Peter, an electrician, used Agilent handheld meters and Bluetooth adapters as a wireless data logging system to troubleshoot a customer's high electricity bill. He monitored the farm's electrical loads over 1.5 hours and spotted an intermittent load that was running every 4 minutes. This led to discovering a broken water pipe causing the pump to run constantly, significantly increasing usage. The data logging system allowed Peter to non-invasively monitor and graph electrical usage over time to identify the source of the problem.

1. Turn Your Agilent Handheld Meter
into A Data Logger
Case Study
Introduction
Peter Argyropoulos, owner and sole employee of Petros Electric, is a professional
electrician open to trying new tools to improve his service. Peter groups his work
Petros Electric into two categories: service calls and contracting jobs. Contracting jobs are typically
Uses Agilent installations that have a well-defined scope. In contrast, the majority of service
calls are from homeowners unable to resolve electrical issues on their own. These
Handheld Meters problems typically involve performing diagnostics and troubleshooting, and require
as Data Loggers test and measurements tools to identify the root cause. Recently Peter tried the
Agilent wireless remote connectivity solution, which allowed him to use his Agilent
handheld meters together as a data logger system.
Figure 1. Application configuration

2. Problem Solution
One of Petros Electric’s customers To initiate troubleshooting Peter needed After monitoring the main service
owns a small farm. This customer was to monitor the farm’s power loads feeders for about 1.5 hours, Peter was
concerned about his extremely high over a period of time. Without a data able to spot a large, intermittent load.
electricity bill, which covered a 30-day logger, this troubleshooting task would The graph (similar to the one shown in
billing period during the winter months. be difficult however he used Agilent’s Figure 2) showed that something was
Even though his usage habits had not newly-introduced wireless remote running approximately 1 minute and
changed over that duration, he was connectivity solution. The configuration 20 seconds every four minutes. It was
charged for significantly higher usage. used one Agilent U1272A handheld now possible to narrow the problem
Like many small farms, his was not an multimeter and two U1212A clamp down to the water pump, which lead to
energy intensive operation. Most of the meters, each equipped with Agilent the discovery of a broken underground
electricity was used in the main house U1177A Bluetooth® adapters. The water pipe in an outbuilding. Under
and a small bungalow for typical loads, solution also included an android tablet normal conditions, the pump would
like lighting, cooking, HVAC, and hot or phone loaded with a free Agilent only run when someone was using the
water. Without any idea why power con- Mobile Logger application. water. The constantly running water
sumption had changed so drastically, he pump had played the major role in the
called Petros to isolate the problem. Using the two clamp meters, he was farm owner’s high electricity bill along
able to monitor the current on the two with a number of other small loads
“hot” wires of the service as show in like a space heater used that winter
Figure 1. The Agilent U1272A multime- and a water bed heater, both of which
ter was used to measure the voltage showed up on graph as constant, low
between the two “hot” wires. level loads.
Figure 2. Voltage, current, and power trend logging with Agilent Mobile Logger app
2

3. www.agilent.com
Summary Three-Year Warranty
For more information on Agilent
Technologies’ products, applications or
services, please contact your local Agilent
Investigating faults that trigger high www.agilent.com/find/ThreeYearWarranty office. The complete list is available at:
electricity bills can be a very challeng- Agilent’s combination of product reliability www.agilent.com/find/contactus
ing and time-consuming task. With a and three-year warranty coverage is another
simple tool like the Agilent U1177A way we help you achieve your business goals: Americas
Bluetooth adapter, you can now turn increased confidence in uptime, reduced cost Canada (877) 894 4414
your Agilent handheld multimeter of ownership and greater convenience. Brazil (11) 4197 3600
into a trend logging device to gather Mexico 01800 5064 800
important data for troubleshooting. United States (800) 829 4444
This information allows you to ana- myAgilent myAgilent
lyze usage and determine if the loads Asia Pacific
in an electrical system are performing www.agilent.com/find/myagilent Australia 1 800 629 485
normally. Upon activation, the Agilent A personalized view into the information China 800 810 0189
Mobile Logger can be deployed and most relevant to you. Hong Kong 800 938 693
left unattended to measure and India 1 800 112 929
record information for monitoring a Japan 0120 (421) 345
Agilent Advantage Services Korea 080 769 0800
specified time period. This allows a
Malaysia 1 800 888 848
graph to be created that provides a
www.agilent.com/find/AdvantageServices Singapore 1 800 375 8100
comprehensive, accurate picture of
Accurate measurements throughout the Taiwan 0800 047 866
the load conditions being monitored, Other AP Countries (65) 375 8100
life of your instruments.
at down to one second intervals
which provides a much better illustra- Europe & Middle East
tion of what is going on in compari- DEKRA Certified
Agilent Electronic Measurement Group
Belgium 32 (0) 2 404 93 40
son to multiple, single measurements ISO 9001:2008 Denmark 45 45 80 12 15
taken at unrelated points in time. The
Quality Management System
Sys
www.agilent.com/quality Finland 358 (0) 10 855 2100
Agilent wireless remote connectivity France 0825 010 700*
solution frees you from needless *0.125 €/minute
repetitive testing and allows you to Bluetooth and the Bluetooth logos Germany 49 (0) 7031 464 6333
achieve higher productivity. are trademarks owned by Bluetooth Ireland 1890 924 204
SIG, Inc., U.S.A. and licensed to Israel 972-3-9288-504/544
Agilent Technologies, Inc. Italy 39 02 92 60 8484
Netherlands 31 (0) 20 547 2111
Spain 34 (91) 631 3300
Sweden 0200-88 22 55
United Kingdom 44 (0) 118 927 6201
For other unlisted countries:
www.agilent.com/find/contactus
(BP2-19-13)
Product specifications and descriptions
in this document subject to change
without notice.
© Agilent Technologies, Inc. 2013
Published in USA, March 11, 2013
5991-2084EN