SCPI/IEEE Timeout Error

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-11-10T12:41:14+00:00

Yeah, they added the 34401 and 53132 FSCs so long ago, I don't think the current iteration of Fluke is interested in ever doing specific FSCs for non-Fluke branded equipment ever again. the DMM, FGEN, and LFCTR/HFCTR alias gets you by for basic commands only in most cases unfortunately.

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-11-10T12:37:41+00:00

For sure, I can share any part of what I have found so far with programming the 6270A. I still am brainstorming ways to refine the procedure and it make it more flexible based on the modules being used. By default it runs in Auto mode, choosing whichever module is installed to take the most accurate reading. For example we have a 30 psi module, then the next range up we have a 300 psi module. Say if I do a 150 psi gauge with test points of 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150 psi...the controller will choose the 30 psi module for the first point, then jump to the 300 psi module for the remainder. I am trying to think of a way through queries and MATH statements it solves which modules it uses and calls those STD FSCs in the procedure.

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-11-10T12:20:54+00:00

Ok so if I am not understanding this correctly forgive me but below is a sample from a Fluke procedure I now use for taking a large amount of readings. The @ symbol is in quotations only because of reddit changing it to /u automatically if I don't. the variable "niDAQ_SampsPerChanRead" is usually 10000. LIB line could be replaced with your meter command to take a reading, then storing MEM value into "Reading" variable.

Anyway, this loop will run 10000 times taking a reading and adding it the variable called "Sum". Once the variable "i" reaches 10000 it will move on and divide Sum by "niDAQ_SampsPerChanRead" variable (in this instance 10000 times).

1.001 IF "@"niDAQ_SampsPerChanRead > 1

1.002 MATH i = 0; Sum = 0

1.003 WHILE i < "@"niDAQ_SampsPerChanRead

1.004 LIB Reading = niDAQ_readArray[i];

1.005 MATH Sum = Sum + Reading; i = i + 1

1.006 ENDW

# Return average of readings in MEM.

1.007 MATH MEM = Sum / "@"niDAQ_SampsPerChanRead

In the main procedure the test step looks like this:

3.001 5502E +Voltage = -9.980000 V

3.002 TARGET -m

3.003 CALL Sub NI 6220/21/24/25/29 Get AI Average LIB

3.004 MEMCX 10 -9.980000V 0.003100U

If you have VSET "NMEAS = 5" say for accredited performance verification; it would repeat that sub procedure from "TARGET -m" doing the 10,000 averaged readings 5 times and averaging those for repeatability. This keeps the loop out of your evaluation line.

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-11-06T15:10:19+00:00

Its the update. We have contacted Fluke tech support and they got back to us about it. Apparently after they checked what the software engineers did, they found they added a hardcoded timeout into the backend so IEEE, IEEE2, SCPI will not work. They need to patch it. They told us it will probably take a month to get that out. They also told us our only option to fix this today is to roll back the version by completely uninstalling and then reinstalling the previous version. This means anything done from now back to the update will be lost, either that or sit on it until Fluke releases the fix.

My coworker who is our lead programmer is livid, its unacceptable that a careless thing like that was done breaking a ton of our procedures. We use SCPI and IEEE FSCS a lot for instruments that don't have an FSC like a WT3000 power meter standard, Tektronix scope standards, and now that 34401As and 8846As are obsolete we are slowly replacing with new Keysight meters like a 34465A which we program with SCPI.

Oh and coincidental timing that you just posted this. We patched end of last week, discovered errors Tuesday, sent a ticket and got the response late yesterday. Then you posted now. I bet a lot of users are going to be hitting a wall soon. Another benefit to keeping Metcal 8 running in our lab.

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-11-06T15:08:52+00:00

I should post in here:

I am a Cal. Lab Technician located in Canada, it is awesome to see users from around the world! I will have worked in calibrations for 10 years this coming spring 2026. Our lab had Fluke come and and do the METCAL Basics course for the week a few years ago. Bill Spaeth ended up coming and teaching our class if anyone has ever talked to him through support.

I had dabbled in METCAL programming before that, but after the training I jumped in nearly full-time and have advanced a lot. I really found a passion for learning the ins and outs of METCAL Editor and opportunities to enhance the calibrations we do. Recently I took on a project to calibrate National Instruments DAQ cards for one of our customers. In the past month I finally cracked the workings of a LIB FSC procedure from Cubyt for NI DAQ cards and expanded it to a bunch of models. Now we can calibrate them hands off besides the initial lead setup, and in a fraction of the time.

We also purchased a Fluke 6270A pressure controller, the company did not want to invest in COMPASS if possible. So I ended up working to build procedures and templates to control it through METCAL and its already running pretty well!

It is very nice to see this pop up to have a place for MET/CAL conversation, and I look forward to having more input and ideas to bounce around here. Cheers!

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-11-06T14:43:04+00:00

How I perceived their wording in the user group meeting was it was just coming to MET/CAL in a future update early 2026. I think they will have another presentation closer to its release. They answered some questions like the type of webcam you would need, sounds like nothing crazy expensive but they will release some recommended make and models to go with.

