EEVBlog 121GW Discussion thread

[bateau020]

If you have a relatively-recent Mac and can run Meteor on an iPhone, capturing the data in the app and then using AirDrop to send them to the Mac is only one extra step and relatively painless.  That's how I do it now for my own data.

Understood. I just bit the bullet and whipped together a small command line MacOS app capable of logging the 121GW data (and nothing more). Translating the stream was the hardest, as the documentation is not really great. Might put that on github if people want to see it.

[VK5RC]

Works a treat for me! Samsung s9, android v 10. Quick Bluetooth recognition, connected reasonably well. I really appreciate your work, thanks. Rob

[pppopol]

That's work for me too, on French Androïd and after technical support by David imself.

Thank-you for this apps David !

[CkeKchy]

With David2 now out of the picture, I doubt you will see much effort being put into the application side.

That was never the plan. We got the app to a good refined working point and released it as fully open source software. If people want to improve upon it and add features they can, but we never had any plans to extend it ourselves beyond what it already is.

At  https://sigrok.org/wiki/EEVBlog_121GW   "The meter is announced as having "hackable firmware" but its source code is not available and probably never will. Alternative OpenSource firmware is possible but would have to start at square one. There are connector pads to program the MCU and the BLE module. "   

Pardon, if I missed the source code availability, somewhere that my search failed to shows;  I am certainly would be very appreciative if someone would kindly point me to the finding -- I wonder -Why the source code not available?

[Brumby]

This question has been asked several times - but it comes down to this:  UEI have used some proprietary routines - "secret sauce" as Dave puts it.

I have no doubt these routines represent a significant investment and have proven to be of great competitive value.  As such, it would be quite easy to understand why they might not prepared to make these available.

[CDaniel]

So far I don't see that great value  , just sloppy coding with bugs after numerous updates that someone ( 1 guy ) could do it far better ... of course there is little incentive to waste time for this .
After all is just a microcontroller , not FPGA or something more complex .

[ggchab]

Unfortunately, after so many releases, this is also my feeling: not very well written/tested firmware. How could you have no doubt that

these routines represent a significant investment and have proven to be of great competitive value

Did you have any chance to see the code or speak with some UEi developers ? It would be interesting to know 

[jancumps]

It may be the most engineer-tested firmware around. We're all on it and report any issue.
I think it's an interesting situation to be able to have a meter around where so many engineers have a poke at, comment on, critique on. It's all in the open (except the code  ).

I enjoy using the meter. All the public scrutiny, reviews, videos make it the most alive piece of test equipment on the desk.
And the fact that all the shortcomings are out in the open. Almost like my own life

[Brumby]

Unfortunately, after so many releases, this is also my feeling: not very well written/tested firmware. How could you have no doubt that

these routines represent a significant investment and have proven to be of great competitive value

Did you have any chance to see the code or speak with some UEi developers ? It would be interesting to know 

1. I am just passing on information that Dave has made public in the past
2. The routines I refer to are the sort of standard subroutines that UEI would have written long before the 121GW came across their desk and are completely separate to the specific code written for the 121GW hardware.
3. Why else would UEI want to keep their routines secret if they did not have competitive value?

(If you really want to program the 121GW from scratch, then you can simply put on your machine code hat and write the binary straight up, using one of the versions of FW already available as a guide.  We've had a couple of people tweak things through editing a binary.)

[CkeKchy]

Do we know who made and claimed this part of the DMM product making:  "fully open source software" ?     What sort of work ethic is it if no owners who supported the 121GW have NO access to the "fully open source software"?

[darrellg]

Do we know who made and claimed this part of the DMM product making:  "fully open source software" ?     What sort of work ethic is it if no owners who supported the 121GW have NO access to the "fully open source software"?

If you look at the Kickstarter page (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eevblog/eevblog-121gw-multimeter/description), it doesn't say the meter software is open source. It says the application software is open source.

[e0ne199]

It may be the most engineer-tested firmware around. We're all on it and report any issue.
I think it's an interesting situation to be able to have a meter around where so many engineers have a poke at, comment on, critique on. It's all in the open (except the code  ).

