ElecTICK Power Logger Introduction Version 3.

0 2011-07-21
Contact: michael@gentick.co.za

ElecTICK is a registered trademark of Gentick Electronics.

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Contents
1 2 3 4 5 6 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................3 Second Generation Specifications - July 2011 ................................................................................4 Contents..........................................................................................................................................5 Sample Data: CSV-file......................................................................................................................7 Sample Data: Graphs.......................................................................................................................9 Live-Graph.....................................................................................................................................10 6.1 6.2 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................10 Installation ............................................................................................................................10 Java................................................................................................................................10

6.2.1 6.3 6.4

Starting LiveGraph.................................................................................................................10 Using LiveGraph ....................................................................................................................11 Main Window................................................................................................................12 Data file settings ...........................................................................................................12 Graph settings ...............................................................................................................14 Data series settings .......................................................................................................17 Data plot........................................................................................................................19

6.4.1 6.4.2 6.4.3 6.4.4 6.4.5

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INTRODUCTION

ElecTICK is a 3-phase data logger that measures Watt-hour, Watt, VA, Power Factor, Voltage, Current and frequency in 3 second intervals for each phase and stores the information on SD Card. This is accomplished through three single phase energy metering ICs that provides 3 semi-independent channels. For details please refer to Figure 1. The data is stored on a removable SD card in the form of a CSV file that can be opened in excel. A new file is opened every 24 hours (12 oclock at night) or when the micro is reset by reset-button pressed or switched on/off. The unit has a RS485 port for communication with a Laptop via RS485 to USB cable. An optional USB-Zigbee Wireless connection can also be used to enable wireless (+-30m range) monitoring of real-time readings. The unit has an internal clock with a backup battery that date-time stamp the data (in 3 second intervals) The unit will not lose its time when switched off.

The current is measured by means of a clamp on current transformer to ensure easy installation while the voltage is measured by means of direct cable connection. The following is measured for each of the phases, and logged to SD Card every 3 seconds: Watt Hour Accumulated Instantaneous Active Energy (Watt) Instantaneous VA (Voltage x Ampere) Instantaneous Power Factor (Watt/VA) RMS Voltage RMS Current, through the use of a CT (Max 300A) Frequency Date-Time

Figure 1: Connection Diagram.

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2 SECOND GENERATION SPECIFICATIONS - JULY 2011

V-rms Intrinsic error: Operating error: Resolution: I-rms CT range: CT error: CT error: Intrinsic error: Operating error Resolution 0.5% of measured value 1% of measured value 0.1V 3A 300A 1% of measured value (standard CT supplied) Dependant on specific model eg. Rogowski Coil etc. 0.5% of measured value 1% of measured value (excluding CT error) 0.1A Intrinsic error: Resolution: 1% of measured value 1W

Power Measurement (Active)

Operating error: 1.5% of measured value Excluding CT errors. Power Factor Frequency 5% of measured value Intrinsic error: Operating error: Resolution: 0.25% of measured value 1% of measured value 0.1Hz

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3 CONTENTS
1) ElecTICK unit 2) 3 x 300A CTs (20mm Opening) 3) 1 x Voltage harness 4) 1 x 12V Power Supplu 5) 1 x 12V 4.5AH Battery

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Optional Wireless Zigbee link. Connects The ElecTICK RS-485 port wirelessly to a Computer for realtime viewing of data.

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4 SAMPLE DATA: CSV-FILE

ElecTICK will make a new file when started. The filename will be in the form of: mmddhhmm.csv for instance 07211945.csv (this file was created on the 21st of July at 19H45. If ElecTICK is left to record; it will create a new file every night at 12H00. The filename will be as follows 07220000.csv (created on the morning of 22nd July 12H00)