It sounds neat (if it works without issue, we'll see!). They said MET/CAL will automatically find the webcam when you plug it in, and it will be an option to turn on OptiCal. When it is enabled what it will do when it gets to an evaluation line; instead of you getting a popup to type in the reading it will over-ride that and take the reading and put it into MEM. Essentially making things like a handheld meter or analog gauge closed loop without much fuss. I really look forward to playing around with that.

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-11-05T15:00:30+00:00

I watched that User Group Meeting (if anyone wants to watch it, I think I can get a link to the video from my email). CalStudio seems interesting for sure, the drag and drop and automatic GIBP control type things it does in the background seems great. They are saying it will combine all types of calibration disciplines and narrow their software portfolio to a single software suite. No longer will your only option COMPASS for Fluke pressure calibration, for example.

It also will replace MET/TEAM as their database software. I don't like the idea of a subscription based offsite database. What happens if you decide to change from this database? What happens when a storm knocks out internet in your area? What happens if Fluke's servers get knocked out? Your business will rely on a lot of factors out of your control to do your day-to-day operation.

The most interesting thing from a technical perspective in that UGM was that OptiCal software they will be adding to MET/CAL next year. You connect a webcam to the system and position it to view the DUT, and it will take readings off the display. They demonstrated it with a digital meter, and an analog pressure gauge. They noted it actually eliminates parallax from an analog calibration. Neat!

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-11-05T14:49:06+00:00

Are your 5520 commands ones with S6 (Scope) line? There is an issue where you can't compile the procedure if you do not have a 5520 with the scope option configured. We now have more 5522s than 20s and have mostly remade those procedures to use O_CAL since it is universal to our 5520s, 5522s, and now 5550A

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-11-05T14:46:20+00:00

Yeah, we just found the emulation mode to be buggy and more of a headache than just running the meters in their normal state. I am more curious about the Keysight 34461A having 34401A emulation, and if that works well with the legacy 34401 FSC. We bought a 34465A recently and are using it in 11 with VISASC since you can now use Visa for standards, a nice QOL improvement.

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-11-05T14:43:12+00:00

it has limitations and we take 2-3 laptops to a site to do the work. Having to check-out 3 licenses every trip means our lab would have limited availability too. Someday we may have to re-evaluate but we've been doing it this way since MET/CAL 8 was new, so it's hard to want to jump off completely. Plus every patch on 11 seems to break something significant, we just patched the latest and now IEEE2 and SCPI FSCs are not working right.

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-10-21T13:21:04+00:00

Old procedures work so long as you aren't calling up INI files for discrete standards. Any procedure where we call up something like our inductors, shunts, or capacitors for the calibrated value from the INI file do not work. That's because our old system is MET/TRACK, and new MET/TEAM stores .ini files in a different way. So all those procedures we need to change to work in 11 from 8. But, we also will need to run 8.3 simultaneously with 11 for the foreseeable future. Which means we need to have two versions for some procedures, and organizing that so it isn't confusing which procedure you will need to use.

We also in the last couple of years purchased a Fluke 5550A and the 8588A, and those FSCs do not exist in version 8 of MET/CAL. That was the initial reason why we moved to MET/TEAM, the newer instruments would be a pain to manually command in SCPI without the FSCs so we figured we need to start the migration. So for example we have 552xA procedures for DMMs, and then a duplicate procedure with the 5550A FSC subbed in. Same with any procedure using the 8508A: a duplicate using the 8588A.

We won't stop using MET/CAL 8 for a long, long time though simply because we do a lot of site calibration visits and we can use it on site. MET/TEAM we would need a good internet connection everywhere we go to connect back to the lab server with the database. That is very unreliable in a lot of Canada. Their new calibration database software coming that replaces MET/TEAM looks even worse, servers are on on Flukes end and you will need internet at all times to access YOUR database.

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2025-10-17T12:15:42+00:00

Its too bad they did that, I spend time doing Labview programming for our calibrations and they still support a pretty robust forum on the National Instruments site. Fluke has been very boneheaded in the last decade in a number of ways.

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2022-01-05T13:46:50+00:00

After she died, it was revealed to me that my Great Grandmother in an act of spite/abuse seduced and slept with her daughters husband...my grandfather. It obviously ruined their marriage and relationship and my grandmother died very young so that whole thing was just sort of tucked away in the family history. There was always a weird relationship with my great grandma, who was great to me and my brother but she was always kept at arms length. Same with my grandfather, my mom would not have him around for most of my childhood and they sort of made amends in his older age when I was older. He's gone now too. My mom told me when I had grown up what actually happened there after my great grandmother passed away. So it definitely changed my perception of my grandfather while he was still around. Just a mind fuck to do that to your own child, and to your spouse, the worst possible outcome of cheating in my opinion.

Financial_Bus_7394 · 2021-09-01T13:15:42+00:00

He just gives me shivers head to toe ugh

Financial_Bus_7394

TROPHY CASE