Data Logger

Moku:Lab User Manual

Moku:Lab’s Data Logger instrument records time series voltages from 1 or 2 channels at rates from
1 sample per second up to 1 MSa/s. The data can be logged to RAM or removeable SD card in a
variety of formats.

The resulting logs can be shared to email or cloud services such as iCloud or DropBox.

Moku:Lab’s Data Logger also includes an embedded waveform generator.

V21-0204

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Table of Contents
User Interface Quick Reference ............................................................................................................... 4
Main Menu ................................................................................................................................................... 5
Preferences ................................................................................................................................................. 6
Data Logger Control Panel ........................................................................................................................ 7
Sharing and Saving Data ........................................................................................................................... 8
Settings Side Bar ........................................................................................................................................ 9
Acquisition 9
Output 10
Instrument Reference ............................................................................................................................... 11
Recording a Session 11
Channel Configuration 11
Acquisition Parameters 11
File Types and Destinations 12
Starting the Log 12
Accessing your Data 13
Embedded Waveform Generator 13

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 Ensure Moku:Lab is fully updated. For the latest information:

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User Interface Quick Reference

ID Button/icon Description
1 Main menu The main menu contains controls for switching instruments, switching
devices, selecting device clock and user interface modes, and more. See
Main Menu.
2 Autoscale Toggle continuous autoscaling on/off.
3 Ref Capture/clear a reference trace.
4 Time window Overview of the logging time history. Drag bars to zoom/select different
timescales/time windows.
5 Settings Show/hide the settings.
6 Clear Clear the trace history.
7 Blue trace Data channel 2 trace.
8 Red trace Data channel 1 trace.
9 Bottom left Double tap here to view entire log history.
10 Grid Double tap on the grid to on-time autoscale.

4 | Moku:Lab’s Data Logger User Manual © 2021 Liquid Instruments. All rights reserved.
Main Menu
The main menu can be accessed by pressing the icon, allowing you to:

5 | Moku:Lab’s Data Logger User Manual © 2021 Liquid Instruments. All rights reserved.
Preferences
The preferences pane can be accessed via the main menu. In here, you can reassign the color
representations for each channel, connect to Dropbox, etc. Throughout the manual, the default
colors (red for input 1, blue for input 2, green for output 1, purple for output 2) are used to present
instrument features.

ID Description
1 Tap to change the color associated with input channels.
2 Tap to change the color associated with output channels.
3 Tap to change the color associated with math channel.
4 Indicate touch points on the screen with circles. This can be useful for demonstrations.
5 Change the currently linked Dropbox account to which data can be uploaded.
6 Notify when a new version of the app is available.
7 Moku:Lab automatically saves instrument settings when exiting the app and restores them
again at launch. When disabled, all settings will be reset to defaults on launch.
8 Moku:Lab can remember the last used instrument and automatically reconnect to it at
launch. When disabled, you will need to manually connect every time.
9 Reset all instruments to their default state.
10 Save and apply settings.

6 | Moku:Lab’s Data Logger User Manual © 2021 Liquid Instruments. All rights reserved.
Data Logger control panel
Below the main Data Logger trace display is the control panel

ID Button/icon Description
1 Status Logger status, either idle, aborted, waiting, or logging.
2 Share The sharing button gives access to controls that allow you to save and
share your data. See Saving and sharing data.
3 Memory Displays the used and remaining memory available for logging. This may
be either Moku:Lab’s internal RAM or the removeable SD card.
4 Mode Set acquisition mode as normal or precision.
5 Filename Configure the prefix to be used on the data log filenames.
6 Comment Text entered here will be saved in the file header.
7 Start/stop Tap to start and top data logging.
8 Log memory Tap to select log memory, either Moku:Lab’s internal RAM or SD card.
9 Log format Tap to select log format, CSV or LI binary format.
10 Duration Tap to set log duration, up to 10,000 hrs, but limited to available memory.
11 Start Tap to configure start delay, up to 240 hrs.
12 Acquisition rate Tap to configure acquisition rate.

7 | Moku:Lab’s Data Logger User Manual © 2021 Liquid Instruments. All rights reserved.
Sharing and saving data
Tap the share button to access the file manager, allowing saving and sharing of
the captured data logs. Dropbox, Mail, and iCloud service settings are configured in the
iPad preferences.

ID Button/icon Description
1 SD Card Tap to save files on Moku:Lab’s removable SD card.
2 RAM Tap to save files on Moku:Lab’s internal RAM.
3 Save options Tap to share data files to “My Files” or any of these online services.

8 | Moku:Lab’s Data Logger User Manual © 2021 Liquid Instruments. All rights reserved.
Settings side bar
Acquisition
The acquisition sidebar configures the acquisition parameters of both input channels. The channel
1, channel 2, and acquisitions sub-panels may be dragged into the main display by tap/hold and
dragging.

ID Button Description
1 Channels 1 settings Channel 1 (red by default; configurable in main menu preferences)
and channel 2 (blue by default) settings are configurable
independently.
2 Coupling Range selects the input range as either 1 V or 10 V peak-to-peak.
3 Impedance Select AC or DC coupling.
4 Range Select high (1MΩ) or 50Ω input impedance.
5–8 Channel 2 settings Configure channel 2 as described above for channel 1.
9 Acquisition settings Configure acquisition settings.
10 Rate For logging to Moku:Lab’s internal RAM, the maximum rate is 1
MSa/s (1 channel) or 500 kSa/s (2 channel).
For logging to SDcard, maximum rate is 100 kSa/s.
Note: logging to CSV is at a lower rate. See Liquid Instruments
website for binary  CSV conversion utility.
11 Mode Precision, normal.

