R
List Members,
My company makes high-speed paper finishing equipment (think: mailing machines). Production rates, service costs, downtime, etc. are all of paramount importance to our customers.
To better serve the needs of these monitoring and measuring folks, (and perhaps to cover our own rear ends), I'm looking for a power monitoring solution. Our machine *is* computer controlled, and we could record bootup times and times our software is running, but that is not always enough to satisfy the truly retentive folks. Also, the computer could be hooked to a separate supply, or our software not running even
though the computer is on, etc.
Is there a not-too-expensive device can be used to (or be programmed to) record power up and down cycles, and to transmit the history list (upon request, not automatically) to another computer via the serial port? Remember, the power may cycle up and down several times before the host reads and clears the history data, so
it should be able to timestamp and log a good number of on and off events. Because we want to timestamp power-down events, it should be either battery powered, or be able to record the "last conscious moment" prior to shutdown. Obviously it needs a realtime clock (or be able to read
whatever clock signals are available via radio waves or power lines).
We could probably roll our own little gizmo with the ubiquitous PIC chip with RTC and EEROM or something like that, but I was wondering if a packaged system might be available (even a mini-plc might suffice, or perhaps an inexpensive paperless datalogger). I'm off to check the z-world/rabbit family, but if anyone out there has
an idea, I'd appreciate it.
Rufus
Remember - the device has to hold multiple items of data through one or more power-downs.
My company makes high-speed paper finishing equipment (think: mailing machines). Production rates, service costs, downtime, etc. are all of paramount importance to our customers.
To better serve the needs of these monitoring and measuring folks, (and perhaps to cover our own rear ends), I'm looking for a power monitoring solution. Our machine *is* computer controlled, and we could record bootup times and times our software is running, but that is not always enough to satisfy the truly retentive folks. Also, the computer could be hooked to a separate supply, or our software not running even
though the computer is on, etc.
Is there a not-too-expensive device can be used to (or be programmed to) record power up and down cycles, and to transmit the history list (upon request, not automatically) to another computer via the serial port? Remember, the power may cycle up and down several times before the host reads and clears the history data, so
it should be able to timestamp and log a good number of on and off events. Because we want to timestamp power-down events, it should be either battery powered, or be able to record the "last conscious moment" prior to shutdown. Obviously it needs a realtime clock (or be able to read
whatever clock signals are available via radio waves or power lines).
We could probably roll our own little gizmo with the ubiquitous PIC chip with RTC and EEROM or something like that, but I was wondering if a packaged system might be available (even a mini-plc might suffice, or perhaps an inexpensive paperless datalogger). I'm off to check the z-world/rabbit family, but if anyone out there has
an idea, I'd appreciate it.
Rufus
Remember - the device has to hold multiple items of data through one or more power-downs.