Measuring thermal profiles in portable power bank product development
Temperature monitoring in product development
Consumer electronics manufacturing
Who is this use case for?
Product development and test engineers at consumer electronics manufacturers who need compact thermocouple temperature measurement integrated directly into C# or Python automation code, without NI hardware or LabVIEW.
What is this about?
Integration of a USB thermocouple reader into a C# product development test setup to capture temperature, voltage, and current profiles during portable power bank charge and discharge cycles, replacing a National Instruments and LabVIEW-based setup.
Customer Story
Feedback from the test engineer at a leading manufacturer of portable power banks and mobile accessories.
″We design and manufacture portable power banks. Part of that development process involves understanding how our products behave during charging and discharging cycles: specifically, how temperature, voltage, and current evolve together over the course of a cycle. Building those T/V/I profiles is how we make design decisions about charging behavior. We needed a way to capture all three measurements simultaneously in our test setup.
Our previous setup used National Instruments hardware with LabVIEW. When we moved our test automation code to C# in Visual Studio, the NI infrastructure no longer fit our architecture. NI is built around LabVIEW, and moving away from it meant we also needed to move away from the instruments tied to that ecosystem. We needed a thermocouple temperature sensor that would communicate directly with our C# application without pulling the NI hardware stack along with it. It also had to be compact enough to fit in a product test setup alongside power measurement equipment.
The TMC200k checked the right boxes: small form factor, USB COM serial, and a price point that made sense for a product development environment. The Dracal support team was excellent during the evaluation. The integration into our C# code in Visual Studio was straightforward from the start.
It was very easy to integrate into our code. The validation was simple: we needed to see temperature data reading correctly alongside our voltage and current measurements during a charge cycle. Once that was working, we had what we needed. We liked it enough that we bought two more units shortly after.
We now use the TMC200k as part of our standard product development test setup for portable power banks. The T/V/I profiles we build from those measurements inform our design decisions: understanding how temperature behaves relative to voltage and current during charging and discharging is part of designing products that perform consistently and safely. The sensor is compact, the integration is stable, and the setup has not required any attention since we deployed it.″
The challenge
After migrating product development test automation from LabVIEW to C#, the existing NI-based temperature measurement setup no longer fit the new architecture. The replacement sensor had to communicate via USB COM serial for direct integration into C# without requiring NI hardware, be compact enough for a product bench alongside power measurement equipment, and remain affordable for a product development context.
The solution
The Dracal TMC200k USB thermocouple reader, communicating via Virtual COM Port protocol, integrated directly into the C# test application without NI hardware or LabVIEW. Temperature data is now captured alongside voltage and current during every charge and discharge cycle, producing the T/V/I profiles that drive power bank product design decisions.
Prerequisites and limitations
To implement this solution, the following prerequisites and limitations are considered:
- A C# development environment. The integration uses standard serial COM port communication and does not require any Dracal-specific library.
- Sensors must be ordered with the VCP option to enable Virtual COM Port communication. The base models (models with USB- prefix in their name instead of VCP-) do not communicate via COM port by default.
- A K-type thermocouple probe is required separately
- The TMC200k measures temperature only. Voltage and current measurement requires separate instruments synchronized in the test application.
Implementation
- Order VCP-TMC200k with the VCP option. You can also order a thermocouple probe directly with Dracal if the model is right for your application.
- Connect the sensor and integrate via COM port serial communication in the C# application using the C# code examples
- Connect the K-type thermocouple probe to the measurement point on the power bank under test
- Synchronize temperature readings with voltage and current measurements in the same test loop
- Log T/V/I data per charge and discharge cycle to build product behavior profiles
State after implementation
The TMC200k is now part of the standard product development test setup for portable power banks. Temperature, voltage, and current are captured together during every charge and discharge cycle, producing the profiles that inform charging design decisions. The integration runs in C# without any NI hardware or LabVIEW dependency. The sensor’s compact size fits the bench without complicating the test setup, and the integration has required no maintenance since deployment.
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