Performing a Measurement System Power Budget
Analyzing a measurement system power budget is a useful practice to help ensure that a proposed system
design will meet the monitoring objectives and reliably deliver data. To aid with this, NexSens has developed a
power budget tool which can quickly estimate the expected power performance of systems using the most
common NexSens buoy platforms, data logger configurations, and commonly integrated NexSens and third-party
sensors for deployment locations throughout the world.
The power budget tool is frequently updated with site locations, sensor types and other information. Contact a
NexSens applications engineer to request an up-to-date copy:
Contact NexSens
Instructions for Use
1. Begin by entering the company and/or project name and date in the top section. It is recommended to save
the file with a unique identifier before proceeding past this point.
2. Proceed to enter basic information about the system – equipment type (logger and hardware), telemetry
option (if any), sample and transmit intervals, and extra battery if used.
a. The example below shows a CB-950 data buoy with X2 data logger and CB-A05-3 battery pack with (3)
28 A-hr batteries. The system will sample every 20 minutes and transmit all data every 60 minutes and
has no additional batteries connected (as is normal on buoy-based systems).
3. Proceed to select the sensors to be connected to the system from the predefined sensor list (drop-down
menu in Sensor column). Select the quantity of each sensor type and whether they will use full power,
switch power or internal power.
a. The example below shows an Airmar 200WX-IPX7 weather station, NexSens T-Node FR temperature
string with 10 nodes, Nortek Signature 1000 current profiler, and a YSI EXO3 sonde all on switch
power.
Project information header.
Enter system information.