I enjoy using the meter. All the public scrutiny, reviews, videos make it the most alive piece of test equipment on the desk.
And the fact that all the shortcomings are out in the open. Almost like my own life

and the slowest response for firmware fix available although the error is right before your eyes... you must make several people angry first in order to create the fix 

anyway VA mode fix is still not available, i am still waiting for it 

[knapik]

I had to use a microSD card, and well the only one around was in the 121GW
I'm trying to update the firmware, but the process doesn't work anymore. I believe that it may be a formatting issue, I've tried fat32 & exfat but still doesn't update. What exactly should I be formatting the microSD card to

[beanflying]

I had to use a microSD card, and well the only one around was in the 121GW
I'm trying to update the firmware, but the process doesn't work anymore. I believe that it may be a formatting issue, I've tried fat32 & exfat but still doesn't update. What exactly should I be formatting the microSD card to

What did you rename the firmware file to? https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/eevblog-121gw-multimeter-issues/msg2952134/#msg2952134

[knapik]

What did you rename the firmware file to? https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/eevblog-121gw-multimeter-issues/msg2952134/#msg2952134

EEVBlog.bin. Trying to upgrade from 1.26 to 2.02, but it just gets stuck on the down screen and never moves from there.

[beanflying]

EEVblog.bin not EEVBlog.bin likely case will matter?

[knapik]

EEVblog.bin not EEVBlog.bin likely case will matter?

Tried both, but same issue, so 

[EEVblog]

Do we know who made and claimed this part of the DMM product making:  "fully open source software" ?     What sort of work ethic is it if no owners who supported the 121GW have NO access to the "fully open source software"?

There was never a claim that the source code is open source. I think many people have confused the meter firmware with the app software which is and has always been advertised as fully open source.
There was a hope way back at day 1 of development that the firmware could be open source, but that never eventuated and was never advertised.
Because I did not pay for the development of this meter or the firmware, I do not have a say in whether it is made open source or not, I do not own it.
I did however pay for the app development, so I own that, and that is why it's fully open source.

[EEVblog]

EEVblog.bin not EEVBlog.bin likely case will matter?

Tried both, but same issue, so 

Some people have reported firmware update issues if their batteries are low.

[knapik]

Some people have reported firmware update issues if their batteries are low.

Don't worry I got it now 
it was most likely an issue because I had it named EEVBlog.bin, not EEVblog.bin & that the SD card was formatted as exfat rather than fat32.

[swgertsch]

Regarding getting logged data off the internal MicroSD card... why not make it possible to do a File Transfer over BT? This should address users physical accessibility issues. Tried a BT file transfer from Windows 10 PC but the 121GW ignores the "Receive a File" request. Is it an issue the software stack to implement this feature is beyond the hardware's capability?

Recently I wanted to log temperature measurements every 5 seconds and thought I could easily do this with my Android phone using the 121GW app. While the app is capable of "Saving" data sent from the 121GW, there does not appear to be a way set/control the interval time (sampling rate). The interval time appears to be around 300ms which is about as fast the 121GW can log readings to the internal MicroSD card. I would have thought the interval time would be used to control the rate data is sent over BT to the app.

I also noticed the file formats for data saved from the app versus logged to the internal MicroSD card are quite different. The format used for the MicroSD card is more complete. The file formats should be consistent.

I guess I would like to see the app to be more of a remote control than a remote display for the device.

[cowasaki]

I've tried searching but does the 121GW no longer come with a case?  Just bought a new one from the official distributer over here and there wasn't one in the box, the meter was just wrapped in bubble wrap.......

[EEVblog]

I've tried searching but does the 121GW no longer come with a case?  Just bought a new one from the official distributer over here and there wasn't one in the box, the meter was just wrapped in bubble wrap.......

The meter has never come standard with a case.

[EEVblog]

Regarding getting logged data off the internal MicroSD card... why not make it possible to do a File Transfer over BT? This should address users physical accessibility issues. Tried a BT file transfer from Windows 10 PC but the 121GW ignores the "Receive a File" request. Is it an issue the software stack to implement this feature is beyond the hardware's capability?

It was considered very early on back in the development but it was deemed to be too hard. IIRC it needed added support in the bootloader code, so I don't think it's even possible with just a firmware update.

[cowasaki]

I've tried searching but does the 121GW no longer come with a case?  Just bought a new one from the official distributer over here and there wasn't one in the box, the meter was just wrapped in bubble wrap.......

The meter has never come standard with a case.

No worries.  I'm so far impressed