A csv file is a text file where the text is delimited by commas. Comma separated values. If excel or Openoffice is installed on a computer and the file is double clicked, it will open as a excel table as indicated below. Note that the Column Headings will not display, and the user can manually insert it if needed. The table below indicates the sequence and meaning of the parameters recorded by ElecTICK. It is important to note that Power Factor is actually the value indicated divided by 1000. 929 will indicate a power factor of 0.929 Voltage, Current and Frequency will display 1 decimal place. For instance 2345 will mean 234.5 Volt. 59 will indicate 5.9 Amp and if this was 5, it will indicate 0.5 Amp. 500 will indicate 50.0Hz. In short you should divide the Voltage, Current and Frequency by 10.
Date Time 2011/07/12 13:16:12 2011/07/12 13:16:15 2011/07/12 13:16:18 2011/07/12 13:16:21 2011/07/12 13:16:24 2011/07/12 13:16:27 2011/07/12 13:16:30 2011/07/12 13:16:33 2011/07/12 13:16:36 Seconds 47772 47775 47778 47781 47784 47787 47790 47793 47796 Wh 1 102 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 Wh 2 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 58 Wh 3 909 910 911 912 913 914 915 916 917 Watt 1 1129 1125 1131 1131 1130 1130 1131 1131 1131 Watt 2 1045 1038 1046 1050 1050 1050 1050 1053 1050 Watt 3 1207 1202 1209 1207 1212 1206 1207 1207 1208 VA 1 1383 1384 1385 1385 1385 1384 1384 1385 1385 VA 2 1203 1203 1207 1207 1207 1206 1206 1207 1207 VA 3 1298 1322 1299 1300 1299 1299 1299 1276 1323

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PF 1 929 909 930 928 933 928 929 945

PF 2 868 862 866 869 869 870 870 872

PF 3 816 812 816 816 815 816 817 816

Volt 1 2345 2346 2349 2348 2348 2346 2347 2348

Volt 2 2360 2360 2367 2368 2368 2366 2366 2367

Volt 3 2360 2362 2363 2364 2363 2363 2362 2363

Amp 1 59 59 59 59 59 59 59 59

Amp 2 51 51 51 51 51 51 51 51

Amp 3 55 56 55 55 55 55 55 54

Freq 1 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500

Freq 2 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500

Freq 3 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500

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5 SAMPLE DATA: GRAPHS

Figure A :Voltage Phase 3 - 24 Jan 2011

Figure B :Current Phase 3 - 24 Jan 2011 ElecTICK is a registered trademark of Gentick Electronics. Page 9

6 LIVE-GRAPH
6.1 Introduction

Livegraph was developed at the Monash University in Australia. It is available to the public as open source software. It is a handy tool to quickly graph datasets. Although graphs can be created in Excel, you will find Live-Graph simplifying the process for you. Live Graph can be downloaded here: http://www.live-graph.org/index.html User manuals are available online here: http://www.live-graph.org/userManual.html I will provide a summary in the next few pages. 6.2 Installation

Extract the LiveGraph.zip file to a place on your hard drive C:\LiveGraph You can also download the latest version as follows. Download the distribution you need from the download page. You will normally obtain a ZIP archive. Unpack the archive using your favourite tool to a directory of your preference on your system. LiveGraph does not require any installation, so you are now ready to go. 6.2.1 Java Ive conveniently put a copy of Java on the ElecTICK software CD. You can install Java Runtime by double clicking on jre-6u26-windows-i586.exe and following the prompts. Please note that LiveGraph is a Java application and it requires the Java Runtime Environment in order to function. LiveGraph requires Java 6 or later to run (running LiveGraph with Java 5 may work, however, this is not officially supported and not all functions will be available). You can download the latest version of Java from Sun. 6.3 Starting LiveGraph

Create a shortcut to the LiveGraph.2.0.beta01.Complete.jar file and name it LiveGraph. You can double click on the LiveGraph.2.0.beta01.Complete.jar file, and LiveGraph will open 5 GUI windows.

