On March 15, we released the CR300, our best-valued datalogger. It was developed based on feedback from customers who wanted a lower cost, small datalogger with the functionality and versatility of the CR1000.
With the CR300, our customers now have the best of both worlds. It is the same size and similarly priced as the CR200X, but has serial communication capabilities, a much richer CRBasic command set, and an onboard compiler that can handle large, complex programs. This new datalogger can measure most hydrological, meteorological, environmental, and industrial sensors, and is ideal for applications requiring long-term, remote monitoring and control.
The CR300 operating system (OS) is a light version of the CR1000 OS, and has almost all of the CR1000 and CR800-series functionality. Additionally, the CR300 processor is much faster than the processors used in the CR200X, CR800-series, and CR1000 dataloggers. Other features of the CR300 include:
- Ability to measure 4 to 20 mA sensors natively (first Campbell Scientific datalogger that does this)
- 24-bit analog-to-digital converter that provides incredible analog measurement accuracy
- Great Internet and serial communication capabilities
- Modbus, DNP3, and other popular protocols supported
- Full PakBus support (CR200X only supported leaf node whereas the CR300 supports both PakBus routing and leaf node)
- Ability to send encrypted/secure email messages and alarms (TLS-encrypted SMTP)
- More final storage memory than provided by the CR200X
- Simplified setup with PC connection using USB port
- Integrated charge regulator for charging battery (solar or ac-dc power converter)
- Very modest power budget
- Campbell quality surge and electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection
The learning curve for the CR300 is very small because it is programmed using a CRBasic instruction set that resembles the CR1000 instruction set. This allows integrators to capitalize on their knowledge of CRBasic and our CR1000 datalogger for use with this lower-cost datalogger.
The CR300 will replace the CR200X for many applications. However, existing CR200X customers who do not need the new capabilities offered in the CR300 can still purchase a CR200X.
We are excited about the CR300. It is the first in a series of low-cost, high-value dataloggers, and several built-in wireless telemetry options will be available in the future. The CR300 promises to be a valuable new addition to our datalogger family.
