I was thinking about the LED thing, and yes, I know that they got it badly wrong. How about this for an idea:
RED Voltage 1v-2v Single 1.5v cells
ORANGE Voltage 8v-12v 9v cells and car electrics
YELLOW Voltage 20v-30v Truck electrics
GREEN Voltage 45v-55v Telecoms
BLUE Voltage over 100v
Blinking LED = AC
I was thinking about the LED thing, and yes, I know that they got it badly wrong. How about this for an idea:
RED Voltage 1v-2v Single 1.5v cells
ORANGE Voltage 8v-12v 9v cells and car electrics
YELLOW Voltage 20v-30v Truck electrics
GREEN Voltage 45v-55v Telecoms
BLUE Voltage over 100v
Oh, yeah.
Now it's a device I want to own.
(not)
I dunno. When
I want to measure something I don't want to have to dismantle it and sit for half an hour while it charges the battery, then spend 10 minutes downloading an app, creating an online account and trying to pair it to my phone. Not when AA batteries exist and custom LCD screens are cheaper then bluetooth modules.
(What if the whole family use it? Do they all have to have separate accounts?)
I imagine V2 of this will have WiFi and post the readings directly to your Facebook timeline.
I was thinking about the LED thing, and yes, I know that they got it badly wrong. How about this for an idea:
RED Voltage 1v-2v Single 1.5v cells
ORANGE Voltage 8v-12v 9v cells and car electrics
YELLOW Voltage 20v-30v Truck electrics
GREEN Voltage 45v-55v Telecoms
BLUE Voltage over 100v
Blinking LED = AC
How about that: an LCD displaying an actual number which directly corresponds to the value being measured! Radical, I know
It's cheap, too. Also, unloaded (open circuit) voltage is pretty much meaningless when assessing state of charge of most consumer primary batteries.
Anyway, it looks like mm have stopped production, its marked as sold out on their page and "obsolete" on digikey. I have one and its very useful for remote logging, but not day to day use.
Having a rechargeable version would be good but: it would cost a lot more, and would have been hell to pass certifications (as they stated any cover or port protection has to be open during high voltage testing, this is why the SD slot had to be covered up).
Where I think they really failed is their insistence on using an oddball BLE adapter to connect to it using Python instead of the standard Bluetooth chip that is in almost every modern connected device nowadays. I would use my Mooshimeter a lot more if I could bring a measurement window on my PC screen, complete with the ability to log measurements as needed. (Workaround: Nexus 7 with failed touch screen remote controlled from PC using scrcpy.)
How about that: an LCD displaying an actual number which directly corresponds to the value being measured! Radical, I know It's cheap, too. Also, unloaded (open circuit) voltage is pretty much meaningless when assessing state of charge of most consumer primary batteries.
There are lots of good and inexpensive pen style multimeters although I did a search and none that I found included Bluetooth.
The unloaded voltage for most primary cells actually is a pretty good measurement of cell state if you are testing to see if something failed due to low charge. 1.2 volts on an alkaline cell unambiguously means depleted.
[ Specified attachment is not available ]
How about that: an LCD displaying an actual number which directly corresponds to the value being measured! Radical, I know It's cheap, too. Also, unloaded (open circuit) voltage is pretty much meaningless when assessing state of charge of most consumer primary batteries.
The unloaded voltage for most primary cells actually is a pretty good measurement of cell state if you are testing to see if something failed due to low charge. 1.2 volts on an alkaline cell unambiguously means depleted.
These cost $2 and don't need no steenkin' bluetooth (or prior-knowledge about "primary cell voltage").
Just sayin'
(Attachment Link) The unloaded voltage for most primary cells actually is a pretty good measurement of cell state if you are testing to see if something failed due to low charge. 1.2 volts on an alkaline cell unambiguously means depleted.
These cost $2 and don't need no steenkin' bluetooth (or prior-knowledge about "primary cell voltage").
Yes, but using an expensive and inscrutable to the uninitiated multimeter to test 10 cent batteries makes me a wizard.
