Tips and Tricks: SDI-12—Is It a Logger or Sensor?

It’s both! All of our customers know that Campbell Scientific dataloggers can be SDI-12 recorders, that is, they can record data from SDI-12 sensors. But did you know they can act like SDI-12 sensors, too?

This little trick makes it super easy to share data with another logger or SDI-12-enabled transmitter. Take all of your analog and digital measurements with a CR200X, CR800, CR1000, or CR3000 and share the results using SDI-12. You’ll need two special instructions in your program, SDI12SensorSetup and SDI12SensorResponse. We put them in a SlowSequence Do/Loop so the data are available as soon as the other SDI-12 device asks for it.

This program takes three measurements every five seconds: (1) the datalogger’s battery voltage, (2) a tipping-bucket rain gage, and (3) an SDI-12 pressure transducer. When an external SDI-12 recorder queries this logger on SDI-12 address 0, it provides all three measurements.

So, not only can your Campbell Scientific datalogger read and record SDI-12 sensors, it can behave like one, too. When you need to add measurement-and-control capability to an existing DCP, your Campbell datalogger can do the job—again.

Sensing your enthusiasm at 1200 baud,