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6.4

Using LiveGraph

In this section we describe LiveGraphs graphical user interface (GUI). LiveGraph has 5 windows:

Fig. 1: LiveGraph GUI - The three settings and the plot window (main window not depicted)

The main window is used to access other windows and to present information messages to the user It can also be used for exporting the plots to image files. The data file settings window is used for options related to the data file from which LiveGraph will read the data. The graph settings window is used for options which define how the data plot should be presented. The data series settings window is used for controlling the display of each data column of the data file. Finally, the plot window is used to display the graphs on the screen. ElecTICK is a registered trademark of Gentick Electronics. Page 11

Detailed information on the various settings can be found in the subsections on the corresponding GUI window. 6.4.1 Main Window This window is used for displaying of system messages, for managing other windows of the application and for loading and saving of various application settings. You can also export your graphs to image files using the options from the main window menu.
6.4.1.1

Main menu

When you close any window of the application except for the main window, that window is not actually closed but merely hidden. You can use the options in the main menu of this window in order to bring back previously hidden windows. You can also save and load various settings using the options provided in the main menu of this window.
6.4.1.2

Main message area

Various messages produced by LiveGraph will be displayed in this area.

6.4.1.3

Exiting LiveGraph

In order to quit LiveGraph, close the main window.

6.4.1.4

Exporting charts to image files

It is possible to save the graph displayed in the plot window at any one time into an image file. In order to do that , select the option "Export graph to image..." in the "Plot"-menu of the main window. In the dialog window that will appear you need to select the size of the image, the format of the image and the file name. The width and the height of the image can range between 200 and 2000 pixel. However, if you are using an old computer with very little memory, you should avoid using large image sizes. The image formats you can choose will depend of your Java installation. The following standard formats are usually available: PNG, GIF, JPEG and BMP. If you choose a file name without specifying the full path, the file will be saved relative to the directory from which you started LiveGraph. 6.4.2 Data file settings In this window you select the options related to the file from which LiveGraph will read its data.

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6.4.2.1

Data file

This option specifies the name of the data file. Click the button "Open" and select the file with the data you want to plot. Note that the selected file must conform to the LiveGraph file format. After you have selected the file, there might be a slight delay while the file is being opened. The LiveGraph file format is compatible with common CSV files, so you can select any CSV file here. Note, however, that the LiveGraph format specifies that the first data line contains column headings. So, if you attempt to load a non-LiveGraph CSV file, the very first data-set might not be displayed correctly. To avoid this problem add an empty data line at the beginning of the CSV file (i.e. a line containing only value delimiters; the number of the value delimiters must be N-1, where N is the number of data columns (data series) in the file).
6.4.2.2

Show all data

If this option is selected, LiveGraph will plot each data series complete: from the beginning to the end of the data file. This means that each plotted series will start with its first value as specified in the data file. Note that because the screen resolution and the desktop size are limited, not every data point can be explicitly plotted in a long data series. In the version 1.1 LiveGraph samples not more than 500 data points from each data series. It is always ensured that the sampling points are uniformly distributed along each data series (i.e. they are sampled as equal intervals). The value 500 was chosen because a larger setting would not achieve any noticeable improvement on modern screens, but it would cause overlapping artifacts on older screen. If this default setting is not appropriate for your purposes, please contact us via the request-forum and we will add a mechanism to adjust this setting to one of the next versions.
6.4.2.3

Show tail data

This option is useful when only the most resent data points are of interest. When this option is active, LiveGraph shows only the end of the data series. In the LiveGraph version 1.1 the last 500 data point of each series will be sampled under this setting. The value 500 was chosen because a larger setting would not achieve any noticeable improvement on modern screens, but it would cause overlapping artifacts on older screen. If this default setting is not appropriate for your purposes, please contact us via the request-forum and we will add a mechanism to adjust this setting to one of the next versions.

