I'm designing a hand-held system with 4 solar panels on every side of the case.
As the sun exposure is not constant, and handling the device interfere, I would like to know the typical energy available during a full day of use.
What's the best approach among:
- 2 cheap PC multimeter, one with a good uA range, like the UNI-T UT 61E
- 2 cheap PC multimeter plus a uCurrent
I'm looking for a sub 200$ solution, ideally running Sigrok or at least linux to run it with a laptop in my backpack logging U and I in a spreadsheet.
The voltage is from 1 to 8 volts, current from 1uA to 30mA.
This bench will be also used for evaluating the power drained by the system (MP430, sleeping at 50Hz, from 1uA to 5mA @ 3.3V)
Is recording U and I from different device (not sync) a problem?
I'm looking for any hint in this setup, but also recommendation for 2 nice multimeter reference fitting the bill (and my budget). (I dont like 9V battery, I would prefer 2xAA and USB of course is nicer than RS232 to avoid converter)