USB power meter/tester thread - YZXStudio, Power-Z, RDTech and more.

I’m planning to order the 1276. I’m not sure I have a use for the extra full-size USB of the 1270. I don’t have much use for the USB-C on the 1276, but I probably will in the future. I’m open to feedback if I’m misguided though.

Any recommendations for a reliable seller that sells the updated 1270 (and actually ships you the updated version and not the older version)?

Yes, Franky Tong. When I bought my 1270 off him (couple weeks ago) I was expecting the older version, where the lcd cutout doesn’t go all the way to the edge.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the updated version when I received it, which was very quick postage. The image on his ebay site is of the older version. I didn’t realise there was a new version until it arrived, I googled and only found 1 picture of the updated version, posted in my previous msg.
You might want to send him a msg before hand just to be sure. His ebay id is f-t-2000

If I had to do it all over again, I’d just go for the 1276.

You should order your YZXStudios from Franky soon, since he’s leaving Hong Kong and will stop selling them soon. His ebay store will still be open, but for mostly multimeter leads and other stuff that doesn’t need such involved customer service.

That’s also what I noticed… I need to place the ZL1100 on some sort of stand (maybe a wooden wedge or something) that will hold the tester, so as not to obstruct the fan flow ventilation…

As for the ZY1276, this is one of the meters with a nice large display (the other being the Power-Z FL001, which may be slightly inferior to the ZY1276 [haven’t seen any comparison reviews other than from the YZXStudio official store in China’s Taobao site). I think the Kotomi Pro, aka Power-Z KT001 also has a big display. The new meters right now (see the “USB power devices request for review message thread” for more info) have smaller displays, like the Power-Z KM001 or the ZY1275 (these devices I’ve not seen in non-Chinese webpages yet though… being released just a few months ago)

It’s beginning to get complicated with so many different (but nealy the same) options from two brands :wink:

Power-Z FL001
Power-Z KM001
Power-Z KT001
YZXStudio ZY1275
YZXStudio ZY1276

Who still knows which is best suited for which purpose or which combines all functions/functionality?

Btw, just found this:
https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sohu.com%2Fa%2F165610972_296845

POWER-Z family:

Current POWER-Z family members are:

POWER-Z FL001
POWER-Z KM001
POWER-Z KT001
POWER-Z UW001
POWER-Z USB PD adapter board
POWER-Z wireless charging receiver board

I’m just wondering, the ZL1100 can be connected to the PC via the micro-USB to USB port to output data.

Could it perhaps be supported by the free DataExplorer software for graphing purpose?

The ZL1100 load tester requires an independent power source for it to function, maybe it’s possible to put 3x1.5v (=4.5v) LR44 (or similar like CR2025) cells in series in a battery holder (preferably also with an on/off switch) and convert output to micro-USB to serve as independent power source for the ZL1100 — anyone has did such a mod?

The range can get confusing, especially when the translation isn’t the best when it comes to specs and reviews.
There are new meters hitting the market, yet they tend to all look similar and have similar functionality. I guess not much you can do about that.
I wonder where to from here, good times ahead for us techies.

Anyone remembers this old USB meter?

Yep, got the yellow one and the red one.

They were my first YZXStudio meters, and a step into higher accuracy.

Before this I used some KCX-017's and random other kinda inaccurate stuff.

Did a write-up of these back in 2015. Back then it came up as one of the first hits when googling YZXStudio :)

Why not just use a powerbank and not have to hack something together?

Hello there,

I love my ZYxxxx devices, also the bluetooth option, therefore I wrote a small app (now in a very early alpha stage) and would like to share you this pre-version. Comments are welcome.

Download here

Regards
Patrick

That looks very neat! None of my Win10 laptops with bluetooth connect to any of my ZY meters. They just say Try connecting your device again after entering the pin (1234). An Android phone connects just fine. I haven’t wired a USB-Serial adapter to them either so I can’t unfortunately test your software. Could you make it work with the ZL1100 load?

Hooked up a serial usb adapter to the 1271 and your software works fine. Gonna do some more testing after soldering the pins on the board.

Here’s a graph and a snippet of the log it automatically saves (very nice!). I’d like the graph to automatically span the whole test period and not just the last 41 seconds or so. But of course I can use any spreadsheet to do that from the log file.

13.10.2017 17:26:47;5,0182;0,9913
13.10.2017 17:26:48;5,0192;0,9913
13.10.2017 17:26:49;5,0173;0,9913
13.10.2017 17:26:50;5,0183;0,9913
13.10.2017 17:26:51;5,0172;0,9913
13.10.2017 17:26:52;5,0167;0,991
13.10.2017 17:26:53;5,0086;1,0831
13.10.2017 17:26:54;5,008;1,0903
13.10.2017 17:26:55;5,0081;1,0903
13.10.2017 17:26:56;5,0075;1,0903
13.10.2017 17:26:57;5,0003;1,1696
13.10.2017 17:26:58;4,9975;1,189
13.10.2017 17:26:59;4,9977;1,1888
13.10.2017 17:27:00;4,9984;1,1888
13.10.2017 17:27:01;4,9888;1,2874

edit: I noticed the FTDI serial-usb adapter causes a small error in the current measurement as can also be seen from the log above. It reads 0.99A at 1A and 1.98A at 2A. When I remove the connection to pc, it is good again.

Excuse the computer-ignorant question, but when I think serial port, this is what comes to mind:

Is it required to have a computer with a serial port, so that one can use a USB-serial adapter (pictured below)?

The laptop I would want to use for data logging does not have a serial port - how would I connect a device like the YZXstudio 1270/1271/1276 to it for data logging in that case? Is mcpat’s software only useful if the computer can accept input from a serial port?

Thank you for the feedback. I am planning to save the complete graph as png file. Also that you can specify the log file location.

I got it working at windows 10, you have to go to the extended bluetooth options. add an outgoing com connection. then go to this com in the device manager, change there at the “extended” the com port number from e.g. com1 to com4, then it will ask for the pin, and then the pin is working. other ways not working (does not accept the pin). sorry for my english, but I hope you can follow…

My app will get many more features, this is the alpha release…

regards
mcpat

PS ZL1100 I don’t have, how does this work, also with bluetooth or serial port?

Perfect, got it working after a couple tries with your instructions. Thanks a lot!

The ZL1100 uploads data via its micro usb port (which also powers the unit) with an inbuilt CH340G usb-serial converter. One of the unfortunate features of the load is that it updates at a ridiculously high rate. It would be handy if a software could limit the log writes to one sample per second for example.

Should work, I bought this Ebay

Perfect. I will implement a sampling rate of 1second (or variable in settings, Not finished)