Exporting Thermochron Data to Excel

Abstract

This application note describes a step-by-step process covering how to export the logged temperature data from a Thermochron™ logger using the iButton® Viewer. This data is then imported into a Microsoft™ Excel spreadsheet to generate printable graphs. A working knowledge of the iButton Viewer and Microsoft Excel is required. The iButton Viewer is a free utility with the TMEX runtime environment.

Introduction

This application note describes the process of exporting the logged temperature data from a Thermochron logger using the iButton Viewer. This data is then imported into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to generate printable graphs.

A working knowledge of the iButton Viewer and Microsoft Excel is required. The iButton Viewer is a free utility with the TMEX runtime environment available here.

Procedure

Start the iButton Viewer and place a Thermochron iButton in the receptor.
Select the Thermochron ROM ID number from the device list.
Open the Thermochron sub-viewer and select the "Mission Results" tab.
If a mission is active, then the data will automatically import. If the data does not import, then select the "Read Data" button to gather the data from the Thermochron.
Select either "Fahrenheit" or "Celsius" from under the "Options" drop-down menu.
Ensure that "Show F/C on Temperatures" in the "Options" drop-down menu is not checked.

If using the European numbering style (77,0), the "Semicolon" button must be selected in the "Data Delimiters" field.

Select the "Export Results" button. Then select a directory to save the file in. Remember the directory and file name.

Start the Excel program.

Select "Open" from under the "File" drop-down menu. Change to the directory that you saved the file in. Change the "Files of type:" window to "All Files (*.*)".

Select your file and select the "Open" button. The Text Import Wizard will come up.

Be sure the "Delimited" button is selected before selecting the "Next" button.

In the "Delimiters" window, ensure only the "Comma" or "Semicolon" box is checked to match Step 7. Then select the "Next" button.

Select the "Date:" button and select the proper format of the date from the "Column data format" window. Then select the "Finish" button.

Column widths will have to be changed and other general changes for personal preference will have to be made, but the raw data is now in the proper columns for graphing.

Data Format

The first two rows of the imported data contain the ROM ID number and the time the information was downloaded from the Thermochron logger.

The following data section lists the Mission State information. This contains the settings that were decided set when the mission was started and the current state. Note that this information could have been skipped by setting the "Start Import at row" option in step 11 of the procedure.

Any temperature alarms generated during the mission will be listed in the next section, followed by the Temperature Histogram section and finally the Log Data section. In this example the "Log Data" will be graphed.