[Minisystem] has a thing for dynamo powered bike lights. He wanted to measure how well his latest is working, but just logging the current flow through the LEDs wasn’t enough for him. He picked up a cheap Lux meter and hacked into the circuit to log measurements while he rides.

He started by cracking open the case to see what the meter held inside. There’s a Texas Instruments Op-Amp that connects to the light sensor. The datasheet for the part didn’t help much, but [Minisystem] did find that the current output on one of the pins changes with light intensity. Further testing led him to discover that the signal is a multiple of 10 for what is shown on the Lux meter’s readout. All he needs to do is take regular measurement of this current and save that data.

To do this, he grabbed his trusty Arduino and made a connection between one of its analog inputs and the op-amp pin. It should be easy enough to dump measurements into the Arduino’s own EEPROM, or use an external storage chip or SD card.

[Thanks Jason]