After a few days of slow progress, significant steps were taken in the energy utilization project. The Inverter Communications Adapter (ICA) was installed after a few setbacks. The as-received phone cable was only 25' long and it had to be extended. Without the proper supplies, it was spliced and soldered to a second cable. After some brief wiring setbacks, success was achieved. It is now possible to monitor the inverter from a laptop in the upper deck of the habitat.

Three cheers for not having to walk downstairs!

The software supplied with the ICA does not have the capability of actively logging the inverter performance data. Instead, the software merely allows a user to perform the same actions possible on the inverter LCD on a computer. Third party software with data logging capabilities is currently unavailable, as the ICA product is still in the testing phase. As an alternative, screen capture software was acquired to record images of the ICA software screen. Image captures can be scheduled for any time duration from minutes to seconds. The current setup will acquire images every five minutes and the data will be extracted from the images every evening. Over the next few days, additional areas of the project will be addressed as the electricity consumption phase continues to mature.