Playing at work

One of my responsibilities at work is the overall management of our data acquisition and monitoring activities. Another engineer, Dave, does most of the actual work these days, but I get to play with the parts and pieces as much as I can find time to. We're transitioning to a new server and ultimately a database for our data collection and needed an in-house logger to test out the new system. Dave set up a logger in an enclosure, and I got to program it as well as play around with modifying one of the bazillion old UPS's lying around the office.

These uninterruptable power supplies are basically a charge controller for a 12V sealed lead acid battery and a somewhat crude inverter to supply AC current to the load (computer, etc) when the power goes down. The UPS's that have been pulled out of commission in the office are almost 100% due to the batteries having died and not the electronics. The loggers we use (Campbell Scientific CR10X or CR1000) also use a 12V battery and don't draw much power. So, I jumpered off the battery in the UPS to power the datalogger. The logger has been running for the better part of a week now and hasn't caught on fire. That's a good sign, right? :)

Modified UPS:

The datalogger cave: