What's a good instrument (need make & model number) to measure the integrated power consumption of my complex micro-controller controlled bee-hive monitor? It rapidly goes in and out of multiple modes, turns 74 sensors on/off, pulses LEDs to 50mA, draws 65mA to heat micro-miniature hot plates, etc. Average current is from 0.5 to 3mA, but is hard to measure. It spends much of its time drawing microamps, and this must also be accurately integrated over time.
Going through my considerable collection of smart, highly-capable instruments, there's not one that will make continuous, accurate integrated-current power-consumption measurements. The closest are awesome 6.5-digit bench multimeters, that can be set to measurement integration times of 100 PLC (about 1.6 seconds), but these are discontinuous measurements, with gaps, not suited for the job.
Yes, there are fuel-gauge ICs available, but we need to purchase an instrument, with a wide dynamic range / peak handling capability, plug it in, and take readings, so we can experiment as we work, programming the beehive-monitor's software.
Not even my new awesome-looking Keysight E36312A data-logging bench supply can do this simple task. The word, "integrate" doesn't appear in the manual. Nor does the word, "average" appear.
OK, I have this little $15 USB stick, with a cute display, that includes a running mA-hr value. If I open it up and do some cut-jump hacking, maybe it could be integrated into my bee-hive monitor's power system. What's its peak-handling capability, who knows. Sheesh!
Maybe my 66321B "Mobile Communications DC Source", although the word, "integrate" doesn't appear in its manual either. OK, it will "average" discrete measurements. Not very re-assuring. It can fill up a buffer with 2048 data points... Arrghh!