5560A/5550A/5540A Firmware

What’s New

The latest firmware updates for the Fluke 5560A/5550A/5540A bring some sought-after features that customers have requesting. The full list of key changes can be found below, but here are a few new additions to highlight:

Control up to three 52120A Transconductance Amplifiers via rear panel connector

Using the rear panel connector on your Fluke 5560A/5550A/5540A, you can now remotely control up to three 52120A Transconductance Amplifiers through your 5560A/5550A/5540A unit’s interface. Being able to control up to three Transconductance Amplifiers from one set of controls helps drive efficiency, saves time in set up, and enhances the user experience overall.
Fluke Coil support through the graphical user interface (GUI)

The display on your Fluke 5560A/5550A/5540A now can show the effective source current for the selected coil. Save time and uncertainty knowing exactly which coil is producing which amount of effective source current.
Display of Specification Information

Instead of doing the math outside of your Fluke 5560A/5550A/5540A unit, you can now use the GUI to display the calculations of how displayed specifications are derived. This takes the guesswork out of doing the calculations on your own and helps with traceability for maintaining quality control, ensuring safety, and avoiding costly errors.

To update a Fluke 5540A/5550A/5560A firmware follow these steps.

An empty USB stick (of greater than 10Mbytes) will be required. This should be formatted using the Microsoft FAT32 format.

Note: A Microsoft NTFS or exFAT formatted USB stick is not compatible with the instrument.

Expand the downloaded ‘update’ zip file and copy the contents onto the empty USB stick. The firmware file ends with a “.update” filename and this needs to be in the root directory of the USB stick.
Turn off the instrument, and then insert the USB stick into one of the front or rear USB slots, and then turn the instrument back on.
Confirm the firmware update when the unit displays a screen requesting confirmation to INSTALL or SKIP. Select INSTALL to proceed with the update.
The instrument will display progress bars during the update and will take several minutes. Do not turn the unit off during this process.
After the update the unit will reset. In early versions of firmware the instrument will prompt a second time for INSTALL or SKIP, select SKIP.

IMPORTANT –Selecting INSTALL again will re-write over the just completed upgrade and can result in the update process freezing.
Verify the firmware was updated by checking the Main SW Version in the SETUP -> ABOUT screen
***Note: Early instruments had a factory default for Current Output Limits were set 30.2 A. With support for the 52120A, starting with v3 firmware, the factory default was changed to 360 A. To maintain customer safety limits, the firmware upgrade process will not modify Output Current Limits. Users may want to manually set the Current Output Limits to the new factory defaults after upgrading firmware to a version greater than v3.

Key Changes for version 3.00.08:

This version applies to all 5540A/5550A and 5560A Calibrators

Disable the A8 during AC120V_DCOS_OSMEAS_GAIN_ZERO step.

Key Changes for version 3.00.07:

This version applies to all 5540A/5550A and 5560A Calibrators

Corrected formula for ppm and percent in the spec display
Changed Specification Unit button from “Always” to “Always PPM”

Key Changes for version 3.00.05:

This version applies to all 5540A/5550A and 5560A Calibrators

Remote control of up to three 52120A Transconductance Amplifiers via rear panel connector
Fluke Coil support via GUI. Display will show effective source current for selected coil. Specific coils supported are: NONE, 52120A/COIL3KA 25T, 52120A /COIL6KA 50T, 5500A/COIL 50T, 55XXA/COIL/10 10T, 55XXA/COIL/10 1T, 55XXA/COIL/10 2T, 55XXA/COIL/50 50T, 9100 Option 200 10T, 9100 Option 200 50T
Multi-Unit Calibrator Sync
Display of specifications in ppm
Display of Specification Information to provide information on how displayed specifications are derived
Added option to retry a failed zero adjust step
Changed allowed User Output Limits to support 52120A
Changed resolution of UI & remote commands to be the same
Improved V/Div limits in Scope functions
Improved stability of Zero calibration procedure
Enhanced the performance of Zero Adjust and Ohms Zero Functions
Fixed USBTMC interface bugs
Improved translations across the system
Standardized step names for consistency
Fixed an issue where the USB updater process would abort unexpectedly
Disabled the error mode slide-out in the scope-leveled sine function
Resolved the inability to access square wave frequencies above 10kHz
Corrected inaccuracies in performance specification formulas
Addressed low-frequency ACV overshoot issues
Resolved issues with text exceeding button boundaries
Enabled selection of a 20% duty cycle for the Scope Marker function
USB update recognize non partitioned USB drives
Scrolling improvements in Setup Menu
Fixed an issue where MULT command not working in Fahrenheit
Improved USB software update user interface screen
Fixed an issue where leveled sine specification should be blank at 50KHz
Fixed an issue where Retry step button is missing in diagnostic HALT mode
Adjusted waveform floor and lower limits
Fixed an issue where +/- key default behavior in scope functions
Fixed an issue where diagnostic step display is out of sync
Fixed an issue where the unit continues to show “Press Operate” for several seconds when it is already in Operate mode
Fixed an issue related to date format

Key Changes for version 2.00.08:

This version applies to all 5540A/5550A and 5560A Calibrators

Specifications are now available within scope functions
Corrected issues with phase adjustment in AC_POWER and ACV_ACV functions
Corrected issues with remote REFOUT? command to more closely match 5520A operation
Specifications are now available within DCV_DCV and ACV_ACV functions
Fixed issue in ACV_ACV function where error 4404 could occur
Toggling temperature between Celsius and Fahrenheit preserves full precision
Removed momentary spike in output when switching into scope measure capacitance (MEASC) function
Specifications are not shown outside specified range
Scope marker pulse width defaults to 1 msec rather than 1 usec
Corrected extraneous error 4009 in scope LEVSINE, EDGE, and MARKER functions
Corrected trigger signal specifications in scope MARKER function
Corrected occasional missing specifications when switching frequency ranges
Corrected inconsistent rounding of values between UI and remote interface in OVERLDAC and OVERLDDC functions
Corrected inability to slew following error 7005 in dual-output functions
Restore missing specifications in ACV_ACV function
Improvements to zero-adjust procedure
Improved performance in AC_POWER function