Welcome to PortPilot Technologies, home of the PortPilot advanced inline USB power analyzer.
We were excited this week to receive our Mooshimeter , an innovative Bluetooth-enabled pocket-sized multimeter with some impressive specs and cool features.
Packaged nicely in a sturdy, practical zippered case, the Mooshimeter comes with 3 standard multimeter leads of decent quality. Why 3? One of Mooshimeter’s innovative features is that it provides simultaneous measurements of both voltage and current — more on this later.
Instead of a display, the Mooshimeter’s data is sent via Bluetooth 4.0/BLE to your Android or iOS device. We tested the Android app, which was easy to install and quick to set up with our Mooshimeter.
According to the manufacturer, the Mooshimeter uses the savings from forgoing the usual DMM display and controls to splurge on a high-performance 24-bit ADC with simultaneous sampling of two channels. How are the specs? We did a few quick tests pitting the $119 Mooshimeter against a Fluke 289 ($599 at DigiKey).
Measuring a quiet DC voltage provided by an alkaline battery, the Mooshimeter compared well to the Fluke:
Measuring a 0.01% tolerance 1000 ohm resistor with 200ppb TCO, the Mooshimeter was significantly more accurate with a -0.03% error versus the Fluke’s 0.36% — though to be fair the Fluke hasn’t been calibrated recently.
Because the Mooshimeter has two channels of simultaneous data collection, lots of cool things are possible that you can’t do with a standard DMM including IV measurements, power, and phase measurements. The Mooshimeter has a micro-SD card slot, and can be configured to log measurements to the card for long periods of time.
To summarize our initial impressions, the Mooshimeter provides a wealth of cool features along with precision measurements, in a sturdy, novel form factor at a reasonable price, which in many common applications promises to replace two more expensive DMMs.
There’s a nice review of PortPilot over at embedded systems experts The Ganssle Group’s website:
“The PortPilot is a small bit of test equipment that is placed in series with a USB host and a USB device. It measures the voltage and current supplied to a USB device, and integrates that to show total mWh consumed…”
Read the full article: http://www.ganssle.com/
A quick-start guide is now available for PortPilot. Excerpt below, download the guide here: PortPilot-Quickstart.