Multi-instrument data logging on one timeline
Your power supply, multimeter, scope and load each have their own clock, their own software and their own export format. BenchMesh records all of them together, sampled at the same whole seconds, so you can correlate measurements across instruments - cause and effect on one axis.
- Load currentOWON OEL1515 · IIN
- 2.999 A
- Supply currentTENMA 72-2540 · IOUT
- 1.434 A
- Inductor temperatureOWON XDM1241 · MEAS
- 37.3 °C
- Output rippleRIGOL DHO804 · VPP
- 48.2 mV
Same second, every instrument. Move over the chart to scrub the timeline.
Why one time domain matters
Most bench problems are about when: did the output sag before the protection tripped? Does the ripple grow with load current or with temperature? Did the drift start when the room warmed up?
With separate loggers you line up files by hand and hope the clocks agree. In BenchMesh every reading in a recording is taken at the same tick, so a step in one instrument and the reaction in another sit on the same second - in the chart and in the exported CSV.
In the demo above, the electronic load steps to 3 A at 14:02:32: the supply current follows at the same second, the inductor temperature climbs for the next twenty seconds, and the output ripple on the oscilloscope grows with the load.
How the sampler works
- Whole-second ticks
- One sampler for all recordings ticks on whole seconds. A recording with interval n samples on every n-th second, so a 1 s and a 5 s recording coincide every 5 s.
- Same instant, every instrument
- At each tick every recorded reading of every instrument is taken from the live registry and written together, in one transaction.
- No extra traffic
- The values are the ones the instruments are polled for anyway: ten recordings cost the instruments nothing more than one.
- Gaps, never stale values
- If an instrument has not reported for more than 5 seconds, or is disconnected, its series gets no sample at that tick - a visible gap rather than a repeated old number.
Building a recording
- Right-click any reading on any panel: the menu lists the running recordings (ticked when the reading is already in one) and “New recording…”. Recorded readings carry a small red dot.
- Change it while it runs. Add and remove readings at any time - a removed reading keeps its data - pause, resume and stop.
- Several at once. Run a fast 1 s recording of a test next to a slow overnight one; the same reading can be in both.
- Recorder dock at the bottom of the bench shows what is recording; the recordings drawer keeps the history with a zoomable chart (one y-axis per series), rename, CSV export and delete.
CSV export
One row per tick, one column per series, UTC timestamps in two forms - ready for a spreadsheet, pandas or MATLAB. The first rows of the demo recording:
time_utc,time_ms,OWON OEL1515 · IIN [A],TENMA 72-2540 · IOUT [A],OWON XDM1241 · MEAS [°C],RIGOL DHO804 · VPP [mV] 2026-10-19T12:02:00.000Z,1792411320000,0.4992,0.2302,29.35,21.97 2026-10-19T12:02:01.000Z,1792411321000,0.3002,0.1400,28.97,20.64 2026-10-19T12:02:02.000Z,1792411322000,0.3000,0.1408,28.65,21.14 2026-10-19T12:02:03.000Z,1792411323000,0.2999,0.1398,28.41,19.58 2026-10-19T12:02:04.000Z,1792411324000,0.3002,0.1404,28.09,20.24 2026-10-19T12:02:05.000Z,1792411325000,0.2992,0.1401,27.86,20.36
What people record
Power-supply and converter tests
Supply voltage and current, load current, output ripple and efficiency on one chart while the load steps through its profile.
Battery discharge
Electronic load current and voltage, cell temperature from a meter, over hours; export to CSV and compute capacity in your spreadsheet.
Thermal drift and warm-up
A reference voltage on a 6½-digit meter next to the ambient temperature - see whether the drift follows the room.
Soak and burn-in
Leave a recording running overnight at a 10 s or 60 s interval; pause it, add a reading, resume.
Stored on your computer
Recordings live in a local SQLite database in your BenchMesh folder (~/.benchmesh/recordings.db). Nothing is uploaded. A recording left running when the app closes is marked stopped at its last sample when the app starts again.
Scriptable
Create recordings, add series, pause, stop, fetch data and the CSV over the local HTTP API; follow new samples live over a WebSocket. Developer docs
Questions about recording
Which readings can be recorded?
Every numeric reading a panel shows: output voltage, current and power of supplies, the multimeter reading, load input values, generator frequency, scope measurements such as Vpp, and more. Right-click it (or use the context-menu key) and pick a recording.
How long can a recording run?
Hours and longer. Samples are written to a local SQLite database as they come; charts of long recordings are reduced per time bucket keeping each bucket’s minimum and maximum, so short peaks stay visible.
What does the CSV look like?
One row per tick with UTC time and milliseconds since the epoch, then one column per series named after the reading and its unit. Where a series has no sample at a tick, the cell is empty.
Does recording need an account or the internet?
No. Recording happens entirely in the desktop app on your computer.
Start your first recording in a minute
Download the app, connect two instruments, right-click a reading on each.