Monarch Instrument DC1250-Navigator Operating Manual

Navigator Software User’s Manual

Navigator Software

User Help File
Contents

1. NAVIGATOR SOFTWARE

2. INSTALLATION

USING NAVIGATOR SOFTWARE

3.

STARTING THE PROGRAM

3.1

3.2

SYSTEM SET UP
LOAD DATA FILE

3.3

3.3.1 LOADING PARTIAL FILES

3.4 DATA TABLE WINDOW

3.4.1 JUMPING TO A SPECIFIC POINT

3.4.2 CREATING A REPORT

3.5

GRAPH WINDOW

3.5.1 GRAPH BUTTONS

3.5.2 ZOOM TO FIT

3.5.3 CUSTOMIZING THE GRAPH

3.5.4 SEARCH

3.5.5 USING REAL TIME DATA

WORKING WITH REMOTE RECORDERS

3.6

3.6.1 SET CLOCK

3.6.2 CARD STATUS

3.6.3 RECORD FUNCTIONS

3.6.4 MEDIA

3.6.5 CONFIGURATION

APPENDIX A – LANGUAGE FILES

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Rev 1.02 Nov 2006

Navigator Software User’s Manual

1 NAVIGATOR SOFTWARE

The Navigator Software is a program for viewing and exporting both real-time and non-real-time data from the
recorder. It also enables recorders to be controlled and configured remotely.

2 INSTALLATION

This program will run on Windows XP/2000 and later. It is not compatible with earlier versions of Windows.

To install the Navigator Software:

1 If you have the USB option on your recorder, make sure it is not plugged in during the installation.
2 Insert the Navigator CD into the CD drive. The setup program should launch automatically if your

system is set to auto play CDs. If not, select the CD directory and run the setup.exe file. This will

launch the “Welcome to Navigator Setup Wizard”.
3 Accept the license agreement and the default install directory or modify it as needed.
4 Accept the default start menu folder or modify it as needed.
5 Decide whether you want a desktop icon and check the box if you do.
6 If you have the USB option, make sure to check the “Launch Install USB Driver” box as shown below.

7 Click Finish.
8 If this is your first installation, the recorder VCP Installer will launch and run (assuming you checked

the box per 6 above). Accept the license agreement and continue.
9 If you wish to install the driver manually, run setup.exe that is located on the release CD in the

Ti-Usb_driver folder. If you have previously installed the USB driver the installer will uninstall the old

driver. You will then have to install the driver manually.
10 Once the software has been installed, turn the recorder on and plug the USB cable into the unit and

your PC. If this is the first time doing this, the “Found New Hardware Wizard” will launch.

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Navigator Software User’s Manual

11 Make sure the installation CD is still in the drive and select the “Yes, now and every time I connect a

device” option then choose “Next>”.
12 Select “Install the software automatically (Recommended) option and click “Next>”.
13 The Wizard will search for the device – depending on your system this may take some time. Once the

driver is found you will get a warning message:

14 Select “Continue Anyway”. The program will then install and run the USB-1250 driver.
15 Select “Install the software automatically (Recommended) option and click “Next>”
16 The Installer will search for the USB driver and when found will display the same message as in 13

above.
17 Select “Continue anyway” then when done select “Finish” to complete the installation.

Note: Although the recorder connects via the USB port, the PC sees it as a virtual COM port.
You can check the successful installation by right clicking on the My Computer icon in the
Start menu and selecting Properties. Then choose the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button. You
should see two instances of the recorder device as shown below, one as “Multi-port serial adapters” and again
under Ports (COM & LPT) as USB-recorder (COMx). For successful operation x should be 6 or less.

Tip: Make sure you have no other programs running that take control of

Recorder

the serial ports in the background (like some Hotsync programs) as
these will prevent the Navigator software from seeing the COM port.

Recorder

The Navigator is now installed in Demo mode. If you have purchased an upgrade license, you may activate it by
running the software and selecting Setup - Features - Update on the toolbar and typing the license number
provided.

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Navigator Software User’s Manual

3 USING NAVIGATOR SOFTWARE

3.1 STARTING THE PROGRAM

The Navigator software has the following main features:

• It can display information from existing data file in summarized, tabular and graphic formats.

• It is capable of monitoring an external device and collecting real-time data (this requires the USB or

Ethernet option on the recorders)

• It can export the collected data to Excel.
To start the program, click the desktop icon if installed (shown left), or use the Window’s start menu.

This will launch the main dialog shown below.