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6.4.2.4

Do not cache data

If this option is active LiveGraph, does not cache the contents of the data file in memory. This can lead to significant performance losses during data updates. However, this can be useful when updates are very rare. This option prevents LiveGraph from keeping the data file stream constantly open, which might be disturbing if you want to modify or delete the file between the updates. If you have modified the contents of the data file and you want LiveGraph to reload the whole file, you need to make sure that this option is selected.
6.4.2.5

Update frequency

Use this slider to tell LiveGraph how often it should read from the data file to see whether it was changed. Values between 1 second and 1 hour are possible. During each update LiveGraph will update the plots using the most recent data it finds in the data file. If you shift this slider to the very right, LiveGraph will not perform any updates automatically. You can use the "Update now"- button to perform a manual update at any time. If you feel that the provided range is not sufficient, contact us via the requestforum and we will widen the range in the next release.
6.4.2.6

File info

In this field LiveGraph will display the file description annotations it finds in the data stream. 6.4.3 Graph settings In this window you can control the style and the layout of the plot.
6.4.3.1

Highlight data points

This is a hidden setting. When you move the mouse over the plot window, LiveGraph paints small circles around the data points in the vicinity of the mouse cursor. This is called data point highlighting. At the same time as points are highlighted in the plot window, the rows corresponding to the data series on which the points are highlighted are also highlighted in the data series settings window. In addition, when you press the left mouse button while the mouse cursor is over the plotter area, a small pop-up window will be displayed with a list of all data series on which points are highlighted at that moment. This feature helps you read the graph when there are many series plotted together. This feature uses functionality available in Java version 1.6 and later. If you are using Java 1.5 this feature may not be available or it may cause error messages ElecTICK is a registered trademark of Gentick Electronics. Page 14

being displayed in the main window. In addition, this feature is unfortunately relatively computationally expensive. Despite various optimisations employed, locating the points in the vicinity of the mouse cursor is a computationally expensive task. For modern desktop PCs this does not present any real challenge you will hardly notice the calculations. However, if you are using an older computer, the extra load on the processor may be annoying and you might want to switch data points highlighting off. Because the reasons for turning data point highlighting off are of such permanent nature and do not quickly go, we did not include an option for turning this feature on and off in the user interface (after all, a concise interface is one of LiveGraph's hallmarks). However, you can still change this setting by editing the graph settings file: First, save your current graph settings using the menu in the main application window. Then, open the .lggsfile where you just saved the settings with your favourite text editor. Find the entry with the key "HighlightDataPoints" and change its value from 1 to 0; save the file. Now you can load you LiveGraph graph settings from the modified file and the data point highlighting will be disabled. If you want to switch the feature back on, reverse the procedure.
6.4.3.2

Viewport

Here you can select the visible data area for the plot. For instance, if you select minX = 0 and maxX = 20, LiveGraph will plot all data points for which the Xcoordinate value is between 0 and 20. Similarly, setting minY =y' and maxY = y'' results in only the points with the Y-coordinate value y being plotted such that y' y y''. If you select auto, LiveGraph will automatically find the smallest (or largest) values available. So, if you set all four boundaries to auto, you will be able to see the complete graph. Note, in order to apply the changes after you have edited a value in one of the fields, you need to press the Enter-key or to move the cursor out of the field by clicking on any other field or button in the graph settings window.
6.4.3.3

Vertical grid

Here you specify whether and how a vertical data grid should be drawn in order to make the reading of the graph easier. "Do not display a grid" switches the grid off. "Grid aligned on dataset indices" will show a grid aligned on dataset indices. For example, if you choose grid size to be 10, you will see a vertical line every 10 data sets. Note that if you choose a data series for the X-axis (see below), it might be the

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case that the X-coordinates do not correspond to the dataset indices. In such case the vertical grid lines will be spaced at different intervals from one another. "Grid aligned on X-axis units" aligns the grid according to the X-axis. This way the grid lines will always be equi-spaced. For instance, if you choose this option and set the grid size to 100, a vertical grid line will be shown every 100 units along the Xaxis. "Grid size" specifies the intervals at which vertical grid linen should be drawn. A value S here will cause a grid line to be drawn every S units (or datasets, depending on the above option). Note that a grid is not of much use if the distance between the grid lines is less than a pixel. LiveGraph will help you by adjusting your settings in case they would cause the grid lines to be too close to each other. "Grid colour" specifies the colour to use for the vertical grid lines.
6.4.3.4

