Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 5: PC software

This is a follow-up post to my previous project page Part 4 (Firmware).

One way to interface with the active load device is to use a terminal program and query the state of the device or send commands to it manually. But this is of course very cumbersome and not very user-friendly. That’s why I have written a program called Active Load Tool in C# for Windows.

The setpoint current can be changed and all relevant pieces of information can be monitored. Furthermore the tool allows to calibrate the device and plot oscilloscope-like graphs visualising current, voltage, power and temperature.

Actually I have separated the program into two different projects: ActiveLoadProtocol and ActiveLoadTool. The former one is a class library which capsulates the interface between application and device, while the latter one depends on this library to present a GUI to the user. The class library can easily be used in own projects, for example to automate and log test runs.

You can find the source code of the software (project written with Visual Studio 2015) in my GitHub repository.

Some screenshots

By André Heßling

I am an electronic engineer living in Voerde, Germany.

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