PicoLog: Long-Term Industrial and Environmental Data Logging for Indian Field Deployments

Long-Duration Monitoring Is Different From Oscilloscope Work

An oscilloscope captures fast signals over short windows, microseconds to seconds, and the challenge is bandwidth, trigger, and memory depth. A data logger does almost the opposite job: it captures slowly-changing signals (temperature, current, pressure, strain, voltage) over hours, days, or weeks, and the challenge is long-term stability, reference accuracy, and unattended reliability. An Indian rooftop solar array logged over a six-week monsoon season, a cold-chain pharmaceutical shipment travelling from Hyderabad to Mumbai over several days, a furnace thermal-mapping run in a Pune chemical plant across a full production campaign, none of those jobs are oscilloscope jobs, and trying to use a scope for them is the wrong tool. They are jobs for the Pico Technology PicoLog family.

Pico Technology is best known for the PicoScope family, but the same company makes the PicoLog family of USB data loggers, purpose-built for long-duration, precision, unattended monitoring. For Indian industrial, environmental, solar, pharma cold-chain, and battery field-test work, the PicoLog family deserves a closer look than it typically gets.

This post walks through the five core PicoLog products, the PicoLog 6 software, the Python (pyPicoSDK) alternative for headless deployments, and the Indian field contexts where each product is the right answer.

The PicoLog Family: Canonical Products

PicoLog TC-08: 8-channel thermocouple logger

The PicoLog TC-08 accepts up to 8 thermocouple inputs with cold-junction compensation built in. It supports thermocouple types J, K, T, E, R, S, B, and N, covering the full useful temperature range from cryogenic up to around 1820 °C depending on the thermocouple type. Resolution is 20-bit, USB-powered, and the software handles the thermocouple non-linearity correction per the ITS-90 tables.

Indian use cases:

• Multi-point thermal soak testing of electronics enclosures in a Bengaluru or Chennai R&D lab. Eight thermocouples distributed inside an enclosure give you a 3-D thermal picture during a soak run, and the 20-bit resolution means small temperature gradients are visible.
• Industrial furnace and oven monitoring in Indian metal-treatment, ceramics, and chemical plants in Maharashtra and Gujarat. A TC-08 in an industrial enclosure with Type-K or Type-N thermocouples gives a long-duration thermal profile with laptop-based logging.
• Battery thermal profiling: covered in detail in the pyPicoSDK EV battery characterization post. Multi-point temperature on a battery pack during discharge, fast-charge, or thermal runaway testing.
• Reflow oven profiling for Indian EMS lines doing SMT assembly. A 7-zone reflow oven wants one thermocouple per zone plus a reference, which fits exactly in the TC-08’s 8 channels.

PicoLog PT-104: 4-channel RTD data logger

The PicoLog PT-104 is the precision cousin of the TC-08. It accepts PT100 and PT1000 RTD sensors, platinum resistance thermometers, which are inherently more accurate and stable than thermocouples over moderate temperature ranges. The PT-104 provides very high resolution on the measurement (0.001 °C resolution, with overall instrument accuracy specified at 0.015 °C, so the system accuracy sits in the ~0.02 °C range once you fold in a Class-A PT100’s own tolerance).

Indian use cases:

• Precision environmental monitoring in calibration labs, metrology standards labs, and ISO 9001 environmental-chamber validation in Indian accredited test houses.
• Reference thermometry for battery and component characterization where 0.01 °C accuracy is the difference between a meaningful result and noise.
• Pharmaceutical cold-chain and storage validation for Indian pharma exporters filing with global regulators. WHO PQS and EU GDP cold-chain regulations require documented temperature logs with high accuracy. A PT-104 in a 2 – 8 °C vaccine cold store provides an audit-defensible temperature record.
• Cleanroom and HVAC validation in Indian ISO-certified manufacturing facilities, semiconductor assembly in Bengaluru, medical device manufacturing in Chennai, and precision-optics cleanrooms in Pune.

PicoLog CM3: 3-channel AC current-clamp logger

The PicoLog CM3 is a 3-channel AC current logger that uses clamp-on current transformers. You do not have to break the conductor to measure, you clamp the CT around the wire and start logging. It is 24-bit, USB-powered, and supports multiple CT ratios.