Horizontal grid

Here you specify whether and how a horizontal data grid should be drawn in order to make the reading of the graph easier. "Do not display a grid" switches the grid off. "Display a horizontal grid" will cause the grid to be drawn. "Grid size" specifies the intervals at which horizontal grid lines should be drawn. A value S here will cause a grid line to be drawn every S units along the Y-axis. Note that a grid is not of much use if the distance between the grid lines is less than a pixel. LiveGraph will help you by adjusting your settings in case they would cause the grid lines to be too close to each other. "Grid colour" specifies the colour to use for the horizontal grid lines.
6.4.3.5

X axis

Here you configure the x-axis of the plot. If "Use dataset number" is selected, all data series will be plotted against the dataset numbers. This means that for each data point, the Y-coordinate value will be its data value and the X-coordinate value will be the index of the corresponding dataset in the original data file (i.e. the row number of the data point in the file). If "Use data series" is selected, all data will be plotted against the data series specified in the drop-down box "Series". This means that for each data point, the Y-coordinate will be its data value and the X-coordinate will be the data value of the specified series from the same dataset.

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The option "Use data series transformed into [0...1]" is similar to the option "Use data series", only the X-coordinates are additionally transformed into the interval [01] such that the smallest value in the data series specified to act as the X-axis is mapped to 0, the largest value is mapped to 1 and all other values are linearly mapped to the values in-between. This means that for each data point, the Ycoordinate will be its data value and the X-coordinate will be the value x = fx + s, where x is the data value of the specified series from the same dataset, and f and s are such that min( x ) = 0 and max( x ) = 1. The option "Use data series scaled by set value" is similar to the option "Use data series", only the X-coordinates are additionally scaled by the value specified in the field "Value". This means that for each data point, the Y-coordinate will be its data value x = fx, where x is the data value of the specified series from the same dataset, and f is the value specified in the field "Value". The drop-down selector "Series" lets you specify the data series to use as the X-axis if one of the options "Use data series", "Use data series transformed into [0...1]" or "Use data series scaled by set value" is selected. The field "Value" lets you specify the scale value which is used when the option "Use data series scaled by set value" is selected. Note, in order to apply the changes after you have edited a value in this field, you need to press the Enter-key or to move the cursor out of the field by clicking on any other field or button in the graph settings window. 6.4.4 Data series settings In this window you can set the plotting options for each of the data series separately. The window contains a table with 5 columns. Each row in the table corresponds to a data series and each column corresponds to a data series parameter. The advanced options let you display of hide several data series with just a single click.
6.4.4.1

Show

In this column you can specify whether a data series should be plotted at all.
6.4.4.2

Label

In this column you can see the label (heading) of the data series as specified in the data file. This column is read-only.

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6.4.4.3

Colour

In this column you can specify which colour will be used for plotting a data series. Click on a coloured rectangle in this column to specify a new colour.
6.4.4.4

Transformation

In this column you can specify a transformation to be applied to the values of a data series before plotting. The option "Actual value" will cause the data values of the series to be plotted without any alterations. The option "Transformed into [1...0]" will cause all values of the data series to be linearly transformed into the interval [1...0]. This means that the function t(y) = fy + s will be applied to each value y of the series, where f and sare such that min( f(y) ) = 0 and max( f(y) ) = 1. This option can be extremely handy when comparing two data series on different scales. The option "Scaled by specified value" will cause all values of the data series to be linearly scaled by the value specified in the column "Scale factor ". This means that the function t(y) = fy will be applied to each value y of the series, where f is the value specified in column "Scale factor".
6.4.4.5

Scale factor

In this column you can specify the scale factor to be used with the "Scaled by specifies value"-option in the column "Transformation".
6.4.4.6

Advanced options

The buttons "Show all", "Hide all" and "Toggle all" at the top of the data series settings window allow you to turn on, turn off or toggle the visibility of all data series simultaneously. The button ">>" shows the advanced visibility options panel (button "<<" hides the advanced panel again). In the advanced visibility options panel you can modify the visibility settings of a group of data series. The fields "From" and "To" let you specify the first and the last series in a group (data series indices are displayed in the "Index"-column which appears together with the advanced panel). The field "Every" lets you specify which series between "From" and "To" (inclusive) belong to the group. You can specify several values separated by commas. The button "Go" applies the action specified in the drop-down box to left of the button to all data series in the group. The possible actions are "Show", "Hide" and "Toggle".

