Bought a volt multi meter that is capable of data logging Hantek 365C USB/Bluetooth Data Logger

[sam_sam_sam]

I have had this in my wish list for quite a while now and I might need to test BMS protection board with this device because of the limitations of the battery testing machine that I have been using

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/32568...yAdapt=glo2usa

What this will allow me to do is use my load testing machine that is having issues with the voltage cutoff set/ current meter monitoring system and I decided not to try to replace it or repair it I just going to use a very primitive load testing device that does not have data logging feature and modify it so that can use this device with that device and hopefully have the best of both worlds

And add this to the data logging meter system

https://www.ebay.com/itm/31503848970...Bk9SR_yFgYG9ZQ

[eccerr0r]

I have an old Atmel AVR project that I'm still using as something not its original intent...

Currently it will sample its 10-bit ADC inputs and its frequency counter(using its software RTC and counter/timer channel) whenever one gives it a serial command to do so. I have it set up to read indoor temperature (using a thermistor + piecewise linear lookup table), outdoor temperature (using a diode and op amp, a rough estimate of wattage from my solar panels based on AC current (very wrong), and the voltage from a combustible gas sensor (which ideally measures carbon monoxide.). I should make it measure voltage/current of my solar panels directly to compute wattage instead of faking it with AC current sense... This has so far been holding me over ever since my mastech DMM that had RS-232 logging that I hacked into it..died. Really should get another way to do datalogging...

Oh...and the frequency counter is hooked up to a humidity sensor oscillator. I have yet to calibrate it...

[sam_sam_sam]

Very interesting use of something that was intended for another purpose which can be very challenging to do been there quite few times in past
I find it very interesting when other people are trying and doing the same things

[sam_sam_sam]

I have an old Atmel AVR project that I'm still using as something not its original intent...

Currently it will sample its 10-bit ADC inputs and its frequency counter(using its software RTC and counter/timer channel) whenever one gives it a serial command to do so. I have it set up to read indoor temperature (using a thermistor + piecewise linear lookup table), outdoor temperature (using a diode and op amp, a rough estimate of wattage from my solar panels based on AC current (very wrong), and the voltage from a combustible gas sensor (which ideally measures carbon monoxide.). I should make it measure voltage/current of my solar panels directly to compute wattage instead of faking it with AC current

Can you please explain this in more detail of how you achieve this effect with a diode and op amp and the other process of how compute the wattage of your solar panels this is a very interesting concept

What is your piecewise linear lookup table look like and what is it based on for accuracy I would be interested in hearing about this concept as well

Why not use an ic chip made to convert amperage to a 0 to 5 volt output that can be used with a micro controller with a mathematical formula looking up table I have done this before it works as long as you do not fast sampling rate the results are decent and could be made to be fairly accurate

[stj]

https://github.com/mp035/hantek-365

[sam_sam_sam]

https://github.com/mp035/hantek-365

very interesting what device were they referring that you could interface with the meter module

[eccerr0r]

Me repurposing my AVR was easy: I had the original sourcecode to the firmware (because I wrote it!) and just changed it to be able to datalog...
It was all putting the constraint on my design: I may only use what I had on hand...

[stj]

very interesting what device were they referring that you could interface with the meter module

it's for Linux, so in theory you could use a raspberry pi type setup

[sam_sam_sam]

I finally got this meter today and I bought the new laptop computer and the USB drives would not load automatically you have to find the device in device manager and update the drivers and turn memory security settings to off to get it work properly

https://us.ampinvt.com/products/ampi...4aAu6iEALw_wcB


The sampling rate is very fast to very slow depending upon how you set it it seems to read dc voltage very well the only issue is and I knew this before I bought it that the current seems to be limited to six amps which is not a real big deal but I have to keep this in mind

The computer software seems to be very responsive to your function request and there is no delay from what I can see it does print the values on the right hand side of the screen which is very good the screen size for the meter is somewhat small but readable without straining your eyes

The graph screen is very small and there is a delay that is respectable and consistent but ( over time might not matter that much ) you could take reading output data and import to excel and turn it into a decent graph chart for your application if needed I probably will not go that far for now but I might look into if have to use the data to troubleshoot an issue with a BMS balancing board

The control panel on the screen is very well done and designed very nicely and very easy to navigate through the size of software file size is very small

One thing that was weird about this software that runs this meter is that when I finally found the usb device in the device manager and went to turn on the meter I got an error message that said that I had to turn off the memory security monitor for it to work properly

One other thing about this new computer is that was interesting is that you can turn off the WiFi by clicking the icon for the WiFi and turns off the WiFi a very nice feature because on some laptop computers you have to go to the internet connection screen to turn it on and off which is annoying as it can be if you want to turn it off and back on again later

Now I have to get another set of meter wire leads ( or more ) and put alligator clips to make connection to the battery cell or in series for doing the current function

Below is a picture of software screen size and you can see what I decided above

[sam_sam_sam]

it's for Linux, so in theory you could use a raspberry pi type setup

How easy is it to setup a raspberry pi to be able to data logging capability now this multi meter has a input that looks very much like a laptop hard drive cable connection although it does not mention this in the manual for some reason I wonder if anything could be done with this input or is this only a output

I will take a picture of it later on today if I can remember to do it and not get totally distracted by something else more pressing to take care of

[sam_sam_sam]

Here what I was hoping to do with this laptop computer that I just bought to be able to test BMS functionality in real time
In the picture below you can see both devices running at the same time one note about this setup you have to start the multi meter logging device first then start the battery testing machine and see the voltage difference there is a difference of N/A volts at this time see the reason below

