To view a saved file, you must first make sure that VBOX Test Suite is in Offline mode. You can set it to Offline by clicking on the Offline button on the Home tab on the ribbon.
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Once the software is offline, you can load a file by either clicking on the Load button on the Home tab on the ribbon or the Load Data option in the File. This will open File Explorer, where you can navigate to a previously saved data file (.vbo, .vbb, .asc, or .dbn). Opening a file will automatically load the data into all open tests and populate the chart and test areas.
To view live data from a VBOX data logger, you must first connect to the VBOX unit to the PC, either via hardware connection or Bluetooth connection.
If you are using hardware connection you must set VBOX Test Suite to Online mode by clicking on the Online button on the Home tab on the ribbon. A dropdown menu will appear where you can select a COM port to connect to.
Once the software is connected to the VBOX unit, the dashboard gauges will automatically start to display the data that is being sent live over the VBOX unit's serial stream.
When Online mode is enabled, Start, Stop and Reset buttons will appear on the dashboard. You can use these buttons to start, stop and reset any open tests.
When in Online mode, a newly created session will be populated with session data from the previous session (if entered).
If you lose the connection when using Bluetooth, the software will display a Disconnected message. You can reconnect by clicking on the Try Reconnect button.
Note: You can cancel the COM port connection before the software has fully opened online communications by selecting the X button at the bottom left of the software window, as illustrated below.
The Refresh Channel Names setting will be enabled by default which means that the CAN channels that are being transmitted to the software are refreshed when a connection is established.
If you disable this option, VBOX Test Suite will store the channel names from the last online session. When a connection is established, any CAN channels from modules that are no longer connected will be included as unnamed channels. If the number of CAN channels in the serial stream for the new VBOX connection matches the number of CAN channels in the last online session, you will be prompted to set the channel names from the last connection. This is particularly useful when you are conducting Pass-By Noise testing, where you want to view the channels from the Mini Input Module (previously connected to a VBOX data logger for configuration and connected online in VBOX Test Suite) that is connected to a sound level meter roadside and is communicating with the VBOX data logger via radio. For this specific application, you must set the Mini Input Module to Sound Level Meter(s) only mode. (This feature was previously referred to as Telemetry mode in the VBOX Tools software.)
If you want to add more channels to the serial stream during testing, you can do this from within VBOX Test Suite.
When you select a channel to add as a gauge, it will automatically be set to be sent over serial. Any channels that were added to the workspace in offline mode will also be sent over serial when you go to Online mode (if those channels are available when you go online).
In addition, any channel that is required by a plugin you are using will also be sent over serial.
Notes:
- If you reach the limit of 32 channels sent over serial, VBOX Test Suite will remove any channels that are unused.
- The serial data stream will pause when you add a channel (the power LED of the VBOX turns red). If you are logging data over serial, there will be gaps in the data when you add a new channel. However, the data logged to the media will be unaffected.
When you are using Online mode, you can save live VBOX data as a .vbo, .vbb or .csv file when a test has been completed. To do this, navigate to the File menu at the top left of the Ribbon once a test has finished, and select Save As.
A pop-up window will then appear where you can select the calculated channels, configured maths channels and test plugin-specific channels you want to include in the file. If there are multiple sessions, you can choose which one to save by using the dropdown option in the Session to save selection.
Click the OK button to name and save the file locally on the PC.
You can enable auto-save in VBOX Test suite in the Options menu. Go to Home -> Settings -> Options and tick the Auto save file when online session stops option. You can assign a relevant file name prefix and set the output folder for the saved files.
When this option is enabled, VBOX Test Suite will automatically save a .vbo file when you click the Stop button during a test in Online mode.
The file will contain all data recorded from the moment the Start button is pressed until the Stop button is pressed, and the file name will be suffixed with 000 increasing by 1 based on the highest number already in the output folder.