-------------------------Monitor------------------------ The Newsletter for PC-Based Data Acquisition and Control Issue 103 www.windmill.co.uk February 2007 --------------------ISSN 1472-0221---------------------- Hello. Thank you everyone who completed the survey in our last issue. The results are below. I hope you enjoy the newsletter but should you wish to cancel your subscription, you can do so at https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html CONTENTS ======== * Windmill News: Survey Response * Windmill Tips: LabIML Checklist * Excel Corner: How to Plot One Variable Against Another on a Column Chart * DAQ News Roundup ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Windmill News: Survey Response ________________________________________________________ Last month we asked you to fill in a survey to help us improve this newsletter and our support service. Thank you very much to all who did. The most popular topics were the Excel corner, tutorials, and stories about real-world instances of data acquisition. Over 90% of you were very or fairly interested in these topics. The least popular section was the exhibition listings, with 53% being not at all interested. Because of this we plan to reduce the frequency of the exhibition listings to once every four months - that is in December, April and August. The most common request was for a step-by-step guide to configuring Windmill software. Starting today we'll include a series of checklists on using the software. If you haven't yet completed the survey, but would like to have your say in the direction of the newsletter, go to https://www.windmill.co.uk/monitor102.html ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Windmill Tips: LabIML Checklist ________________________________________________________ LabIML is the Windmill 4.3 serial driver which is free to our subscribers. Once you have unpacked and installed your Windmill programs, follow these steps. You only need to do this the first time you use Windmill. From then on you can simply load the Logging and Charting programs. 1. Run Windmill ConfIML. This detects the device drivers on your computer (such as LabIML for serial devices) and lets you select the appropriate settings for these drivers. 2. In ConfIML press the Add button and select the LabIML RS232 ASCII Instrument Handler. 3. Type the name of your instrument and the number of channels of data you want to collect. If you were collecting latitude, longitude and depth readings for example, you would need 3 channels. 4. Choose the Reading Protocol of your instrument. - If your instrument automatically sends data at regular intervals choose Continuous flow. - If your instrument needs a command before supplying data choose Request/Response. 5. You can generally leave the other instrument settings at the defaults, but make sure that the data persistence time is longer than your idle time (if using). 6. You now need to define how to extract data. (Windmill doesn't just store the entire message: it extracts the relevant data from each message, directing each data item to a channel.) Press the Channels buttons and enter a Reply Parse string. See Issue 69 of Monitor or https://www.windmill.co.uk/parse.html for more details. 7. The next step is to enter your communications settings: baud rate, com port, etc. 8. Save your settings and close ConfIML. 9. Run the SetupIML program. This lets you specify how you want to use your instrument. Select LabIML from the Device menu and double-click your channels to choose names, units, ranges and alarm levels. 10. You are now ready to use the Windmill logging, charting, display and control programs. More Help ========= We have guides to configuring the software with specific instruments, including Mettler Toledo balance, Parallax BASIC Stamp and Transcell Digital Indicator. These are listed at https://www.windmill.co.uk/software.html#technicalsupport You might find our Technical Support FAQ and Installation Guide useful at https://www.windmill.co.uk/techsupp.html. If you find any of our technical support documents difficult to understand please let us know! ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Excel Corner: How to plot one variable against another on a Column Chart ________________________________________________________ The most common way to plot one variable against another, temperature against rainfall say, is to use an x-y scatter chart. However, if you wish you can instead use a column chart. Imagine you have a spreadsheet with three columns. The first contains the time the data was collected, the second contains the temperature reading and the third the rainfall reading. 1. Insert a blank row before the column headings. 2. Select the temperature and rainfall columns, including the blank cell before the column headings. 3. From the Insert menu choose Chart. 4. Choose a column chart and step through the chart wizard, leaving everything at the default values. 5. The x values will be temperature and the y values rainfall. 6. Right-click one of the columns and choose Source Data. 7. For the series name type Rainfall. For more tips on charting with Excel see https://www.windmill.co.uk/excel/excel-charting.html For more tips on using Excel for data acquisition and analysis see https://www.windmill.co.uk/excel/ https://www.windmill.co.uk/excel/excel-charting.html ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ DAQ News Roundup ________________________________________________________ Welcome to our roundup of the data acquisition and control news. If you would like to receive more timely DAQ news updates then grab our RSS newsfeed at https://www.windmillsoft.com/monitor.xml. Read https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsfeed.php for notes on how to display the news on your own web site, read it via e-mail or through a newsfeed viewer. From Farm Waste to Fuel Tanks Scientists have devised a methane storage system, derived from corncobs, that may encourage mass-market natural gas automobiles. The new system commprises carbon briquettes with complex nanopores capable of storing natural gas at an unprecedented density of 180 times their own volume and at one seventh the pressure of conventional natural gas tanks. The breakthrough is a significant step forward in the U.S. effort to fit more automobiles to run on methane. Source: National Science Foundation http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=108390 Sea Creatures to Be Tracked Electronically In a modern update of "fish and chips," researchers are planning a worldwide effort to track the movement of sea creatures tagged with electronic devices. Sea life will be tagged so they can then be tracked as they swim past arrays of sensors placed at critical locations in the oceans. The goal is to eventually have 5,000 ocean receivers arranged in 60 lines worldwide, capable of tracking up to 1 million animals at the same time. Source: Environmental News Network http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12202 EU Directives Increase Water Automation System Uptake Many parts of Eastern Europe and Iberia suffer from poor infrastructure with respect to water distribution and waste water treatment. Accession countries (to the European Union) will face the maximum impact of EU regulation. According to a Frost & Sullivan report large-scale investment in water treatment plants in Eastern Europe and Iberia is already happening, as well as in parts of Italy and Benelux, with a resulting increase in the uptake of automation and control solutions. One of the key challenges for manufacturers is to provide systems that seamlessly integrate with existing plant infrastructure. This explains the need to provide automation and control systems that are compatible with, and easy to integrate into, current systems. Source: Frost & Sullivn http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/ Bulging bumper could speed journey to computerised carriageways Investigations by engineers at The University of Manchester into an extendable car bumper could help speed along the arrival of computer-controlled motorways. A paper presented at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress and Exhibition offers a glimpse of how a high-tech motorway network could operate safely in the future. Vehicles would not be independently driven, but regulated and controlled via information beamed from transmitters at the side of the road. The authors scooped Best Scientific Paper for their 'bridging damper' in the event of a signal failure. This would be an intelligent bumper, which would extend to touch the car in front, should the main communication system break down. Source: The University of Manchester http://www.manchester.ac.uk/ ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ * Copyright Windmill Software Ltd * Reprinting permitted with this notice included * For more articles see https://www.windmill.co.uk We are happy for you to copy and distribute this newsletter, and use extracts from it on your own web site or publication, providing the above notice is included and a link back to our website is in place. An archive of previous issues is at https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html and an index of articles at https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html Windmill Software Ltd, PO Box 58, North District Office, Manchester, M8 8QR, UK Telephone: +44 (0)161 834 6688 Facsimile: +44 (0)161 833 2190 E-mail: monitor@windmillsoft.com https://www.windmill.co.uk/ https://www.windmillsoft.com/ Do you have a question, comment or suggestion on this newsletter? 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February 2007
