Open Source Data Logger Project Using the Arduino?

Hello Joker
I only just joined the discussion, please do not dispair!
Your project looks very promising.
Currently I am looking for a Arduino logger to monitor the energy used by my electric geyser. I need to simply measure the time it is used over a 1-2 week period, at the same time i also would like to monitor the geyser as well as the water inlet temperatur.
How far are you from publishing?

Hi Solar toy,

What is an electric geyser ? :o What is the temperature range you are interested in? In the begining, I will restrict the publication of the whole stuff to the members of my car club. We will see then. But I do not mind releasing portions of the micro code. Thus my questions :wink:

Beraking news: I cut down the writing time to 15ms thanks to, Oh yeah, I know this was trivial... a fast SD card...
The flash scan allows now one kind of scope acquisition (100µs resolution), 512 measurements for one channel, 256... for twice more, etc.
Now comes the question of uploading to a wireless network. Using the 300 bytes left in Flash memory... :stuck_out_tongue:

Hello Joker
A geyser is the thing in your attic that usally stores 150l of hot water.
Without it showering is only half the fun.
I do not need a complex logger. One measurement every minute is enough. As long as I have 2 off 0-5V analog inputs and 2 digital inputs I can help myself further to connect the sensors. The unit needs to operate stand alone, its a bit difficult to bring the PC into the attic :wink:
Any help is much appreciated. I use a Diecimila.

I see! Do not ask me why, the trivia name for it in French is balloon (hot water balloon to be accurate) :o
I am in the process of fine tuning the prototype and its micro-code. You will have to use a shield for the SD card: you may consider Adafruit's one (blank GPS shield) or make your own from the Adafruit's proto shield and hack a 1$ USB SD card reader. Then you might not need all the functions that I designed (100 bytes left in Flash...). I will consider publishing a lighweight version. :sunglasses:
Kind regards
Didier

Joker,

Joyeux Noel!

I read with interest about your datalogger. For many people, a generic datalogger (or datalogger library) could form the basis of their latest project.

SD memory is definitely the cheapest option, and being able to buffer 512 bytes in the Arduino RAM and then write a block to the SD card is probably the most efficient use of memory and power saving.

For many, a few analogue inputs, which can then be interfaced to a variety of sensors (light, temperature, current, voltage etc) plus some digital pulse-counter channels would satisfy their requirements.

Are you close to publishing your code? I would be most interested.

I have an Arduino and Ethernet Shield and I am serving the output from some analogue sensors to the internet via Pachube - see it here:

http://www.pachube.com/feeds/1257

G

Hi Guinnessimo,

Thanks paying attention to my project. Where am I? Well, ahead from my early plans. What was a curiosity to me is slowly turning to a real project... I showed the prototype to the CEO of my group 8-), and he is very enthusiastic... :slight_smile:

So that the publication of my works depends on the production of the project which slightly moved towards the concept of an "intelligent sensor" for environmental monitoring. I will let you know :wink:

Joker,

Thanks for your quick reply.

I am interested in using the Arduino to monitor home energy consumption with the aim of allowing users to save energy and save money.

Additionally, the Arduino with an ethernet shield is one of the cheapest solutions (< 30 Euros) to how you can serve real time data to the internet.

With many users sharing their home energy data, it then becomes a competition to use the least energy, and thus lower their domestic carbon footprint.

The Arduino could also be used to measure the output from renewable energy sources such as solar water heating, windpower and photovoltaic.

If many people shared their renewable energy generation data via the internet, it could be used to build up national statistics about the quantity and distribution of renewable energy installations.

If we are expected to reach 20% renewables by 2020, then we must find an effective way of monitoring our progress and logging the installations.

Already some people have solar water heating controllers, and electricity meters that output data - and perhaps the <30 Euro Arduino is a good low-cost way to publish this information to the internet.

G

Hi Guinnessimo,

I have a strong concern for these energy saving questions. If I had the time... I would investigate the question of the "intelligent" house too. I feel a little sorry not to disclose my works so far.

About the Ethernet connection: As you know, France is part of the "old continent" and most houses are not fitted with networks or what so ever... Mine was built... 2 siecles ago! Thus my concern for wireless...

Joker,

By 2020 the EU will have smart meters for electricity and gas. Italy already has started fitting them now.

The utility companies are very slow to adopt new technology - they do not want to spend money unless they have to - or are forced by EU Law!

In the meantime, there are a few low cost energy monitors such as Electrisave/Cent-a-Meter, CurrentCost, Wattson and a few new ones just coming to the market. Some of these have data output which can connect to a PC or serial logging device.

Someone has worked on the Electrisave wireless protocol so that it can be decoded by a PC or Arduino - using just a very low cost 433MHz receiver (taken from wireless doorbell).

For many people, just to see approximately how much energy they are using, and how much it costs, is enough to make them save. The accuracy of the energy monitors is not too good - perhaps +/- 10%, but that is close enough for the average home user.

For those without ethernet or broadband internet there are several ways in which a logger can get data to a server via a plain old telephone line. It is possible to implement the DTMF dial and simple modem functions into an ATmega168.

I hope that you will soon be in a position to share your project ideas more.

