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Old_Islander's avatar
Old_Islander
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Aug 23, 2018

12V Datalogger for Troubleshooting Charging System

Before I retired, used to use little inexpensive dataloggers in our systems to track the health of the main batteries (remote solar charged instrument arrays...). I've been having battery/charging issues with my 10 year old Okanagan TC. So picked up this little guy:

It's not as big as it looks in the pic -- maybe 4" long? Has a USB connector under a cap that plugs right into your PC. There is free downloadable software to downloading data and graphing.

More about it here: here: I picked mine up used on Ebay for just over twenty bucks including delivery.

Here's what you can see from it. This was a recent day-trip to Vancouver, requiring a 2 hour ferry ride. I've added notes showing what was happening. I've cut the graph into 2 pieces so it's large enough to read.



and



I have a timer set up to send shore power to the camper for 3 hours per day. Here's what a graph of that looks like:

Among other things, it has shown me that my battery is shot. :(

Let me know if you have any questions about it.
  • MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
    A to D acquisition board?

    I believe so... it is a self-contained logger with its own power supply, and data is output in corrected engineering values...
  • The first chart indicates that you either have a bad cell or a "phantom load".

    The last chart kind implies the same, bad cell or phantom load. The voltage should not drop off that fast or that much !
  • cooldavidt wrote:
    Thanks for this post- does the logger support Apple OS?
    Just had a look in their site, and it doesn't look like it does... :( Here's the ... link to that page

    I've never used Apple so don't know the tricks for running PC based SW on them. The device outputs via a USB tab in comma separated values. Is there a way you could download the CSV from the logger and plot in something else? I'm truly ignorant of Apple/Mac systems... :(

    BTW, I have mine logging a sample every 15 minutes and at this rate, its memory is good for about a year.
  • usb to PC

    but in what matter does it gather the data
    how does it interface with the batteries ?
  • The data logger is supplied with a cap featuring a pair of screw terminals and measurement leads terminating in crocodile clips.
  • red31 wrote:
    The data logger is supplied with a cap featuring a pair of screw terminals and measurement leads terminating in crocodile clips.

    Here's a pic of mine. I used larger croc clips so I could attach it to the battery posts. But you can use smaller ones too, that attach to connectors anywhere in your setup, where you'll get continuous battery voltage. I've pulled the cap off, so you can see the USB tab that plugs into your PC.

  • The data logger is supplied with a cap featuring a pair of screw terminals and measurement leads terminating in crocodile clips.


    (Meaning)

    The two clips can be attached to the two SMALL terminals on a current SHUNT which would record the AMPERAGE history in A to D mode.

    The data would be translatable via using a MILLIVOLT chart or conversion.
  • MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
    The data logger is supplied with a cap featuring a pair of screw terminals and measurement leads terminating in crocodile clips.


    (Meaning)

    The two clips can be attached to the two SMALL terminals on a current SHUNT which would record the AMPERAGE history in A to D mode.

    The data would be translatable via using a MILLIVOLT chart or conversion.


    They have a millivolt version just for that.