RDL News
Interrogation, control and reporting using SMS text messages
You can now use your mobile phone to control the Etherlog (with GSM modem attached) by sending it a text message. Start and stop logging tasks, find the current value of inputs, and control external equipment attached to the digital outputs from your mobile!Perhaps more importantly, the Etherlog can send your phone a text message when some key input has gone overrange, when a sensor fails, or when it is running short of storage space. Technical Information Note 8 in the Library gives a description of how to use the facilities.
Input expansion using RDT 3000 radio telemetry modules
The inexpensive RDT 3000 features eight 12-bit analogue inputs and four digital inputs with pulse counters, and a low power licence-exempt radio transmitter compatible wth that fitted to the Etherlog. It broadcasts a message containing all of this data at a programmable rate.New capabilities in the Etherlog allow it to receive messages from up to eight RDTs, giving data logging system designers a maximum of 70 analogue and 40 digital inputs per Etherlog/RDT system. Technical Information Note 9 in the Library describes how to configure RDTs with the Etherlog.
lucid checking
It is easy to make a mistake writing a lucid program; we at RDL have all done it! Whether it’s a simple typo or an endloop command at the end of an if construct, it’s tiresome to get your data back, only to find the file full of ‘invalid instruction’ errors. The original DOS lucid checker is still shipped as part of our installation package, and is described in detail in the lucid programming manual. However, it has now been integrated with the lucid editor provided in the WindowsÔ host PC software. From Version 4.5 simply select Check and Tidy from the Edit menu and your program will be checked and correctly indented for you. If a keyword has been incorrectly typed, a helpful list of suggestions can be obtained, while if a logical construct is incorrect, the correct syntax will be suggested.
Customising the Etherlog
The Etherlog 3000 logger or the RDL3000 circuit board can be customised to run your software automatically when switched on. Once you have developed the lucid programs that your application needs, they can be quickly and simply programmed by us into the logger EPROM. As well as eliminating the need to transfer the files across when the logger is cold-booted, this provides the added advantage that the programs are stored in non human-readable form, very effectively protecting your software from prying eyes!
Millenium Dome
During the year before the opening of the Millenium Dome, Etherlog 3000 loggers
were used to record key climate
variables (temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and illuminance)
inside and outside the unique Millennium Dome. A very high profile example of
how, in situations where access is difficult, radio communications can make
collecting your data a lot simpler, safer and cost-effective.
Did you know?
As well as writing data to files in memory (an important feature for a data logger) lucid provides the facility to read data out of a file. This was originally introduced to allow individual sensor calibration factors to be stored in a file, then used by a logging program to convert a reading to engineering units before recording. However, it can also be used to implement lookup tables, evaluate complex Boolean expressions, increase the variable storage available to a lucid task up to 256 values and even to perform inter-task communication! Our Application Note 4 describes all of these highly practical applications, with examples.All Technical Information Notes and Application Notes are available from the Library page.