Bon Annee a Vous!

G

Joker, List,

Here is an excellent description of a home-built datalogger based around ATmega and SD card.

http://www.turtlesarehere.com/html/data_logger.html

It includes the code and the schematics/layout in Eagle format.

The hardware is simple to adapt from an Arduino.

The "Captain's Universe" is a good source for interfacing SD card to ATmega.

Happy New Year,

G

Nice link G...

I've been working on my own device which boils down to a data logger with a gps and an XBee attached, so I've been following this thread with some interest as well.

I've also found these links to other GPS loggers to be interesting:

http://hackedgadgets.com/2008/11/30/gps-data-logger-using-an-sd-card/

http://www.gedanken.demon.co.uk/gps-sd-logger/ (the completed unit picture seems to be missing now)

At any rate, here's some more food for thought.

Brad.

Gentlemen,

Its been a while since I last accessed this forum, my interest in a open source data logger based on the Arduino had to be placed on the shelf as I was dealing with a lot of other projects, the paying ones had to come first!

I am still dealing with several calls daily with projects where the Ardunio would be an ideal fit. Basic research applications where they have a zero budget and an open source solution would solve all their problems.

I am thinking about creating a specific website which will act as a central resource for open source data logger projects, allowing the less technical to communicate with us with there project idea's. Additionally, It might also work as a place for developers to share code between each other and exchange idea's.

I had plans on competitions, prizes, etc to generate interest and give some incentive for everyone to contribute, I have had both positive and negative comments on implementing this.

What do you you all think? Good or bad idea?

I noticed that this thread has been viewed over 10,000 times!! It would appear that there is a lot of interest out there.

I was thinking of developing a general purpose sensor interface peripheral
for my ZB1 board (Loading...). The new board would consist of
four channels of instrument amps or op-amps. I would include a reference,
a negative 5V supply and a little prototyping area. The datasheet
would include a detailed op-amp tutorial.

Since the ZB1 can be connected to a backplane other peripherals like an
SD card could easily be added. Also the ZB1 has an XBee so remote logging
is possible.

I would be interested to hear what types of sensors people use and what difficulties
were encountered.

(* jcl *)

Hi All,

I'm new to the forum. I just want to say that this is a very interesting project. Lots of monitoring in the geotechnical engineering industry require small loggers in the field. Leaving a $500 logger out in the middle of no-where is not ideal. This would be a great application for this project.

Hello,
I have a need for a different type of data logger. I want to log incoming ASCII serial data to an SD card. I also want to send commands to the attached instrument. I'm thinking that I can use the Adafruit GPS/SD logger shield, but rather than a GPS, I'll attach my device (an ADCP). I haven't found any simpler or cheaper SD card shields.

I'm in the fortunate position of having plenty of (solar) power available, but I have some other applications where this may not be the case.

This could also be used to add memory to instruments where memory upgrades are either unavailable or expensive using the serial output.

There are devices such as the logomatic from sparkfun which comes close, but I'd like to build this around an arduino. I'd also like to use a FAT16 or even FAT32 formatted card. Unless I'm mistaken (which is probable) this shouldn't be too hard to do, especially with an Atmega328.

-RyanN

Hi! I'm new to this forum, so I apologize if anything I say is out of context. As a mechanical engineer at a product design company, I'm very interested in a cheap data logger.

Is there a way that we can all put our minds together to create a "Product Requirements" document? There seems to be a significant amount of knowledge and ideas, and it would great if we can compile them. I'm not sure if this is the forum to make a collaborative document, but I'm willing to give it a shot!

From my brief skimming of the posts, I think that as requirements we have the following:

PRODUCT REQUIREMENTS

  1. Completely Open-Source, running off of the Arduino Hardware
  2. Portable, to record data "in the field"
  3. Able to store data to some sort of mass storage (SD, USB, etc.)
  4. Read inputs from a variety of instruments, most importantly:
  • temperature
  • GPS
  • fluid pressure
  • air speed
  • light
  • electrical inputs (voltage, current, etc.)
  1. Interface with a GUI/graphing software

I know this is a couple steps back from what some people have done, but it would be nice to have a "common goal" in our collaborative efforts!

Aside from the GUI requirement, I think that pretty much nails it. At least for myself, I envision this thing being a headless, disconnected entity that does its sensing autonomously, and the user retrieves the data by grabbing the SD card.

I think a solid, reusable library for reading and writing to SD cards is what's really lacking, right now. There are a few floating around, but nothing's really been well-packaged for use on the Arduino. Now that the 328 is available, I think that should be a relatively straightforward endeavor.

Having just purchased a gigalog E datalogger for about 260 euros, I would very much welcome a cheaper version. The sort of stuff I need to log is GPS signals along side, side scan sonar and metal detector signals.

Having never used a datalogger, the PDF manual I have could have been far better. There are too many abbreviations and a lack of clarity. If you are going to aim for a wider market then the manual will be all important.

If you have the time, one question, If you are logging a signal from a headphone feed, there are three wires, left and right channel plus the ground. I take it only one of the channels needs logging, but does the ground wire need connecting? :slight_smile:

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.