The difference between the battery testing machine and multi meter using the same reference is 0.020 ?
The difference between the battery testing machine and the multi meter is not being tested is 0.010 ?
The difference between the battery being charged at 500 milliamperes rate I will have to test it at one amp is a difference of 0.050
Because now the battery cell voltage is nearly high enough to stop the charging cycle

So there is a difference between them but I am not sure how to calculate it because when it not being tested by discharge load versus when it is being tested do just subtract the amount that was when the battery testing machine is idle and use this offset value for my calculations for determining whether or not the BMS protection board is functioning properly or not which is my guess on this question

But for practical reasons I think that the results are basically the same so there is some difference but it is under 0.10 so I am thinking that I might not need to be concerned about the small difference between but when testing BMS protection modules it might be an important test to run and I can not run the battery testing machine with voltage input sensing wires and the current output side of the BMS protection board

If anyone thinks that my thought are not correct please feel free to chime in with reason why this is not practical way to look at this issue

[stj]

reading current at low voltage is VERY difficult.
any shunt will have a huge effect on the voltage so you really need to use hall-effect sensing.

[sam_sam_sam]

reading current at low voltage is VERY difficult.
any shunt will have a huge effect on the voltage so you really need to use hall-effect sensing.

I would agree with you about this but I am relying on the current monitoring system that the battery testing machine uses for showing the battery charging and discharging graph curves because as far as I know it seems to be fairly accurate for my testing purposes

Now I might build something using a hall-effect sensor for my own version for more accurate measurements doing BMS protection board right now I am just wanting a half way decent way of testing them until I find a better way to do this type of testing

One very important thing that I found out about the software for the battery testing machine is Norton anti virus program does not like this software and it does not like the Hantek multi meter software either it says that both could be a risk using them

If had not used the battery testing machine software for as long as I have I might not have used it and if I did use it knowing this information I would be ready for my computer to be compromised and have reinstall everything again

I just bought another Hantek multi meter but I bought the version that has it own battery pack and it also has the Bluetooth feature as well I did not want to spend the extra money for something that I was not sure that it would work the way I was hoping it would work

The first one was the simplest version that they have now I am buying the second to the highest level version that have in stock that I could find the highest level one is the version has true RMS meter voltage reading I really do not need this version te way I plan on using it for

But I think I might make the battery pack external from the enclosure because I want to use brand name battery cells in it and I know that they use a pouch battery because I research what type of battery pack was used and how much a replacement battery pack was $20.00 or more depending what AliExpress seller that you use

[sam_sam_sam]

The testing of the temporary setup seems to work very well I just have to make a wiring testing jig for this setup
For the battery testing machine and the multi meter testing BMS protection boards so all I will have do is hook up the cables to battery testing machine and the multi meter to the BMS protection board that I going to test for functionality to know weather or not can trust and rely on

[stj]

dont trust norton,
upload anything you want to check here:
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload

[sam_sam_sam]

dont trust norton,
upload anything you want to check here:
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload

I have three very important questions for you about the developers of this platform who are they and what is their vision for a security solution for and what country are they working from because there is no information about them and there history and I have never heard anything about them before until you posted this link

I have never had an issue with Norton anti virus programs before just a little to expensive and that you really do not have a real choice of how devices that are covered one or ten but nothing in between and that you have to use a credit card so they can do automatic renewal billing when your subscription expires

I am not a real fan of Macfee anti virus software because of how program works and I do not think there protection goes far enough

[stj]

1: they are linked with google somehow and have been around for many years
2:they sell premium services to company's and browser makers - thats the bussiness model, if you think about it they are getting their database populated for free by providing this service to us.
3:country of origin is difficult with volunteer coders and cloud software - probably u.s. based though.
as for installed antivirus,
they all bog your machine down and are effectivly spyware because they upload hashes of your software to a central database - they all work the same.
the only one i would use is kaspersky because they refused to "whitelist" government malware a few years ago and it turned into a huge incident.

[sam_sam_sam]

I would use is kaspersky because they refused to "whitelist" government malware a few years ago and it turned into a huge incident.

I give this one a try on one of my tablets and see what I think of it and if I have any issues using

[sam_sam_sam]

Here is a review of the Hantek 365E version this is the one that can hook up to your iPad it works really well from what I can see so far one note there are two devices that shows in the device hooking up one say Charger and the other one is for the meter but if you click on the charger one it says connected but there is no device there but you can not turn it off you have to uninstall the application and reinstall it again and select the meter one and then it works again

What I like about this application is that the meter function are all showing on the screen and it fills up the hole screen and is very easy to read and control on additional note when changing the sample rate it hangs up a it bit with the data showing on the screen you have to close the application and open again and the new sample rate is there and work properly again

Also this meter has a built in battery pack which can be changed by your laptop or a phone charger but when it is hooked to a charger the meter does not connect to the iPad unfortunately but senses I know this I just have to remember to charge the night before I pan on using it remotely which not a real big deal it just a slight inconvenience but something you can work with

One thing I will have to do is put a label on this meter because both versions look identical and you can not tell the difference unless you push the power button on the one with out the battery pack the it has a red LED that comes on the other version does not do anything when you push the button unless you have hooked to a computer

One other nice thing about this meter application is that it hooks up to a old version of the iPad Air ( which I just replaced the battery pack recently [ this is the one that my wife wanted to send to a recycler because the battery pack was so bad that it would not power on ] which I also have the SkyRc b6 application on it as well ) which is the small iPad which is almost the same size as the meter module will make it easier to carry everything you need to monitor voltage or current remotely which is a plus for how I plan on using I can also use it with my SkyRc b6 mini battery tester because I can get a better picture of the voltage reading which is lacking on this battery tester

[stj]

never recycle ipads,
you can buy a small pcb that lets you re-use the display as a monitor!