9 | Moku:Lab’s Data Logger User Manual © 2021 Liquid Instruments. All rights reserved.
Output
Moku:Lab’s Data Logger has a built-in waveform generator capable of generating basic waveforms
on the two output channels. For more complex waveforms, see Moku:Lab Waveform Generator
and Arbitrary Waveform Generator.

ID Button Description
1 Configure channels Tap to configure settings for channels 1 and 2. As illustrated, settings
apply to channel 1.
2 Current waveform Graphical representation of the selected waveform.
3 Waveform selection Tap to choose between Sine, Square, Ramp, Pulse, or DC
waveforms.
4 Enable Tap to enable/disable channel output.
5 Load Tap to select either 50Ω or high impedance (1MΩ) output load.
6 Waveform parameters Tap to configure the selected waveform parameters varying
according the waveform type selected.

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Instrument Reference
Moku:Lab’s Data Logger is designed to be intuitive and straightforward to use.
One or two channels of time-series voltages are recorded by Moku:Lab, for a specified duration,
and at a specified rate.
The maximum logging rate depends on a number of factors, such as the file format chosen, file
storage location, and the number of channels to be recorded.

Recording a Session
Recording data is done as follows:
1. Configure the channel(s) you wish to record using the acquisition sidebar. Ensure the voltage
range, coupling, and impedance are all appropriate for your signals. Use the plotter window
to ensure your signal is correctly connected and configured.
2. Configure the acquisition rate and acquisition mode, either normal or precision.
3. Select your file type and destination, ensuring that the destination has enough free space for
the log.
4. Set the recording duration and any comments you want to be saved with the file.
5. Optionally configure the waveform generator outputs.
6. Tap “record”.

Channel Configuration
Each channel can be enabled or disabled, 1 Vpp or 10 Vpp, AC or DC-coupled, and 50Ω or 1MΩ
terminated.

Acquisition Parameters
The acquisition parameters refer to the logging rate and the down-sampling mode used to reduce
Moku:Lab’s native sampling rate to the logging rate.
The logging rate must be between 10 Sa/s and 1 MSa/s. The actual maximum is only achievable
with a single channel, binary file format saved to RAM; other combinations will have lower maximum
rates.
Acquisition mode may be either normal or precision. Normal mode down-samples by discarding
points between those needed. This causes signals to alias; not desirable for most signals but can
be useful for viewing frequency components outside the logging rate.
Precision mode down-samples by averaging, increasing precision and reducing noise. This mode is
preferred for most applications.

11 | Moku:Lab’s Data Logger User Manual © 2021 Liquid Instruments. All rights reserved.
File Types and Destinations
Moku:Lab’s Data Logger can save natively to standard text-based CSV format files. CSV files
contain a header that records the current instrument settings as well as any user-entered
comments.
The binary file format is proprietary to Moku:Lab and has been extensively optimized for speed and
size. Using the binary format, Moku:Lab is able to reach very high logging rates and very low
memory usage.
The binary file can be converted to other formats by the iPad app or the file converter software
available from the Liquid Instruments website. This software can convert the binary file to CSV,
MATLAB, or NPY formats for access in major scientific software. The binary format may also be
used in Python through the Liquid Instruments Pymoku software library.
Each file may be saved either to a removeable SD card in Moku:Lab, or to Moku:Lab’s internal
RAM.
RAM is extremely fast but volatile; if you restart Moku:Lab before downloading your data, that data
will be lost. The RAM has a capacity of 512MB.
The SD card provides non-volatile, high-capacity storage. You may store as many files on the card
as the capacity allows, however each file is limited to 4GB in size due to the nature of the
filesystem on the card 1.
The speed of each SD card varies both with its quality and age, and this speed directly limits the
maximum logging rate when saving to an SD card. A high quality, fast SD card may log up to 100x
faster than an older slow device. A slow SD card may not be immediately apparent. It may cause
Moku:Lab’s Data Logger to drop data several minutes into longer runs. If the user plans to log to an
SD card at a rate above 1 kSa/s, it’s strongly advised that they test a new card with a few 10-minute
logs before attempting anything longer.
When the file destination is changed, the free space icon in the top-right of the control panel will
change to show the amount of space left on that destination. When a log is started, a warning will
be shown if Moku:Lab’s Data Logger estimates there is insufficient memory space.

Starting the Log

The red record button should be tapped to start.
The status indicator at the top of the control panel will display logging progress.
The log will stop either when the specified duration has been reached, or when the user taps the
record button again to abort.

1
Moku:Lab only supports SD cards formatted with the FAT32 Filesystem. This is the default out of the box for
most cards including the units shipped with Moku:Lab.

12 | Moku:Lab’s Data Logger User Manual © 2021 Liquid Instruments. All rights reserved.
Accessing your Data
Data logs can be shared to My Files, Dropbox, Mail, or iCloud services.
Additionally, data logs saved to Moku:Lab’s RAM may be moved to the SD card after logging.

Embedded Waveform Generator

Moku:Lab’s Data Logger integrates a simple waveform generator capable of providing Sine,
Square, Ramp, Pulse, and DC waveforms on the output channels.

13 | Moku:Lab’s Data Logger User Manual © 2021 Liquid Instruments. All rights reserved.
 Ensure Moku:Lab is fully updated. For the latest information:

www.liquidinstruments.com

14 | Moku:Lab’s Data Logger User Manual © 2021 Liquid Instruments. All rights reserved.