Monitor - ISSN 1472-0221
The Newsletter for PC-Based Data Acquisition and Control
Issue 200, March 2015
Welcome to the 200th issue of Monitor! We've been publishing the newsletter for over sixteen years and in that time have covered many measurement and control topics. For those who haven't been with us for all that time, all our articles are archived on the web site. See the full list below. And if there is anyone who has been a subscriber since the early issues, please get in touch - we'd love to hear from you.
Should you wish to remove yourself from our mailing list, go to the Newsletter page
You can download Monitor as a pdf file, and the Windmill data capture software.
Contents
* Monitor: 200 Issues of Articles
* Windmill Questions
* DAQ News Round-up
Monitor: 200 Issues of Articles
Web link: Monitor Index
We've covered a lot of subjects in our 16 years - here are links to the main articles in each issue - hope you find it useful.
The subject index shows the progress of technology. For instance, our issue on communications between computer and instruments in 1998 made no mention of wireless networks. These didn't become popular for data acquisition until some years later.
Many of the articles though, are still as relevant now as when we wrote them.
You may reprint any of our articles providing you credit the author (Windmill Software unless otherwise stated) and place a link back to the source on the Windmill web site.
Communications | Data Acquisition and Control Articles | Interfacing Instruments | Windmill Notes | Applications of Data Acquisition | Windmill Products | Other
- Bluetooth: Issue 110
- Capturing Data from High-Numbered Com Ports: Issue 177
- COM port settings: Issue 166
- Debugging serial communications: Issue 190
- GPIB: Issue 28
- GPRS and GSM: Issue 110
- I2C bus: Issue 56
- Internet of Things: Issue 186
- modbus: Issues 32, 72, 187
- NMEA: Issues 52, 109
- OBD: Issue 107
- RS232 pins: Issue 42
- RS232 handshaking: Issue 199
- RS232 troubleshooting: Issue 83
- RS232 - Ethernet: Issue 112
- RS232 - USB: Issue 99
- RS232: Issue 15
- rs422: Issue 32
- rs485: Issue 32
- TCP/IP: Issues 161, 187
- USB devices under Windows 8: Issue 188
- USB: Issues 24, 186
- USB-Serial: Issues 99, 100
- Wibree: Issue 110
- wi-fi: Issue 82
- WiMax: Issue 110
- Wireless: Issues 82, 110
- Wireless Hart: Issue 110
- ZigBee: Issue 110
Data Acquisition and Control Articles
- accuracy: Issue 196
- analogue inputs: Issue 4
- analogue outputs: Issue 36
- choosing a daq system: Issues 194, 49
- control: Issues 36, 71
- counter and timers: Issue 192
- counting and timing terms: Issue 7
- current: Issue 69
- difference between instrument, device, channel and module
- data logging: Issue 79
- dgps: Issue 89
- differential inputs: Issue 11
- digital outputs: Issue 71
- drift and calibration: Issue 96
- electoforming: Issue 37
- emission monitoring : Issue 6
- energy monitoring: Issue 39
- engineering units: Issue 27
- excitation: Issue 106
- filtering: Issue 8
- gas sensors: Issue 91
- gps: Issue 30
- isolation: Issue 64
- measurement standards: Issue 14
- multiplexing: Issue 26
- noise: Issue 169
- pH: Issues 92, 93
- precision: Issue 196
- process mimic design: Issue 9
- product testing: Issue 12
- rainfall: Issue 23
- range and resolution: Issue 95
- relay switching: Issue 71
- resistance: Issue 1
- rtd: Issue 5
- sampling rate: Issue 130
- signal conditioning: Issues 8, 49
- simultaneous sampling: Issue 26
- single-ended inputs: Issue 11
- strain: Issue 17
- thermocouple: Issues 5, 50
- transient capture: Issue 59
- triggering acquisition: Issue 45
- voltage: Issue 49
- weather: Issue 23
- windspeed: Issue 23
- Adam 4018 Thermocouple Input Module: Issue 166
- Froude Consine Texcel: Issue 87
- Garmin GPS: Issue 115
- ICP DAS I-7000 Module: Issue 135
- Mettler Toledo: Issue 84
- Molytek 2702: Issue 33
- Ohaus balance: Issue 198
- Parallax basic stamp: Issue 85
- Quadra Check 2000: Issue 36
- Remontic sonar: Issue 132
- tensiometer: Issue 80
- torque: Issue 126
- Sartorius: Issue 114
- Sylvac Dial Gauge: Issue 116
- YSI Dissolved Oxygen Meter: Issue 191
- installing: Issue 19
- tips on using: Issue 178
- files - Windmill: Issue 56
- files - backup: Issue 113
- files - setup : Issue 87
- alarm handling: Issue 68
- charting data: Issue 34
- data logging: Issues 20, 78
- logging data when you press a button on your instrument: Issue 163
- Manually Entering Data into a Log File, Issue 77
- DDE: Issue 67
- parsing data: Issue 69
- pid control: Issue 81
- using Windmill with digital outputs: Issue 47
- COMIML: Issues 95, 104
- using Windmill Graphics: Issue 75
- IML Tools checklist: Issue 105
- using Windmill with plcs: Issue 47
- connecting USB units: Issue 94
Applications of Data Acquisition
- measuring the desiccation and cracking of soil: Issue 198
- researching crop efficiency: Issue 195
- cancer research - interfacing methanol sensor system: Issue 193
- environmental monitoring - pollution from salmon farming: Issue 189
- real-time monitoring of ship structures at sea: Issue 181
- testing trains: Issue 173
- investigating flood effects on building materials: Issue 171
- Windmill Strain Package aids fit of Prosthetic Limbs : Issue 167
- sensors in agriculture: Issue 127
- radioactive research: Issue 111
- continuous gas monitoring - soil health: Issue 97
- passenger counting: Issue 95
- environmental monitoring - climate change: Issue 90
- locating moving vehicles: Issue 89
- eco-house monitoring: Issue 87
- materials testing: Issue 81
- computerised irrigation: Issue 80
