No amount of uninstalling or restarting helps mine.
Nice find! I will follow this thread and order one if it will have positive feedback from you guys.
Has anyone tried using the Python script linked in the CPF thread?
-Michael
Ok. Update.
The driver software is definitely a prob. I’ve had to reinstall it a few times.
What seems to work is leaving the meter plugged into usb but power off when you install. It looks like the auto play when you connect it has the ability to corrupt the driver.
Either way. Its a huge pain! Fyi.
I ran a test run on the lumintop tool and exported to xls. The light curve was the same shape as my previous method and other reviews so the meter is somewhat accurate.
Problem is it only exports lux data, and since the sampling rate is 2x per second you can’t make a chart with a push of a button.
Also seems like the first few recorded lux values are always wrong.
So the driver is definitely buggy, and your data set is going to be in 1/2 seconds.
Which can be a huge pain if your doing a 7 hour run. Which can mean like 40,000 data points.
Also finding runtime means doing some light math
I got one of these too… and there’s two problems:
- After recording 7200 values (about an hour) the supplied pc software just deletes all recorded data and starts over!
I didn’t find any options to change this so I guess it’s a bug in the software. So I just use the device memory.
- Quite a lot of noise in the signal. Big noise over 20k lux, and smaller noise over 2000 lux.
Here is graph I recorded from my Olight S20, just moving it further and closer to my diy integrating sphere.
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Here’s a closeup of the moment when the light intensity goes below 2000 lux (=41 lumens in my sphere)
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The above kind of transition would be hard to average out. If somebody knows how to get rid of this “noise”, I’m listening.
Here’s a finalized runtime graph, from google spreadsheet. you can see the bigger noise component, which disappears below 20 000 lux.
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How long does your device memory last? Mine shows full after 15 minutes. It only stores 1900 readings in the device for me
I also have alot of noise in my readings.
Pretty close to giving up on this. Its so buggy and the driver keeps corrupting and having to reinstall.
Has one one tried to make this work with different drivers? Or a different program what about a name brand lux meter that uses the same internals that may work?
You can only set the interval in the supplied Luxlab software. In setup, there’s “auto store period x seconds” where you input the desired interval. Then click upload.
This thing doesn’t use a hardware level driver because it has a serial interface. It uses a prolific USB to serial chip which needs a driver. There are many different chips so perhaps you could try a different one. I came across this page, perhaps there’s something that may be of any use.
http://www.serialgear.com/usb-serial-adapter-drivers-windows-mac-linux.cfm
Any trick to getting it to upload. I click and nothing happens. The interval doesn’t change.
So I went on the link Nisei posted. I tried the 2009 “get all drivers link” and it fixed my driver problem. It connects flawlessly now.
I got mine without any software.
I looked for it on the internet without any luck. I contacted benetech and I’m waiting their answer.
Any chance any of you could share his copy? Thanks.
Sent you a PM.
Driver does't work with my Windows 8. Luckily, I have an old notebook with Windows 7 loaded. Installation was pretty straightforward. Somehow I am able to measure beyond 1900 mark. Will monitor if it will auto reset at one hour mark like what tek-0 has mentioned.
Up till this point, I would not recommend GM1020 to the rest yet.
I was able to make it work on W10 with the provided software from Maukka (BTW thanks again).
Please note that I had similar troubles with my expensiver luxmeter: after countless attempts I was able to make it work, but not 100% reliably on my W8.1 laptop. Usually I needed 10 minutes before being able to discharge the logs.
I tried once with my desktop with W10. Not only it did autoconnect to the software (a million year away from what I imagined could happen), but it works 100% reliably.
I believe the difference is in the bios and how the driver works with the motherboard. On my laptop, I found that everything that is not a pendrive thakes more cursing to work, compared to the widely compatible motherboard on the desktop I assembled.
Now I only use the desktop, and even for the GM1020 I won’t wase a second making it work on the laptop.
Now I will try to see how much difference is between a 20 and a 200$ luxmeter.
You guys using LuxLab or 3rd party?
luxlab
So now after some discussion, is this still a high-value option? Or is there a better model I should be looking at for ~$20?
It depends on what you want to do. There is no other budget alternative for a luxmeter with datalogger in that price range. I use this model since several months and i cant say anything bad about it. The thing with cheap luxmeter devices is that they are probably not as accurate compared to higher prices devices but that dosnt matter at all for runtime tests or ceiling bounce tests etc… because you actually calibrate the device with your reference flashlight, it doesnt matter if it will show the true lux value @1m for example. I have three luxmeters and all show different lux values, sometimes 5k difference. For example luxmeter A shows 44k lux, the other one 39k lux. I think this device measure a bit to high but for runtime tests it doesnt matter. You have to deactivate the auto shutdown function.
I will be using it to measure throw numbers and probably make a sphere or PVC tube at some point for lumens. I don’t necessarily need the logging function. First priority is accuracy and consistency, but must be under $25