Hi Thomas!

Oh my, you’ve given me a lot to chew on.

1a) Why the 99 files with one line in them? It’s particularly frustrating because it flashes that it’s logging, but is actually creating the 99 files and will soon run out of filenames.

This indicates something is going wrong with the logging. Every time a logging error occurs (flash card doesn’t respond properly, some sort of error occurs), the Mooshimeter recovers by closing the old log file and starting a fresh one. So the fact that 99 log files are being created indicates that there’s some sort of intermittent fault with the SD card interface. This is a behavior I’m working on and will change in the next firmware update.

1b) Is there a way to prevent this, a work-around or specific way of setting up or operating the meter, before the firmware update

A few other users have reported a similar problem. If you don’t mind chewing up batteries, one work around is to log at the MAX rate. The SD card faults seem to come up when waking the SD card up from sleep, and logging at the MAX rate means the SD card never goes to sleep. It’s not elegant but it may make your life easier until I push new firmware.

2) Logging timing is wrong, or it’s not being reported correctly

The field should be renamed in the app… a “1s interval” actually means that it will wait 1s between the end of one sample and the beginning of the next. Since a sample takes a few hundred milliseconds it’s a substantial difference. But getting 5s for a 10s interval? That’s odd, I haven’t heard that reported before. There is a 10s periodic timer running in the background that always gives a small blink, regardless of anything else that is going on. Maybe the logging blink and the periodic blink are out of phase and you are just observing a blink every 5s? Are the log entries 10s apart?

3) Strange headers in the CSV files, and strange columns

Internally, the meter is always calculating the DC (mean) and AC (RMS) components of the sample. Even for temperature. Since the units for temperature in the logfile are degrees C, the units of which are arbitrarily based on the characteristics of water, an absolute zero temperature is represented as -273C (or 0 Kelvin). Just ignore the RMS column when it doesn’t mean anything to you – it’s better to have the data and not need it than to need the data and not have it, at least that was the philosophy behind logging all the calculated data.

4) It would be nice to be able to set the time in the Android app…

You’re right, sorry. On the to-do list! But the firmware issues are more pressing.

5) It would be good to have positive confirmation that logging is taking place and working. A button in the app, saying Start Logging, that then switches to a new screen, staying connected, where it tells me “Logging at 10 second intervals. SD card free space 44 MB. 5 data points collected in this logging run. Measuring AC voltage and DC current.” When re-connecting to a meter that’s logging, I should see that it’s logging, see the last reading it took, and be offered the chance to stop logging to go back to real-time mode, or disconnect and leave it logging. This would be more workable.

The firmware has been overhauled and is being tested now – one of the changes is that the timing issues are sorted out and the meter can maintain a BLE connection and talk to the SD card at the same time. The fact that it had to do one or the other before is why there’s no feedback possible in the existing version of the app. So yes! I agree completely and the product is moving in that direction :)

Thanks Thomas, let me know if you have any more questions
~James