I got my Agilent 6611B AC power source/analyzer a few weeks back, but hadn’t used it as much as I wanted. The reason was simple: The connections are made with rear mounted screw terminals – hence it was just a bit inconvenient to interface with products and circuits. The solution was really simple: A Hammond Manufactoring enclosure equipped with a European “Schuko”-style power outlet and some additional safety-banana jacks for prototyping.
The only other “feature” of the box is a dual pole switch. It doesn’t have any fuse built in – protection is handled by the AC power source itself (hopefully). Because the box is powered through an IEC connector it would technically be possible to supply it directly with line power, although there is almost no point in doing so…
I didn’t bother to implement external sensing, because I’ll use the Power Source more as a variable AC/DC power source than a precision analyzer. Also, having the sense lines connected properly at all times is absolutely critical, so a more exotic and expensive connector (and cable!) with at least 5 pins would have been required.
To remind me of the danger associated with a high energy high voltage source I added warnings to the silkscreen of the panels, some also found next to the output of the Agilent 6611B…