- seabed surveying and mapping: Issue 76
- environmental monitoring - oil pollution: Issue 75
- wine bottling quality control: Issue 65
- brake testing in trains: Issue 63
- crash testing: Issue 62
- pollution monitoring of submarine springs: Issue 58
- food processing (interfacing I2C bus): Issue 56
- powder flow rate monitoring: Issues 55, 31
- temperature monitoring of hospital freezers: Issue 54
- environmental monitoring - water table contamination: Issue 51
- emissions monitoring - diesel engines: Issue 48
- fluorescence monitoring: Issue 44
- environmental monitoring - fish farming: Issue 41
- data logging from pilot plant (interfacing Molytech): Issue 33
- Readers of Monitor Help Improve ComDebug, see Issue 180
- Monitor Strain Gauges over the Internet, see Issue 179
- Thermocouple Data Logger also measures Voltage, Flow, Level, etc: Issue 169
- Windmill Announce Microlink 851 Ethernet Unit: Issue 165
- People Counting software: Issue 170
- New pH Data Logger is Built for Accuracy and Reliability: Issue 168
- 751Sbox for strain measurement: Issue 101
- 751-SG for strain measurement: Issue 53
- people counting software: Issue 88 97,
- Video Tally people counting: Issue 108
- pH unit: Issue 172
- Enhanced Windmill: Issue 174
- Test-seq for incinerators: Issue 6
- USB products compared: Issue 94
- Windmill 6 for data acquisition and control: Issue 64
- Windmill 826 for utility meter monitoring: Issue 56
- Windmill Remote for data acquisition over the Internet: Issue 28
- Windmill Replay to re-run charts of data: Issue 23
- Excel corners: see excel.html and excel-charting.html
- Access: Issue 21
- OpenOffice: Issues 84, 85
- Visual Basic: Issues 13, 14, 15, 16
- Powerpoint: Issue 129
- glossary: Issues 92, 98, 134, 172
- data acquisition news via rss: Issue 72, 77
Note: You may reprint any of our articles providing you credit us as the author and place a link back to the source on the Windmill web site.
Questions on Using Windmill
Web link: Download Data Logging Software
Question
I am trying to file date log from a USB-to-RS485 converter. I use the ComDebug without problem communicating with the converter. How do I log the data into a text file based on specific interval (say about every 1 minute)?
Answer
You can use either ComDebug or Windmill Logger to collect data. With ComDebug
- Select the File menu and enter the name of the file to which you want to save the data.
- Click Sample Rate to choose the speed of logging.
- Click Start to log data.
To use Logger.
- If you haven't already done so, run ConfIML then SetupIML to create and save a hardware setup file (*.ims).
- Run Windmill Logger and load the hardware setup file.
- Select Settings from the Menu bar and enter your sampling interval.
- Press the Start button (or choose to log on alarm or when new data arrives.
Setting some of the Logging Options
Further Reading:
Windmill Logger: https://www.windmill.co.uk/logger.html
or click the Help button on the Logger or ComDebug program.
DAQ News Round-up
Welcome to our round-up of the data acquisition and control news. If you would like to receive more timely DAQ news updates then follow us on Twitter - @DataAcquisition or grab our rss feed.
Sensor sniffs out methane in deep sea vents and cows
Researchers have developed an instrument that can rapidly and precisely analyse samples of environmental methane to determine how the gas was formed.
Source: SCUBA News
http://news.scubatravel.co.uk/
Bee behaviour mapped with RFID tags
A tiny new tracker designed to monitor bee behaviour is being tested by ecologists at Kew Gardens in London.
Source: BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
Pencil sketches turn paper into a sensor
Simply drawing with a pencil on paper turns out to be a great way of making cheap, but high-quality, sensors .
Source: New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/
Pens filled with high-tech inks for do-it-yourself sensors
A new simple tool developed by nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego, is opening the door to an era when anyone will be able to build sensors, anywhere.
Source: Eureka Alert
http://www.eurekalert.org/
Light source could be used to make chip-scale gas sensors
European researchers have developed a frequency comb that they claim could be used for the real-time sensing and measurement of gas molecules.
Source: The Engineer
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/
Need for speed: Why computers stopped getting faster
Dizzily increasing PC power used to be a given. No longer - speeds stalled a decade ago and only a radical reboot of computing will accelerate things.
Source: New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/
Scientists testing use of free vehicles for lower-cost ocean exploration
First developed in the 1930s, free vehicles are untethered ocean sensor packages that are deployed from ships and collect valuable information about the ocean environment in areas that are difficult for humans to access. Until recently, the extreme pressure at the deepest parts of the ocean and limitations in buoyancy technology prevented free vehicle use in these areas. Recent developments in ceramics have changed this.
Source: NOAA
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/
* Copyright Windmill Software Ltd
* Reprinting permitted with this notice included
* For more articles see https://www.windmill.co.uk/
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For previous issues by subject see https://www.windmill.co.uk/monitorindex.html
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