Application Note

4 Fluke Corporation Event recording (or logging) with a Fluke 287/289 Digital Multimeter
Use TrendCapture immedi-
ately after recording to do a
brief inspection of the recorded
data for any suspicious events
that might suggest further test-
ing. You can also use it later, in
conjunction with the Summary
screen, to evaluate or identify
multiple saved files in the meter
if you didn’t note the saved
session name at the time of
recording.
You should see a ‘connected’
icon with the port identified
in the lower right part of the
display. If there are port con-
flicts, you may see the Options
window appear, where you
will have to select an available
unused port. Press OK when you
see the ‘connected’ icon appear.
The next pop-up win-
dow to appear should be Get
Meter Data—Fluke 289/287.
It will ask you if you want
to Get meter data now? If
this window doesn’t appear
automatically, you may select
Meter on the menu bar and
then select Get meter data…
from the drop down list.
Step 3
Press OK to begin the upload
process. If the data you’re try-
ing to upload is the last session
you recorded, then the data you
want will be displayed in the
FVF Virtual Meter “memory”
screen. You can verify this by
viewing the summary informa-
tion at the bottom of the window
that appears. (Figure 4a.) Then
select Copy into Form on the
right side of the window. This
data will automatically copy to
the displayed Form (Figure 4b.)
Step 4
If the recording you want is
not the last one recorded, then
you must open the pull down
window in the upper left corner
of the window and select Data
Sessions. A table will appear
showing the Session Name,
Session Type, Start Time, and
Number of Readings for each
session saved in the meter. See
Figure 5.
Step 5
Select the desired Recording
and press Get Session Data.
When the upload is complete,
the selected recording will be
present and you can Copy into
Form.
In our example (Figure 6),
Recording 4 spanned nearly 42
hours of refrigerator operation.
What we see on the graph is the
repeated cycle of turn-on (the
18 amp narrow spike), compres-
sor run (a few minutes at 2 to 3
amps), and off time (more than
15 minutes at 0.0 amps.)
A quick glance at the graph
shows an unusual event (high-
lighted by the dashed circle)
Remember:
TrendCapture can only be used to review
recorded data—either the session just completed or
a saved data file—it cannot graph in real-time. If
you attempt to use TrendCapture during a record-
ing session, you will terminate the recording.
Uploading recorded data
to FlukeView
®
Forms.
The next steps describe how to
transfer the recording results to
FlukeView Forms, where you can
complete reports that include
graphs, showing what hap-
pened to the refrigerator during
the time it was being recorded.
You can also program certain
functions of the meter from your
computer while it is connected.
Note: This process assumes you
already have FlukeView Forms
installed on your computer.
Step 1
Using the IR-USB cable, connect
the meter to your computer. It’s
best to have the meter in the
active measurement mode (not in
setup or any of the save/record/
view functions) while connected
to your computer. When con-
necting the IR connector to the
meter, verify that the Fluke logo
on the IR connector is visible
when viewing the display of the
meter. Now, turn the meter on.
Note: The meter cannot upload data
while memory or TrendCapture infor-
mation is being displayed.
Step 2
Start FlukeView Forms on the
computer. The ‘New Blank
Form’ window will appear. For
our refrigerator example, select
Sample Logging Form (short)
and then press OK.
Figure 4a. Summary information
Figure 5.
Figure 6.
Figure 4b.