Power consumption tracker

[token]

Hi,

electricity becomes more and more expensive, at least in Germany, where I live. So I tried to keep track of the costs a little bit by noting the counter-value in our house and make some statistics. As a real PPC-freak I wanted to do this with my loox in pocket excel, but found it not very convinient to use.

So I wrote a small app, using a table-control. Sadly its only in german for now, but i plan to make it multilingual soon.

Small explenation: Put in you price per kw/h in "Preis/kws" and put in the current counter-value in "Zählerstand". After this, hit "Übernehmen" to add the set to your database. You can load and save with "Laden" and "Speichern". Btw.: you have to type in the price per kwh only the first time or if it changes.

Collumns are:

"Datum" = Date (for now in German format DD:MM:YY)
"Zeit" = Time (HH:MM)
"Zw.Verb." = Temporary consumption between two entrys
"Zw.Preis" = Temporary "have to pay" between two entrys
"Ges.Verb" = All in all consumption since measuring
"Ges.Preis" = All in all "have to pay" since measuring

Hope it is usefull for someone - for me it is more handy than a pocket-excel sheet.

Nice regards:

token

p.S. uploaded english version too

[token]

Sorry, made some mistake with the calculated values for temporary consumption and price within the first database entry; corrected and uploaded it in my post above.

Ah - yes "Save" and "Load" are also nonsense, removed it - loads on startup and saves on exit now.

[alfcen]

Hello Token

A really nice "token"
You are about to create Excel in B4PPC !
In Japan, too, electricity is quite expensive.

I have made some cosmetic changes (never mind, a matter of taste) and replaced the input text boxes with numeric up/down controls to eliminate fear of the SIP.

Also added a Delete button, a View record button, a program icon (must be for such a nice creation) and an About screen.

Please try it with a COPY of your current actual record CSV file, there could be a bug in my version.

Cheers

Robert

[token]

Originally Posted by alfcen

Hello Token

A really nice "token"
You are about to create Excel in B4PPC !
In Japan, too, electricity is quite expensive.

I have made some cosmetic changes (never mind, a matter of taste) and replaced the input text boxes with numeric up/down controls to eliminate fear of the SIP.

Also added a Delete button, a View record button, a program icon (must be for such a nice creation) and an About screen.

Please try it with a COPY of your current actual record CSV file, there could be a bug in my version.

Cheers

Robert

Hello Robert,

you've made so many nice improvements, that it puts me a little to shame, to read my nickname in the About-Box, nice turn - indeed. Optics matters, in fact - and the icon you've created looks quite professional. Regarding the input-field, I find both of our methods not really optimal, but matter of taste of course. Adjusting right counter value is a little bit to time consuming for me. I planed to make some kind of numeric input-field, you can use easily with fingers, but then the existing method was ok for me. I fidled a lot with pocket-excel and spent less time on making the small app, all in all - so I'am allways impressed how fast some office-things you can make with little code in rapid-developement-apps like BASIC4PPC.

The delete-button is really usefull! I think there are many things one can do with the table control more effective and easier than with excel or databse apps, so using this control the first time was somewhat of an "enlightment" for me. I really would like to have a barcode-scanner connected to my ppc, together with a small basic4ppc-app, for shopping and such things.

Nice regards:

token

[alfcen]

Your application idea was my inspiration
And yes, the Table control is a powerful application on its own, indeed.

If I am not too much in error, I believe I have seen CF-type barcode scanners before. If I only could recall where.

Actually, I am after a gyro which outputs azimuth and elevation angles to a serial port. For instance, pointed at the sky, the Pocket PC so equipped could be used to identify stars, nebulae and other celestial objects. B4PPC would be the ideal platform for quickly coding a software driver.

I faintly remember my younger days, when I connected a thermistor to a parallel port and all to the sudden a thermometer came up on the screen.

Would be great if all power consumption meters were equipped with a serial Bluetooth profile that would allow to take in readings via the serial port

Cheers
Robert

[token]

Originally Posted by alfcen

Would be great if all power consumption meters were equipped with a serial Bluetooth profile that would allow to take in readings via the serial port

Cheers
Robert

Don't know how the power-meters work in your country. In germany there is a horizontal oriented disk behind a glass-plate. One roatation means 0,1kwh. There is a red mark on the disc to indicate rotation-cycles. Long time ago I wanted to stick a light-emitter/sensor combination onto the glass and make a small atmel circuit-board for interpreting the analouge-data of the sensor, so it counts upwards, when the red mark occurs. No bluetooth but with a serial interface on the circuit-board there are many nice applications possible.

Regards
token