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For example: If you set From="10", To="30" and Every="3" than the specified group will include each 3rd series between the 10th and the 30th series (inclusive). This means the group includes the series at the indices: 10, 13, 16, 19, 22,25 and 28. If you set From="10", To="30" and Every="5" than the specified group will include each 5th series between the 10th and the 30th series (inclusive). This means the group includes the series at the indices: 10, 15, 20, 25 and30. If you set From="10", To="30" and Every="3, 5" than the specified group will include each 3rd and each 5th series between the 10th and the 30th series (inclusive). This means the group includes the series at the indices: 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 15, 20 and 30. 6.4.5 Data plot In this window the actual data graphs will be plotted. Only the data series selected in the data series settings window will be plotted. The legend will also be displayed in the data series settings window. An optional data grid will be plotted according to the settings in the graph settings window. The visible area of the data can also be selected in the graph settings window. The X- and the Y-axes with appropriate unit labels will be displayed along the left and the bottom sides of the plot canvas. The data points will not be labeled in order to keep the plot area tidy even when many data series are displayed. However, as you move the mouse over the plot canvas the data coordinates of the mouse cursor will be displayed at the bottom of the plot window. This makes reading up the coordinates of a data point easy just place the mouse cursor over the data point. In order to aid this further, the data points highlighting function will highlight the data points in the vicinity of the mouse cursor and mark the corresponding series in the data series settings window. This feature is not supported when you are using LiveGraph with a Java version prior to version 6 and may cause errors in that case. For further information including how you can turn this feature on and off, see the section on data points highlighting. If you press the left mouse button while your mouse cursor is inside the plot area a small pop-up message will be displayed listing all data series which contain currently highlighted points. This can be extremely helpful when you are viewing a lot of data series at the same time and you need to determine which graphs belong to which series. Note that feature is only available when point highlighting is enabled. For details, see the corresponding section.

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6.4.5.1

Highlight data points

When you move the mouse over the plot window, LiveGraph paints small circles around the data points in the vicinity of the mouse cursor. This is called data point highlighting. At the same time as points are highlighted in the plot window, the rows corresponding to the data series on which the points are highlighted are also highlighted in the data series settings window. In addition, when you press the left mouse button while the mouse cursor is over the plotter area, a small pop-up window will be displayed with a list of all data series on which points are highlighted at that moment. This feature helps you read the graph when there are many series plotted together. This feature uses functionality available in Java version 1.6 and later. If you are using Java 1.5 this feature may not be available or it may cause error messages being displayed in the main window. In addition, this feature is unfortunately relatively computationally expensive. Despite various optimisations employed, locating the points in the vicinity of the mouse cursor is a computationally expensive task. For modern desktop PCs this does not present any real challenge you will hardly notice the calculations. However, if you are using an older computer, the extra load on the processor may be annoying and you might want to switch data points highlighting off. Because the reasons for turning data point highlighting off are of such permanent nature and do not quickly go, we did not include an option for turning this feature on and off in the user interface (after all, a concise interface is one of LiveGraph's hallmarks). However, you can still change this setting by editing the graph settings file: First, save your current graph settings using the menu in the main application window. Then, open the .lggsfile where you just saved the settings with your favourite text editor. Find the entry with the key "HighlightDataPoints" and change its value from 1 to 0; save the file. Now you can load you LiveGraph graph settings from the modified file and the data point highlighting will be disabled. If you want to switch the feature back on, reverse the procedure.

ElecTICK is a registered trademark of Gentick Electronics.

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ElecTICK is a registered trademark of Gentick Electronics.

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