There are three tabs in the workspace, a menu bar at the top with the basic icons below. The tabs are:
Statistics shows an overview of the loaded data

Data Table shows a tabular layout of the data
Graph shows a graphic representation of the data

The menu items are:

The File menu allows the user to open or export a file, select the data
source or Exit the program.
The View menu duplicates Icon options for the Graphics Screen.
The Setup menu allows the user to customize the program –
The Device menu allows interaction with a remote recorder –
The Help menu provides help files or information about the software.

The icons are from left to right: New, Open File, Save, Print Table and Search.

Section 3.2.

Section 3.6.

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Navigator Software User’s Manual

3.2 SYSTEM SET-UP

There are a number of items that can be set up before using the program, although these default to useable
options.

The Setup menu has the following options:

3.2.1 Language – the default is English. It is simple to add languages (see Appendix A). If there is a

language file in the Navigator directory that contains languages besides English, these will be
shown and the user can select the language of his/her choice.

3.2.2 Preferences –

3.2.2.1 Temperature – sets the default working temperature Celsius or Fahrenheit. Once
selected, all temperatures will be in these units irrespective of how they were recorded.
This is a start up setting and cannot be changed once selected without reloading the file.
Default is Centigrade.

3.2.2.2 Decimal Places – determines how numeric data will be displayed. Select 0,1,2 or 3
places after the decimal. (default is 2)

3.2.2.3 Default Directory – Sets the default directory where data files are saved or read from.
The user can change the system default Program Files/Navigator/Data.

3.2.2.4 Page Mode Size – Select the maximum amount of data to load into memory at one time.
Default is 1MB. This will be determined how much free memory is available versus speed
of operation.

3.2.3 Features – allows the user to upgrade from the free demo (default) version to the Lite or Full
versions. Select Update and enter your serial number in the spaces shown. Upgrades can be
purchased from your distributor. Use the menu Help – About to see what features you have.

3.2.4 CommPort – allows the user to override the default settings for the USB Com port if required.
These values are set automatically from the registry entries made by the driver install routine and
should not need to be changed.

3.2.5 Ethernet – Allows the user to communicate in real time with a recorder over the Ethernet. Only
one recorder can be connected at a time. The throughput is a function of network traffic and
whatever else is communicating with the connected recorder e.g. a web browser. It is
recommended that the recorder be configured for sample speeds of 20 samples/second or less
for reliable operation.

3.2.5.1 IP Address – allows the user to enter the device IP address and assign a user friendly

name to the device.

3.2.5.2 Connect – Select the recorder you wish to connect to. If you do not see the IP address

go to IP Address above and add it. Once connected you can use all the remote functions
described elsewhere in this manual.

3.2.5.3 Disconnect – Release the remote recorder. You need to do this in order to connect to

another machine or to a USB port.

3.3 LOAD DATA FILE

There are two sources for data, the local PC or the remote recorder. In order to load data from a remote
recorder it is necessary to select Use Recorder

from the File menu or go to the Graph window (click the
Graph tab) and check the Use Recorder box on the top right as shown below. Obviously a recorder also
needs to be connected to the PC via its USB or Ethernet port.

To load data file, click File menu then choose Open
or click the File Open icon (shown right).

In the Open File dialog, choose the file that you want to load.
If the “Use Recorder” box was checked the dialog box will
only show files that are on the compact flash card on the
remote DataChart. Note that loading files from a remote
Recorder is a lot slower than loading them from the local
hard drive or compact flash card plugged into the PC. It is
possible to only load partial files to save time –

see below. If

using files from the PC, simply browse to the directory in which the file to be loaded resides.

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While the file is loading, a progress bar on the bottom of the screen indicates loading progress. When loading
large files, enough data will be loaded to fill the table or the graphics screen. When scrolling beyond these
limits additional data will be loaded as needed. Once data is loaded the Statistics window opens showing a
summary of the loaded data.

In the example below, the file Sample.DAT was loaded. There are two channels. Channel A was called CHA
and will be represented on the graph by the colored trace shown on the left below the file name. It units are
RPM with 10kRPM being the full scale. Channel B was called CHB and is a Type E Thermocouple measuring
°C and will be represented on the graph by the colored trace shown on the right below the file name. The data
recording was started on Tuesday, November 08, 2005 at 2:49:48 PM. The sample rate was 20 Samples/Sec
and the recorder is identified by the UNIT TAG. By clicking on

Minimum or Maximum you can jump directly to

those points on the graph.

3.3.1 LOADING PARTIAL FILES

When opening files from the recorder,
large files can take a long time to load.
You can simply download the period
of interest without the need to load the
entire file. So if you need information
for 12:00PM to 3:00PM on May 11

th

,
2006, you can request only this data –
assuming it is in the data file you have
chosen. Make sure Use Recorder has
been checked –

see above, and go to

File – Open.
The Copy File Dialog box will open as

shown showing files on the remote
recorder. Data files are type .DAT.

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