USB connected digital multimeter and graph plotting (UNI-T UT61E and sigrok)

Ever wanted to have nice plot (U/I curve, whatever) simply plotted?

I got 2 UNI-T UT61E with USB cable (50€ each)

With sigrok you can easily get data from many device with a single command:

sigrok-cli –driver=uni-t-ut61e:conn=BUS.DEVICE -O analog  –continuous

Where BUS and DEVICE is replaced with the output of lsusb

lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:8001 Intel Corp.
Bus 003 Device 086: ID 1a86:e008 QinHeng Electronics HID-based serial adapater
Bus 003 Device 087: ID 1a86:e008 QinHeng Electronics HID-based serial adapater

In my case, as I’ve 2 devices, so 2 different commands are used:

sigrok-cli –driver=uni-t-ut61e:conn=3.86 -O analog  –continuous

sigrok-cli –driver=uni-t-ut61e:conn=3.87 -O analog  –continuous

 

But what about logging in the same file the two ouputs simultaneously?

Here comes the magical function: paste and joined pipe:

paste <(sigrok-cli –driver=uni-t-ut61e:conn=3.86 -O analog  –continuous) <(sigrok-cli –driver=uni-t-ut61e:conn=3.87 -O analog  –continuous) > measure.csv

 

I’ll let you deal with the uber simple csv processing with octave or libreoffice calc (mV, mA range condition, etc…), as this blog entry is mainly used as a personal notepad.

 

Note: if you have trouble connected with sigrok, with an error. You may need to disable the power feature, with the script pointed by blog.philippklaus.de

#!/bin/bash
# see http://www.erste.de/UT61/index.html
for dat in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*; do 
  if test -e $dat/manufacturer && grep -q "WCH.CN" $dat/manufacturer; then
    echo "Suspending ${dat}."
    echo auto > ${dat}/power/control
    echo 0 > ${dat}/power/autosuspend 
  fi      
done

4 thoughts on “USB connected digital multimeter and graph plotting (UNI-T UT61E and sigrok)

  1. Hello dear
    Thank you for the nice matter
    could you please help me to do this?
    I have a uni-t ut61e and i downloaded the software but i do not see any environment to write the codes you out above
    how can use of the software ?
    regard

  2. Hi dear
    Thank you very much for your nice topic
    I have a uni-t ut 61e multimeter i want to see the real graph for AC voltage as oscilloscope
    could You Please tell me can I use the software for this purpose?
    can I take All real me messuring data from sine wave AC voltage?

    Regard

  3. Unfortunately this is not a scope, it’s a mere multimeter with a refresh rate of about 1Hz, so, if you want to plot something like a battery charge/discharge or PV exposure on your roof, you are sorted. But for higher frequency (audio or anything else), you will need a scope.
    I can recommend Picoscope for USB connected (ground issue) and Rigol for standalone with display.

  4. I’ve no idea about the crapware provided by the Uni-T company, the command line provided is for linux terminal, good luck!

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