. when we finish the job off within an hour of the last job being done, we present all the data to the customer on a CD and he's got a smile on his face. Instead, instead of going through each piece of paper, he's able to pull it up and check it up.

If he's quality system needs deemed ordered, he can pull it up on the web and do it that way. And this bit of kid is more than just buying off the shelf top in bits of agile English or and sticking it in a rack and I know background behind it as well. We have to maintain it and we have to maintain our traceability. and we have to.

We have to maintain your confidence level. It's not powered up, but there folks is a three. Hertz to 50 Kickers 50 Gigahertz Yeah. Measuring Receiver Measuring Receiver: which does basically it with everything it does.

from audio stuff it can do audio analysis to it goes from as I said from 3 Hertz at 50 gigahertz as a measuring receiver, it's good from 5 Meg up to 50 gigahertz on 1 Hertz Bandwidth As a measuring receiver, you can do modulation characteristics including it includes a an audio distortion analyzer built into it. It can be optioned up for other things. It can be optioned up as a noise figure meter can be optioned up as a phase noise system. Not as good as the A 5500 series.

Yeah, but it's um, it can do phase noise. Close relatively close in for those noisier sources like the Eagle sliders. What have we got in the cabinet there? Oh, that's just a storage system. What people love seeing like real sexy connectors and drawers that they do.

We just can't. We just keep some of our standards here. These are 77 mil. We talked about different connectors yesterday.

This is 7 mil sliding load Calculon Cal kit the 7 or connectors. Probably one of the best connectors for those of you they haven't seen it before. It's what we call a sexist sexless connector. Yep, that's a that's an open an open circuit.

You think Wine Earth would you have an open circuit? It's a rip. It's a relative. So it's a relative device for our short. So we've got a short and openly got it all right.

That's a short and open that. So these devices as we as we spoke yesterday that they go back two dimensional dimensional tolerances. And yep, so they go back to basic dimensional standards. Yep, and and the and the the type of material that's used.

So that's that's the open source. But if you look at the that's a broadband load and you can see that the connector in the center, the contact in the center story is six or so. It's not a male or a female. Yep, all right.

it has a sliver in the outside of it. so you get that those two planes mate together right through that sleeve. and when you do them up, instead of having a male and female, you have two to two devices there and you hook up the only certain one. Commonly, when we see devices come in, they've got seven more connectors on them.

People grab a set of Stillson's and tighten both of nuts. It's probably not the best thing to do from we talk about connected care, but there were that. What that does is put the connector under too much pressure. Yep, ain't can damage the front end of your unit.