Incidentally, using the thermocouple temperature probe on the same multimeter for cooking means my friends never ask me to cook anymore.
Where I think they really failed is their insistence on using an oddball BLE adapter to connect to it using Python instead of the standard Bluetooth chip that is in almost every modern connected device nowadays. I would use my Mooshimeter a lot more if I could bring a measurement window on my PC screen, complete with the ability to log measurements as needed. (Workaround: Nexus 7 with failed touch screen remote controlled from PC using scrcpy.)
Damn I didn't even think about that, being able to access it via PC would have been a huge bonus. I see some options for linux but they are not exactly plug and play (
https://github.com/ghtyrant/libsooshi).
I was thinking about the LED thing, and yes, I know that they got it badly wrong. How about this for an idea:
RED Voltage 1v-2v Single 1.5v cells
ORANGE Voltage 8v-12v 9v cells and car electrics
YELLOW Voltage 20v-30v Truck electrics
GREEN Voltage 45v-55v Telecoms
BLUE Voltage over 100v
Blinking LED = AC
That won't work because then you can't tell if a battery is "good" or not, unless you had multiple LEDs which just makes it confusing. Emphasis on the quotes.
Has to be something like:
0.8-1.1V = red, 1.1-1.7V = green
7-8.5V = red, 8.5-9.5V = green, etc
I don't see a separate ADC, so it's probably using the 12-bit one in the nRF52832 itself. No obvious voltage reference either, might just be using the CPU VDD itself. Even I know that's a big no-no, and I don't do analog stuff much either.
Even a '7106 out of a $2 830-style meter would be far more accurate.
This is what happens when non-engineers design products...
Yep, it is pretty bad. I suspect Vion has no sensible design process, like design reviews, design verification testing, risk analysis etc. Typically, a good electronic engineer would spend at least half of his design effort focused on mitigating product failures and regulatory compliance requirements like safety, EMC etc. A good paradigm for an electronic design engineer is to assume everyone is out to sue him or his company and if anyone dies due to his design, he will be in jail sharing a cell with Big Bubba.
Some major companies have also made ridiculous products. One example is the infamous IBM backup/restore utility for IBM DOS to backup user files and programs onto diskette and restore them later. They made it so that you can only restore you files on the SAME DOS version. So if you were upgrading from DOS 4.0 to Dos 4.1, the tool simply did not restore (after you had formatted the HDD), but shows an error message on the screen stating wrong DOS version. EPIC FAIL! XCOPY was an alternative, but you have to make sure you has gotten everything manually including CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, and the average dingbat PC user would not have heard of XCOPY.
I don't see a separate ADC, so it's probably using the 12-bit one in the nRF52832 itself. No obvious voltage reference either, might just be using the CPU VDD itself. Even I know that's a big no-no, and I don't do analog stuff much either.
You don't always need a voltage reference for doing precision stuff with an ADC in a microcontroller. The reference can also be a precision resistor.
You don't always need a voltage reference for doing precision stuff with an ADC in a microcontroller. The reference can also be a precision resistor.
Could you give an example please? I assume not multi-slope or similar.
You think a $2 multimeter is bad?
A review of the Kickstarter & Indiegogo Vion bluetooth multimeter that promised the world.
Grab your popcorn for a master class in idiotic product design.
Sorry Dave, after this review I can't trust anymore on your expertise of products!
Until you start wearing a mustache!
IC Identification of this Device:
The very culture of the whole patreon, kickstarter communities combined with desktop OS loonix, hacker communities results in abominations like this.
The self-professed geniuses fighting against capitalism being nothing but untalented smooth brains scamming people out of their money.
The very culture of the whole patreon, kickstarter communities combined with desktop OS loonix, hacker communities results in abominations like this.
The self-professed geniuses fighting against capitalism being nothing but untalented smooth brains scamming people out of their money.
I know of a couple of real test equipment Kickstarter projects which were not approved because they were too technically focused.
So real that they were on kickstarter.........
Golly… idiocy makes the world go round.
I reckon this video should’ve been: “Don’t turn it on OR take it apart… BLOW IT UP!”