Second today is a driver for the line of Solartron’s 70x1 digital bench multimeters. Similar to the Datrons, there were models with preconfigured options sold under a 10x2 designation which are supported as well plus a few outliers in terms of model designation numbering. No wonder as Solartron was also a UK based manufacturer and these models compoete with Datrons at the same time. BTW, Solartron happend to have a DMM with Panaplex display as well, the 7075, a predecessor to the line supported here.
The Solartron digital multimeters are very sophisticated instruments for their time that offer freely configurable integration times, measurement history via display, different output string modes via GPIB and much more. Similar to the Datrons, they are sought by avid amateurs for their resolution capabilities and maybe because they look like pulled out of Cpt. Piccard’s console on the bridge of the Enterprise.
Hello Christian,
thank you for your continuous contribution of SweepMe drivers!
The driver is now available to download in SweepMe! using the version manager.
You can find the driver information page on the SweepMe! webpage here.
I recently had a special usecase wherein I needed to make rapid measurements on two DMMs interleaved at only 4.5 digit resolution for which I chose the Solarton 7061 and the Agilent 34401A. It turnes out that this can sporadically be too fast for the Solartron, causing it to miss the read-out command. It can work for five minutes flawlessly one time and causing a timeout within a few seconds the next time, so it is probably just a tiny bit timing critical.
The Datron driver caused these kind of issues right from the start, every time, which is why there is a delay of 0.1s implemented. The Solartron is of the same age but while the Datron uses a Motorola MC68488P interface IC in combination with a MC6800P CPU, the Solartron 7061 relies on a TI TMS9914ANL in combination with the improved Motorola MC68B09P CPU, probably giving it a faster communication capability.
I would advise to insert a tiny delay for additional safety without creating a new branch for this. Could you add a small delay to the Solartron driver? I guess 0.05 should suffice.
Hi Christian,
thank you for sharing your experience with the device!
I have added the delay and updated the driver to version 2025-02-27. It is now available for download in SweepMe!.