Indian use cases:

• Energy audits in Indian manufacturing facilities. Three-phase current monitoring on mains feeders over a working week gives the kind of load profile a Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) audit needs. A CM3 installed on the main incoming supply of a Delhi NCR SME or a Gujarat textile mill captures the data cleanly.
• Solar inverter field characterization. CT clamps on the AC output of a rooftop or ground-mount inverter, logged over a full day, give a real-world energy-yield curve to compare against the inverter’s rated performance.
• Industrial motor-load profiling. Three CTs on a three-phase motor feeder give a long-duration load profile useful for sizing drives, diagnosing imbalance, and identifying mechanical wear.
• Industrial process current monitoring for boiler feeds, pump stations, and HVAC plants in Indian process industries.

PicoLog ADC-20 / ADC-24: precision analog loggers

The PicoLog ADC-20 and ADC-24 are high-resolution analog data loggers. The ADC-20 has 8 single-ended inputs or 4 differential inputs at 20-bit resolution. The ADC-24 has 16 single-ended inputs or 8 differential inputs at 24-bit resolution. Both connect over USB and share the PicoLog 6 software.

Indian use cases:

• Sensor validation: any sensor with a voltage or current output that needs long-duration, high-accuracy monitoring. Flow meters, pressure transducers, gas analyzers, humidity probes.
• Strain gauge monitoring on Indian structural and mechanical test benches. A 24-bit differential input on the ADC-24 has enough resolution to read microvolt-level strain-gauge bridge outputs without needing an intermediate amplifier on well-matched bridges.
• Fuel cell and battery long-duration characterization: voltages and currents across multiple cells, logged over weeks, for the kind of durability testing Indian battery and fuel-cell startups need to demonstrate to OEM customers.
• Precision voltage reference characterization in Indian metrology and standards labs.

PicoLog 1000: general-purpose multi-channel voltage logger

The PicoLog 1000 is the entry-level multi-channel voltage logger in the family, 16 single-ended analog inputs, moderate sample rates (higher than the 20/24-bit loggers, lower than an oscilloscope), and a mix of digital I/O for triggering and status reporting. It is the most flexible of the PicoLog range and the best fit when your requirement is “capture moderate-speed signals across many channels on a long run”.

Indian use cases:

• Multi-sensor data acquisition on prototype test rigs, capturing rail voltages, status signals, sensor outputs, and control loop intermediates all on a single logger.
• Moderate-speed digital status logging alongside analog measurements, the ADC-20/24 and TC-08 are not the right tool when you need 10 kHz capture rates, but the PicoLog 1000 handles that comfortably.
• R&D prototype bring-up where the team does not yet know exactly what they need to capture and wants flexibility. A PicoLog 1000 on an engineer’s desk in Bengaluru or Hyderabad is the right default first logger for prototype work.

PicoLog 6 Software: Cross-Platform, Cloud-Capable

All five products above share the PicoLog 6 software. It is cross-platform (Windows, macOS, Linux, and Raspberry Pi), it has a clean single-screen UI for channel configuration and plotting, and it supports the PicoLog Cloud dashboard for remote viewing of a running capture.

Key PicoLog 6 features that matter for Indian field deployments:

• CSV, PicoLog native, and tab-delimited export. Data comes out in formats a downstream Excel, Python, or MES workflow can ingest directly.
• Long-duration recording. Capture sessions of weeks or months are supported without hitting file-size limits.
• PicoLog Cloud dashboard. A capture running in a remote site (Visakhapatnam port, a Pune factory floor, a Jaipur rooftop solar array) can be observed over the internet without the field engineer having to sit next to the logger.
• Raspberry Pi support. A Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 running PicoLog 6 headlessly is a low-cost, low-power field data-logging box, far cheaper than a dedicated industrial laptop left running on a shop floor for weeks.

Python Alternative: pyPicoSDK for Headless Field Deployments

For Indian teams that want more control, or that want to integrate data logging into a larger Python pipeline, pyPicoSDK exposes the same underlying drivers from Python. This is the right path when:

• You need to run the logger as a systemd service on a headless Linux box in the field.
• You want to stream data directly into a time-series database (InfluxDB, TimescaleDB) without intermediate CSV files.
• You want to integrate the logger into a larger pytest-based test framework, see the pyPicoSDK + pytest automated test framework post for the discipline.
• You are building an edge-compute box that takes local decisions on logged data and only pushes events to a central server.

For most Indian field deployments, the pragmatic split is: PicoLog 6 for the engineer’s desk and the field technician’s laptop, and pyPicoSDK for the production headless deployment that runs unattended for weeks at a remote site.

