Hi,
I've managed to introduce the Arduino into my workplace. We make energy monitoring displays, and we use the Arduino to control our automatic test equipment.
The open-source data logger is of interest to me, and I am keen to see it happen. We currently use dataloggers from Picotech, but you always need the PC running and they are let down by flaky software and the inevitable crashes of windows.
I'd just like a box that you could connect up like a multichannel multimeter with lots of 4mm "bananna" plugs that will log to data-flash or SD memory, and only needs a dc power supply to make it work.
We've just built a 6 channel relay board that the Arduino plugs straight into, and it also uses a 4051 analogue mulltiplexer to provide 8 additional analogue input channels. We also buffer the PWM outputs to give us 4 channels of voltage output, one of which feeds through an opto-isolating op-amp to give a +/-10V swing - entirely isolated from the Arduino ground. A small +/-12V dc/dc converter supplies the isolated power.
The board is proving useful as a common starting point for the automated test equipment system we are building to test our main product. We've arranged it so that you can plug additional shields on top of the relay board, such as an ethernet shield for remote web control.
The next step is to provide a shield that carries an SD card for cheap data storage. I'm looking at a 2 memory system consisting of an Atmel 32Mbit data flash and a separate SD card which can be removed and plugged into a PC for data retrieval. Flash memory and SD cards are now dirt cheap so there is no real excuse these days not to have huge amounts of storage on a simple datalogger.
My interests include solar pV and solar waterheating - so I'm hoping to use the generic design as a solar pV datalogger and controller.
Other interests include low cost wireless and interfacing micros cheaply to the telephone network. I'd love to have a generic wireless interface that could connect a $2 micro to the web for under $10. That will truly be one step further towards "the internet of things".
As I'm predominantly a hardware engineer, I'd be looking to partner with anyone who would be willing to colaborate on the firmware aspects of the project.
G.