What Can you Expect? —A Data Collection Project Using Linux

Both the temperature conversion circuit and the multimeter run from 9-volt batteries. Since I wanted to take data for weeks at a time without worrying about them going dead, I designed and built a couple of simple power supplies using adjustable voltage regulators and the cube transformers that plug in the wall, to act as battery eliminators. These also fit on a piece of vector board a little over one square inch. (See Figure 4.)

Figure 4. Battery Eliminator Schematic

The last part was visualizing the data. I used gnuplot to read the log file and plot temperature versus time. I hadn't used gnuplot before, but a couple of hours going through the man pages got me to a point where I could view the plot on the Linux console or print it to my HP LaserJetIII.

Lines in /var/log/temps.log look like this:

Dec 31 10:45:01 server1 rddmm: 68.9 Degrees F

The operative gnuplot directives are:

set xdata time
set format x "%b %d\n%H:%M"
set title "Internal Server Temperature at Timekeeping Crystal"
set timefmt "%b %d %H:%M:%S"
set xrange [ "Jan 03 14:00:00" : "Jan 04 07:59:00"]
set ylabel "Degrees F" -2
plot "/var/log/temps.log" using 1:6 with lines 1

Figure 5. Temperature Versus Time

To print the plot to the laser jet, I used:

set terminal pcl5
set output '/root/plot.out'
replot

Then from the shell:

lpr /root/plot.out

set xdata time
set timefmt "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M"
set xrange ["1999-01-03 15:00":"1999-01-04 07:00"]
set format x "%b %d\n%H:%M"
set title "Delta sysclock Minus Delta refclock"
set ylabel "Seconds" -2
plot "/root/clk_hr.prn" using 1:3 with lines 1

Figure 6. System Clock time Measurements Versus Reference Ntp Server

And now, after all of this, is the system clock being affected by temperature? By looking at Figures 4 and 5, you can see that the variations in the clock differences do not follow the temperature variations inside the server. As a matter of fact, there is a large time variation that corrected itself, which I must chalk up to variations in network latency. By taking time data once per hour instead of once per day as I was originally doing, it became easier to identify the random network variations, which had originally peaked my curiosity.

These techniques are also adaptable to measuring and recording other physical parameters using devices with a serial interface. This particular digital multimeter can measure DC and AC voltage and current, capacitance, frequency and transistor gain. All these are accessible through the serial interface.

Linux and a project like this have brought me back to the days when you could actually create something useful with hardware and software. Sadly, most things for computers today come out of a shrink-wrapped box. Linux provides me with the tools I can use to make things happen in the real world.

Resources

Acknowledgements