Field Deployment Considerations for Indian Conditions

An oscilloscope on a lab bench is protected from the environment by the lab. A data logger deployed in the field is not, and Indian field conditions are harsh in specific ways that affect long-duration logging:

• Ambient temperature. Indian summer site conditions in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and inland Maharashtra can exceed 45 °C outdoors. The logger, the host laptop or Raspberry Pi, and the cabling all need to survive those temperatures. Industrial enclosures with passive ventilation or small fans are the norm.
• Humidity and monsoon exposure. Rooftop solar deployments and coastal industrial sites in Chennai, Mumbai, and Visakhapatnam see very high humidity. IP-rated enclosures, silica-gel packs, and careful cable-gland selection matter.
• Power reliability. Indian grid supply outside of tier-1 cities is not uniform. A UPS or a battery-backed logger host is often necessary to avoid losing a multi-week capture session to a single two-hour outage.
• Dust. Indian industrial sites generate a lot of ambient dust. Sealed enclosures and avoiding fans on the logger host improve long-term reliability.
• Physical security. A logger left on a factory floor or a rooftop for multiple weeks needs to be in a locked enclosure, both for the hardware and for the data integrity.

None of these are PicoLog-specific, they apply to any field deployment, but they are worth designing for early. A field deployment that fails after three weeks because the laptop overheated is a project disaster; a deployment that was designed for the environment from day one runs reliably.

Indian Use Cases: Representative Deployments

Solar panel field performance monitoring. A rooftop solar installation on an Ahmedabad commercial building: PicoLog CM3 on the AC output, PicoLog TC-08 with thermocouples distributed across the panel rear surface, PicoLog 6 running on a small host with Cloud dashboard enabled. The data team in Bengaluru watches the capture in real time from their desks.

Cold-chain pharmaceutical storage validation. A pharma exporter in Hyderabad validates a new cold-room installation for a WHO-PQS product. Two PicoLog PT-104 loggers with Class-A PT100 probes, distributed throughout the room, run a continuous capture for the mandatory qualification period. The CSV output is the raw data for the qualification report.

Bengaluru and Chennai electric bus battery thermal profiling. An EV bus fleet operator wants real-world thermal data from the traction battery during urban duty cycles. A PicoLog TC-08 with surface-mounted thermocouples on the battery module, plus a laptop in the driver’s cab, captures a full day of bus-route thermal behaviour. Multi-day captures across different ambient conditions feed the thermal management model.

Industrial furnace thermal mapping. A chemical plant in Maharashtra needs a full thermal map of a calcination furnace during a production campaign. Eight Type-N thermocouples on a PicoLog TC-08, captured over the full campaign, delivers the map and validates the control system’s internal thermocouples.

Boiler and pressure-vessel validation. A boiler OEM in Pune validates a new high-pressure design under a qualification run. PT100 RTDs on the shell, pressure transducers on the PicoLog ADC-24, and a CM3 on the electric feed-pump all logged simultaneously to build the qualification record.

Instrument Recommendation

For Indian thermal and thermocouple work: reflow, furnace, battery thermal, enclosure thermal profiling: PicoLog TC-08.

For precision temperature and cold-chain validation: PicoLog PT-104 with Class-A PT100 probes.

For energy auditing, solar inverter monitoring, and industrial motor-load profiling: PicoLog CM3.

For precision multi-channel analog monitoring: strain, pressure, voltage, sensor bridge work: PicoLog ADC-20/24.

For flexible general-purpose multi-channel logging at moderate speeds: PicoLog 1000.

For headless field deployments: integrate any of the above with pyPicoSDK running on a Raspberry Pi or a Linux host for unattended multi-week capture.

Further Reading

• Pico Technology, PicoLog data logger family
• Pico Technology, PicoLog 6 software
• Pico Technology, PicoLog Cloud
• GSAS, PicoLog TC-08 product page
• GSAS, PicoLog PT-104 product page
• GSAS, PicoLog CM3 product page
• GSAS, PicoLog ADC-20/24 product page
• GSAS, PicoLog 1000 product page
• GSAS, PicoLog data loggers for precision measurement in India
• GSAS, pyPicoSDK EV battery characterization
• GSAS, Pico Technology partner page

GSAS Micro Systems is India’s authorized engineering partner for Pico Technology. PicoLog hardware, field-deployment advisory, and pyPicoSDK integration support are available from our Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, and Pune offices.