The Cortex offers several different types of Logs & Lists to keep track of such things as unit operations and events, behavior of selected inputs, connected users, and their actions on the units.
One of these types of lists is the Custom Log. This log keeps track of events that occur on specific user-selected inputs or outputs. This can allow you to keep an eye on important I/O’s, or ease troubleshooting of parameters that are behaving erratically or intermittently. This log is also used to apply mathematical operations (such as averaging) to the readings taken on an input. To access this log, from the top menu, click on Logs > Custom Log Setup. Up to 32 different Custom Logs can be defined.
When a Custom Log is first configured, it does not contain any entries. The Custom Los Setup screen is the starting point for the configuration of the I/O to be logged. It is also where the I/O’s that are already configured can be edited, and also where the current Custom Log entries can be consulted (viewed).
1 – SELECT ALL: Select / unselect all inputs at once (for deletion and configuration).
2 – ID: ID number of the Cortex Custom Log entry associated to the captured I/O (from 1CL1 to 1CL32).
3 – CAPTURE: ID number of the I/O that is captured.
4 – DESCRIPTION: Description from the captured I/O. The text description comes from the Config screen of the I/O that is captured. In this example, the description comes from the 1A1 Metering Input. Description will change as per the status of the captured I/O’s State: Active or Normal.
5 – SAMPLING: Sampling period and time unit (One sampl e every 1 Hour is shown in the screenshot). Time units of Hours, Minutes or Seconds are possible.
6 – MATH: Mathematical Operation that is applied to the sampling. Three operations are available: Minimum, Maximum and Average. More details are given further along in this article.
7 – INDIVIDUAL SELECTION: Select / unselect one or more inputs (for deletion and configuration).
8 – CONFIGURATION: Brings up the configuration menu of the selected inputs. Bulk edition is allowed, see this article for more details (coming soon). Menu can also be directly accessed by right-clicking anywhere on an input line.
9 – DELETE: Delete selected inputs.
10 – REFRESH/READ: Refresh / read the screen content.
11 – CUSTOM LOG VIEWS: Access the custom log views.
12 – ADD: Add an input.
13 – EXIT: Exit this screen.
The Custom Log Configuration screen is where Cortex I/O’ can be set for logging. Different logging parameters can be chosen to get the most relevant logs from the I/O’s.
1 – ID: ID of the current input, or select an input from drop-down menu. Up to 32 Custom Logs can be configured.
2 – ENABLE: Enable / disable the input. Useful to deactivate an input, without losing all its settings, when the input is causing intermittent problems or nuisance alarms, or temporarily not needed.
3 – INPUT/OUTPUT ID: ID of the input or output to be associated to the selected Custom Log ID. Metering Input 1 (1A1) as per the preceding example.
4 – SAMPLING PERIOD and sampling method: Delay between Custom Log samples or entries. When a value of 1 or more is set, the logging is based on time; when a value of 0 is set, the logging occurs based on events (only when an I/O changes state).
5 – SAMPLING PERIOD TIME UNIT: Unit of time for the Sampling Period on which the Mathematical Operation (see 6 below) is applied.
6 – MATHEMATICAL FUNCTION: Mathematical operations that can be applied to batches of sample readings. The operation is applied once per sampling period. Note that different inputs operate at different hardware rates. For example, the Cortex always takes readings on its Metering Inputs 10 times per second. So if a Custom Log Sampling Period of 10 seconds is selected, the unit’s hardware inputs will have accumulated 100 samples in a batch on which this math operation is applied.
- Subsample: Display only the first value from a batch – no mathematical function is applied.
- Average: Displays the average value calculated on the whole batch of samples.
- Minimum: Displays the minimum value contained in every batch.
- Maximum: Displays the maximum value contained in every batch.
7 – FETCH SIZE: (Only applies when a workspace contains Trend meters). Number of stored values that will be transferred from the Cortex to the remote PC upon connection to the unit. Four different values are available: 1, 30 (default), 100 and 250. This feature is mainly used with DavLink when you have a very slow or high-cost connection, in order to limit the amount of data that is transferred during the initial connection. NOTE: If your workspace does not contain any Trend meters, there will not be any data transfer.
8 – REFRESH/READ: Refresh / read the screen contents.
9 – SAVE/WRITE: Save the screen contents.
10 – EXIT: Exit menu.
The Custom Log View screen is where all the Custom Log entries can be viewed. Searches can be performed based on different parameters, and the use of a partial description (wild cards)is allowed, for example: 6, MA, 1A, . , R, Lo, etc.
1 – START DATE: Enter log entry display start date.
2 – END DATE: Enter log entry display stop date.
3 – START TIME: Enter log entry display start time.
4 – END TIME: Enter log entry display stop time.
5 – ID: Full or partial ID number of the I/O on which to search
6 – EVENT: Full or partial event name to look for in a search.
7 – DESCRIPTION: Full or partial description to look for in a search.
8 – VALUE: Exact or partial value to look for in a search.
9 – PARSING FILE: Name of the log data file from which the displayed Custom Log entries come from. When the name contains no time and date, such as customlog_.txt, the data comes from a file located in the unit’s internal memory. When the file name contains a date and a time stamp, such as: customlog_2021-01-12_15-25-35.txt, it means that the displayed data comes from a USB stick plugged into the unit’s back-panel USB port.
10 – START NEW SEARCH: Start a search in the log entries (searches are based on text entered in the different search fields).
11 – STOP: Stop a search in the log entries.
12 – DATE-TIME: Date and time of the I/O.
13 – ID: ID number of the I/O.
14 – EVENT: Event associated to the I/O.
15 – DESCRIPTION: Description of the I/O.
16 – VALUE: Value of the I/O.
17 – SHOW NEXT ENTRIES: Show the next 1024 log entries.
18 – DELETE: Erase all the log entries from the screen.
19 – REFRESH/READ: Refresh / read the screen content.
20 – SEND: Send current Custom Log via the selected in the Log Transfers > Custom Log setup menu.
21 – SAVE/WRITE: Save the screen content.
22 – EXIT: Exit menu.
