HP HP 8712ET, User Manual, Page: 254 / 480

6-28 ET User’s Guide
Calibrating for Increased Measurement Accuracy
Checking the Calibration
Checking the Calibration
Your analyzer has a calibration check feature that can compute and
display corrected measurement uncertainties (residual errors) that apply
to the current instrument settings and calibrations.
During a calibration check, you are prompted to connect calibration
standards to your measurement ports. These standards are measured
with the current calibration corrections applied, and the residual errors
are then calculated and can be displayed.
Using Calibration Check for Analysis and
Troubleshooting
The calibration check feature can be a useful tool to help you
troubleshoot poor measurements and to help you determine how often to
perform calibrations on your analyzer.
Troubleshooting
with Calibration
Check If you suspect that you may not be making valid measurements, you can
use the calibration check to confirm that your current measurement
calibration is valid or to reveal that it is faulty. Using a different set of
calibration standards for the calibration check than the ones you used for
the initial calibration will help you to rule out the possibility of degraded
or faulty cal standards.
Using Calibration
Check to
Determine
Calibration
Interval Using the calibration check feature can help you determine the optimum
calibration interval for your analyzer in your particular environment.
Calibrations can degrade over time due to temperature drift, connector
wear, cable movements, etc.
To use the calibration check feature to determine the best calibration
interval for your measurements:
1. Perform the type of calibration desired.
2. Determine the residual errors by doing a calibration check.
3. Plot the results to disk or to hard copy for later comparison.
4. Compare subsequent calibration checks against the initial one and
keep track of the time interval between the first calibration check and
later ones.