Looking for a logger.

electrofelon

electrofelon

Senior Member
Location
Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
Occupation
Electrician
Looking for a logger. Something more affordable, probably used. Probably dont want to spend over 2k. Only need mostly basic functionality, like max current, max demand. But would also like some basic power quality abilities like being able to spot voltage dips or spikes.

Fluke 1735s are readily available in that price range. Downside is its gunna be 20 years old or so, worried it could be buggy and slow like i have seen with older electronics. Also been seeing extech 382100. Any thoughts on either of these or other recommendations?

I have a EKM omnimeter setup which is great, for max demand, but downside is it needs a internet connection which can be a hassle and it only reads once a minute so not good for looking for voltage dips and such.
 
The Fluke 41b and 43b were great products, especially for the '90s; I spent some happy time with a 41b rejecting UPSs for having a nasty output waveform.

You can get an AEMC or Electrocorder for just over $2k new. Or PCE has some. (I haven't yet used any of those, but am interested in what folks come up with.)
 
If you only need really basic functionality, would a 'residential' energy monitor get the job done? Something like an Emporia VUE or an Open Energy Monitor?
 
winnie said:
If you only need really basic functionality, would a 'residential' energy monitor get the job done? Something like an Emporia VUE or an Open Energy Monitor?
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zbang said:
I doubt the residential ones have the time/sample resolution to detect short-duration events like sags. (I have some Iammeter units sitting around, could try that, but not today.)
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As i said i do have an EKM, but it reads only once a minute. I did just find out that the system can read down to every second, for a monthly fee (the once per minute is for their free cloud service). These meters do have options for connecting to local storage, which would also solve the complaint I mentioned b4 about having to have internet service. Anyway, still once a second is still not fast enough depending on what you were looking for.
 
Do you need it to do more than a fluke 289 will do?

There is also the TED that needs to be connected to a computer. Don’t remember the sampling rate on the TED though. Might not pick up short duration voltage spikes. But I know the 289 will.
 
Seven-Delta-FortyOne said:
Do you need it to do more than a fluke 289 will do?

There is also the TED that needs to be connected to a computer. Don’t remember the sampling rate on the TED though. Might not pick up short duration voltage spikes. But I know the 289 will.
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Thats an interesting abd affordable option. I'll have to read through the specs to see if the capabilities are sufficient..
 
The Fluke does look like an interesting beast; the claimed resolution on "True-RMS voltage" is 100kHz, so that should be enough samples for most testing. OTOH, it's only single phase and once you add the software, clamp-on, etc, the price of a new one is not too much of a stretch to one of the three-phase loggers w/o it's own display. They're out there on the used market.

Since this got me interested whilst having the morning coffee, I found an eval which has some good discussion about the 289 - https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/fluke-289-yet-a-good-investment-nowadays/.
 
zbang said:
The Fluke does look like an interesting beast; the claimed resolution on "True-RMS voltage" is 100kHz, so that should be enough samples for most testing. OTOH, it's only single phase and once you add the software, clamp-on, etc, the price of a new one is not too much of a stretch to one of the three-phase loggers w/o it's own display. They're out there on the used market.
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Careful: that '100kHz' spec is likely _not_ what is getting logged, but rather the sampling rate prior to calculating the RMS and then logging at a much much slower rate.

Sampling (and even recording) at very high frequency is pretty darn cheap; if you want to hack together a cheap voltage output current transformer, take that into the A/D converter input of a cheap computer, and then log at audio sampling rates (44 kHz, 48 kHz, or higher multiples), that is pretty darn straightforward and cheap....also probably useless. Imagine trying to look for the interesting voltage dips or noise or the like, checking a multi-day record cycle by cycle.

Where the 'professional' systems pay for themselves is in having the software and user interface to do the data reduction, and find the important few cycles in gigabytes of data representing tens of millions of AC cycles (36 million per week). If you only have very simple data reduction needs (say logging average use and looking for major power drops) then a 'residential' device such as I suggested can be useful (I have one on my own home). But if you want _details_ then.....

So the question for the particular fluke: can you set it to trigger on whatever interests you, and how much will it record when it does trigger.
 
AEMC PEL 103, 104 or any of the 8000 series. THE BEST data logger ever! Windows compatible, will save screens in .pdf format. I don't like Fluke because of the proprietary software.
 
electrofelon said:
Looking for a logger. Something more affordable, probably used. Probably dont want to spend over 2k. Only need mostly basic functionality, like max current, max demand. But would also like some basic power quality abilities like being able to spot voltage dips or spikes.
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If it doesn't have to be a portable instrument with leads, check out eGauge. They make a core model and a pro model.enough no volatile storage for a year of data, has a local web server or you can access via an Internet portal. Can measure or calculate just about any value having to do with power or energy, and can capture waveforms for a brief period. The pro has 64 channels.
 
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