FlexLogger features

[JudgeMental]

Hi,

I am using FlexLogger 2018 R2, evaluation version. We would like to replace our rental chart recorders with it, but have some questions.

1. In the "screen.flxscr" tab, containing all charts, can the visible length time be set globally? Set them all for 60 minutes?

1. In the "Channel Specifications.flxio" tab, Is there a way to set alarms on channels? For instance, if a voltage goes below a predetermined limit, can the "screen.flxscr" tab change colors or something to indicate an out of specification condition?

2. While logging to tdms, can annotations be added? For instance, if the operator de-energized the Unit Under Test, it would be nice to be able to record it (with date/time), as well as other events on the chart.

3. In the provided FlexLogger Viewer, (DIAdem 2017 A), Can Alarm limits be set there, on a per channel basis?

4. In the FlexLogger Viewer, can the set up be saved so that  when a tdms file is re-loaded, the plots are pre-setup? It is a long process to add all the plots each time the data set is loaded.

Thanks

[JoeySpinella]

JudgeMental, thanks for these questions. I can see you are diving in to explore FlexLogger's limits! I have an answer here for each of your questions and would love to hear more detail about what you are looking for in each case. An important thing to keep in mind is that we are releasing new versions of FlexLogger continuously, so any current gaps that you explain clearly to us can be input for the features we work on next!

1. In the "screen.flxscr" tab, containing all charts, can the visible length time be set globally? Set them all for 60 minutes?

No – visible length is a property that can be configured uniquely per graph. If you want to duplicate the same settings, you can copy and paste an already configured graph. If you find this arduous and have a certain view you want, you can save a screen and reuse it across projects. I’m curious – does this meet your needs today or is there still a gap? If you want to set it globally, is this something you just want to set once so that from now on all long history graphs show an hour of data, or something you would iteratively change while you are monitoring data?

 2. In the "Channel Specifications.flxio" tab, Is there a way to set alarms on channels? For instance, if a voltage goes below a predetermined limit, can the "screen.flxscr" tab change colors or something to indicate an out of specification condition?

Today, if you are concerned about a channel going over a certain level, you can drop an LED indicator on the screen and set it to turn on when a channel’s value enters or leaves a certain range. This could be used to set warning levels for any channel, although it requires setting up each channel individually. In the future, we are considering how we can improve alarm functionality and would love to hear your feedback about what is most valuable. Why would you want the tab to change colors – is this so that even if you were looking at a different tab you would still be notified? Would this be an alarm for one specific channel or would you have the same alarm level set across a bunch of similar channels?

3. While logging to tdms, can annotations be added? For instance, if the operator de-energized the Unit Under Test, it would be nice to be able to record it (with date/time), as well as other events on the chart.

This is a great idea! We are working on finding ways so that specific events can be captured with their time stamp. At this point these would not be logged to the TDMS. How would you want to view or use this data later?

4. In the provided FlexLogger Viewer, (DIAdem 2017 A), Can Alarm limits be set there, on a per channel basis?

In the provided FlexLogger TDMS Viewer, there is not a feature for alarms. This is a version of DIAdem that only includes the VIEW module. If a full license of DIAdem is purchased separately, there is a full suite of analysis and reporting tools. As part of this, there are functions for signal processing and analyzing limits. What would you be looking for to have an alarm in post-processing? Is this just a workaround if FLexLogger doesn’t have this natively?

5. In the FlexLogger Viewer, can the set up be saved so that  when a tdms file is re-loaded, the plots are pre-setup? It is a long process to add all the plots each time the data set is loaded.

The FlexLogger TDMS Viewer does not have the ability to save views of data, but we do have a feature in FlexLogger that can help you do this. If you go to Preferences > General and click “Launch a separately licensed edition of DIAdem instead of FlexLogger TDMS Viewer”, then you can actually get the full version of DIAdem to launch from FlexLogger. In DIAdem you can create scripts and templates of exactly how you want things to be viewed – you can even automate analysis or reports being generated. So, if you had a license for DIAdem and created a script like this, you could automate whatever kind of visualization, analysis, or report generation you wanted. Do you think this could help you accomplish what you are looking for?