The Best Data Logger?

[@paulprice]

So some fun developments. i was playing around with downclocking the bee data logger to 40mhz and doing some code optimizations (removing a dumb 5 second delay i had in there for some reason) the bee data logger can wake up, write the RTC time to the SD card and go back to sleep in under half a second. so...that means waking up once an hour and going back to sleep this thing could last almost 2 years on a 400 mah battery. :O

[@jon7187]

Very excited to give this a try. Grabbed two of them and plan on pair it with a low power vibration or PMR sensor (for wakeup), gps and epaper.

[@paulprice]

Awesome. I got your order this morning! I hope you get some good use out of them. If you need anything once they arrive don't hesitate to reach out. Cheers

[@bertbrecht7540]

Congrats on inventing and bringing to market such a cool product.

[@paulprice]

thanks!

[@Raul_Herrera]

¡Qué buena idea y construcción de una placa todo en uno!!!. Hice un datalogger todo por separado y ahora estoy viendo como junto todo para reducir su tamaño. Esta placa se ve fenomenal. Felicitaciones!!!

[@claytonbennett7797]

Bro this thing is sick. Good job.

[@chrisrudy1969]

These are really cool! Thanks for the videos :)

[@cookedaudio]

That looks pretty neat. Two questions: 1 - do you need to pull the SD card to read what it has logged or is there a web interface via the ESP32 that lets you do that? 2 - RTC is nice, but can the ESP32 check/sync the time using NTP? Thinking about using this for testing out battery performance on a CR2032 in different situations. I suppose you could simply use the ADC and read the voltage at different intervals?

[@paulprice]

1. It is possible to have a web page to view the SD card data but you'd need to write that code yourself (tho I may look into making an example sketch for this on the Github repo). 2. Yes you can update the time via NTP and there is an example sketch for updating the RTC via NTP on the GitHub repo. The main reason for an onboard RTC is that a lot of data logging projects do not have access to WiFi and or also connecting to WiFi regularly will affect battery life if you're running on battery for long periods of time. Cheers Paul

[@cookedaudio]

@@paulprice Thanks for your answers. Looks like a cool device, I'll have to think about getting one when they are back in stock on Tindie!

[@ThylineTheGay]

7:45 at this point i feel like the natural battery discharge might consume more power than the board

[@jamesmackay-m1q]

That's a wonderful projet i wish i could have one already to try it out!! Maybe built an enclosure for it and use it in the field. I would be interested into taking the data to the next level and over internet. do you think it's possible with your device ? or do i need a specific device that connects over LAND.

[@paulprice]

It has wifi and Bluetooth capabilities. Sending data over MQTT is pretty easy too.

[@desmond-hawkins]

Congrats on the launch! The power usage numbers look great and show the attention you've put into it. 400mAh is smaller than the smallest battery I own and 11+ months of runtime on such a small battery is amazing. I'm curious, what do you use to measure those? I have the Power Profiler Kit II and love how precise it is, but I'm always interested to hear about other tools people might prefer over it.

[@paulprice]

Thanks! I also use the power profiler to measure power consumption. It's a handy tool for sure. I'm certainly pleased with the power consumption results in deepsleep. It's taken some design considerations to get it that low. Battery life is also dependent on how often the end user turns it on to take readings, but I do not know of any other esp32 boards that have this many features and can also get ~20uA in deepsleep, so I'm pretty happy with it.

[@LindaHookey]

Good morning Paul, an excellent package on your datalogger and well done.Can you tell me; does your logger "automatically scans, detects, configers and log various Qwiic sensors" such as TMP117 temperature sensor and the Adafruit SHT45 humidity/temperature sensor, Sparkfun DEV-16832 OpenLog Artemis is OK with the TMP117 but is not happy with the Adafruit SHT45. Kind regards Tony H.

[@paulprice]

Hi, it does not automatically setup senors like the sparkfun data logger does. This data logger needs to be programmed for whatever sensors you wish to use in either circuit python or Arduino both of which are supported programming languages for the bee data logger.

[@LindaHookey]

Thank you for that Paul, l am most interested in getting a couple, but will have to mull it over for a couple of days to see if it's fit for purpose. Cheers, until a l think up another question.

