Eagle Tree Datalogger on the horizon for me, anything I need to know

[TexasSP]

I am thinking about purchasing an Eagle Tree in the near future and wanted to know from the guys that have if you have any suggestions or is it all pretty straight forward?

I have some things I want to go for soon (the speed bug has bitten me) and I want to know exactly what is going on with my setup when I run. I would also like some of what I think to be real information instead of theory.

[JThiessen]

'Bout damn time you did and quit posting all that speculation and opinion crap!

I'm interested as well - started looking yesterday. I wonder if I run consistent enough to warrant trying to use one.

[TexasSP]

Originally Posted by JThiessen

'Bout damn time you did and quit posting all that speculation and opinion crap!

I'm interested as well - started looking yesterday. I wonder if I run consistent enough to warrant trying to use one.

Nice!

I figured for the price of these things I can't go wrong. It's just that I think I know what's going on, but want to know for sure.

Thanks metalman and snellemin, I figured it was as such but just wanted to check first. I have been blindsided before (like when I originally bought nitro!).

[MetalMan]

They're very straightforward. Sometimes they might need to have their voltage calibrated but otherwise you shouldn't have any issues. When it first came out I got one (V1) and received a temp sensor and magnet-hall RPM sensor. Both worked well. I now have a eLogger V3 and have the brushless motor RPM sensor, but haven't tried that out yet.

The software is easy to use, and extremely adjustable. You'll enjoy playing around with it I'm sure.

[snellemin]

I use mine all the time. Pretty straight forward and easy to update the firmware. I play alot with the 2 pole and 4 pole motor setting.

[snellemin]

Yea, it's nice to know your continuous amp draw, voltage and corresponding motor rpm. You might be surprise to see some crazy amp spikes and voltage drops in your system.

[SpEEdyBL]

If you use deans, definately use the one with integrated deans, which i have found very convenient. I have the brushless rpm sensor too. It's pretty accurate for measuring kv and max rpm under a load, but i gets a lot of erroneous readings, and i never see a smooth curve on the graph. In fact it is practically useless at rpms less than 15,000 due to some sort of electrical interference that occurs at low rpm. The beeps on the MMM cause it to instantanously read over 50,000 rpm for crying out loud. I also have the temperature sensor. Its good for see how fast your motor heats up during a run and how effective your airflow is. However, even smothered in thermal paste and tape to hold it in place against my motor, i get temp readings that are up to 30 degrees cooler than my infrared sensor.

Originally Posted by TexasSP

I am thinking about purchasing an Eagle Tree in the near future and wanted to know from the guys that have if you have any suggestions or is it all pretty straight forward?

I have some things I want to go for soon (the speed bug has bitten me) and I want to know exactly what is going on with my setup when I run. I would also like some of what I think to be real information instead of theory.

Its easy to use. I had a V2 and now I have a V3 150amp (no deans). It works very well and the information I got with it helped me immensely in verifying my power calculator.

I found that installing both wires on the brushless RPM sensor to be better than installing just one. The directions say to use 1 initially, then use 2 if there are errors in your readings. I would install both at the beginning.

What car are you going to use for speed runs and where are you going to run? I am still working on my X2, X3, and X5 cars. I test at Houston Motorsport Park.

[snellemin]

I use both sensor wires as well, as I got funny readings with one of my lrp motors.

I've been fooling with my V3 lately - amazing to see 100amp spikes in a Slash (no, its not stock...), but what's the secret to saving and re-using these files??

Everytime I try and save one, there's nothing in the file when I try to reload. I remember something so time back about .CDR vs .FDR files or something, but I can't find it with a search.

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by Duster_360

I've been fooling with my V3 lately - amazing to see 100amp spikes in a Slash (no, its not stock...), but what's the secret to saving and re-using these files??

Everytime I try and save one, there's nothing in the file when I try to reload. I remember something so time back about .CDR vs .FDR files or something, but I can't find it with a search.

I had the same problem as you with trying to save the files, so I got bored with it very quickly and haven't touched it in over a year and a half. I thought it would be a good thing to have, but for me the novelty wore off too soon.

[J57ltr]

Originally Posted by Duster_360

I've been fooling with my V3 lately - amazing to see 100amp spikes in a Slash (no, its not stock...), but what's the secret to saving and re-using these files??

Everytime I try and save one, there's nothing in the file when I try to reload. I remember something so time back about .CDR vs .FDR files or something, but I can't find it with a search.

You can't find the files in your computer or you can't find info on the difference between the 2 files? If you can't find them on your computer then use *.FDR or *.CDR in your search

I had this same thing happen turns out I had the sample rate set to the lowest rate so the device had not even sampled anything by the time I had tried to download it (usually about 5 minutes). When I would download it would say 0 bytes out of (whatever the maximum amount of memory was) used when downloading the info. There is no secret to the files you just have to find the file and open it and if there is nothing displayed then see if you are not using any memory and set the sample rate. Use the 10 Hz setting as it is the fastest the device is capable of.

I reinstalled the software and when I was setting up for the sample rate I noticed that it was set at the longest time.

The brushless sensor is OK but I do get a lot of erroneous data so to “fix” that I set the max RPM to a value that is just above the highest value attainable(Voltage X Kv) using bot wires as well since 1 just doesn’t work I was getting no reading then a reading in the 100K range.

I also bought the magnetic rpm sensor (haven’t used yet) and a temp sensor (and made 3 more with 10K NTC thermistors and some servo plugs). The temp sensors are great and helped me to see that my NiMh battery packs were getting over 200F while bashing. And I wondered why they were dying on me….

I really like the system although I think the sample rate is just way too slow. I can imagine that the peaks would be probably 10 times higher than what you see displayed. Granted it’s not really useful but it would nice to know, and it might catch something that might not be seen otherwise. For the money though its worth about 3 times what I paid for it.

Jeff

Thats what is frustrating - I can graph the data as long as its on the V3, I can see it and I know there's amps and volts versus time which is all I've been trying to record so far. Then I name it and save it (accept the default file extension), then clear the recorder for the next run. When I come back and reload it later, I can find ihe file, but there's nothing but the time in the file, there's no volts vs time and no amps vs time data like I was displaying when I had it graphed on the screen. I am using the 10hz rate and typically only running for 4-6 min.

The other thing I've been disappointed in is trying to save the graph as a jpg. That resulted in a tiny, tiny square that had nothing in it when I blew it up. If I can't save the data some how, the potential benefit is marginalized.

[J57ltr]

How large are the files, mine had only the time as well, that was the clue that I wasn’t really recording. If you want send me your file and I'll see if I can open and see it. As far as making a .jpg file I have just done a print screen and save it that way.

Jeff