[@yusufmaulana960]

awesome projects :3

[@jon6123]

hello, what is the max sample rate of the ADC's and what resolution are they? apologies if that information is available somewhere but I am struggling to find it, nice project though!

[@paulprice]

12 bit ADC

[@Janktzoni]

This is a nice board! Especially for the low power attention you gave it, which gets forgotten all to often. Would it support ESPHome ?

[@paulprice]

Thanks! I haven't tried esphome with it yet, I have used esphome for other boards but I'd have to see if there is already some support in esphome for the components I've used.

[@dphair3805]

Looks like the board is out of stock? Great concept.

[@paulprice]

I'm making more this week. :)

[@ofiraltstein2791]

Hi. We like to use several loggers for measuring barometric pressure in the field in a seed dispersal by dust devils research. From where can we order it? it seems to be out of stoke tindie and lectronz...

[@paulprice]

hi! thanks for your interest. I've got more in the making and should be back in a stock in a week or so. cheers.

[@ofiraltstein2791]

@@paulprice thanks!

[@GadgetGamesAU]

Super cool

[@randallyoung6715]

Very cool !!!

[@cedricbron7472]

Nice video :-) Just a question...I would like to use this datalogger with 3 pressure sensors (4-20mA and a resistor transform to 0-3-3V) on ADC1-3. What could be the maximum frequency acquisition I can achieve?

[@paulprice]

I can't speak to that exact scenario you described, but the max sample rate of the esp32-s3 ADC is 200 ksps. Your results may vary depending on your exact usecase

[@justinc2633]

what did you have to do to make the board more efficient in deep sleep?

[@paulprice]

Using high quality LDOs as well as 2 of them. One is used to power the chip in deepsleep and the other powers everything else. The trick being that you can turn on/off the 2nd LDO when the board is in deepsleep. so for instance the RGB can't drain current when the board is asleep and it's not being used. All that adds up to having a low powered deepsleep

[@justinc2633]

​@@paulprice oh i get it now, im still very new to this stuff but that seems like a smart way of doing it, like a master switch for turning everything off but still allowing RTC and other deep sleep stuff to work. Also, not sure if its your cup of tea but id love a video from you about all the requirements for making your own devboard from scratch, most people dont explain the need for most components they use

[@1grizzlyrizzo]

Hi there I've got one of your boards and am have some teething problems, I've tried out your RTC to SD Arduino example script and am not getting any data. I've tried several SD cards, power only USB for logging, it uploads the script fine, and I only get "ESP-ROM:esp32s3-20210327" back in serial monitor. What am I doing wrong.

[@paulprice]

are you hitting reset on the board after you upload the sketch? when its still in download mode it will display that ESP-ROM:esp32s3 message you described. once you've uploaded your sketch, hit reset, the com port will disappear so you'll need to select the new com port again in Arduino. from there try and open the serial monitor again. (may have to close/open it more than once to get it to initialize) that RTC-SD sketch will only work if the serial monitor is open. if you want it to run and write to the SD card without having to open the serial monitor. then remove this bit of code in the setup() section. while(!Serial){ delay(100); } let me know if you have any other issues.

[@1grizzlyrizzo]

@@paulprice Thanks that's working now with and without serial monitor, seems to have sprung to life after it knew what time it was initially. BTW do you have any tips for using an ultrasonic distance sensor with the logger?

[@paulprice]

i haven't used a distance sensor with it, so I wouldn't have any specific advice, but it should be something you can do. you'll just have to play around with it. :)

[@1grizzlyrizzo]

@@paulprice It's to monitor the water levels of a brick built spring fed water tank that we think is over a hundred and fifty years old, it used to supply a castle in Scotland which is long gone and will hopefully work well for the walled garden. Thanks again for the speedy help.

[@paulprice]

@@1grizzlyrizzo oh wow that's really cool! I always love hearing what people intend to use the data loggers for, lots of cool projects! If you run into issues down the road don't hesitate to reach out.

[@lorenzocalderone1392]

I add Lan. It possible

[@dusanpecek]

The best data logger should behave as usb key when attached to usb computer port 😂.

[@lorenzocalderone1392]

I wish bay the logger