NEW Testo 184 Transport Data Loggers: Black Box of Your Sensitive Freight

Be it food products such as dairy, fruits, vegetables, frozen food or pharmaceutical goods such as vaccines, the cold chain between the manufacturer and the final consumer may under no circumstances be interrupted. Quality deficits, financial losses or even serious damage to the health of the consumer or patient can be the consequence.

What is the solution for reliable cold chain monitoring during transport?

With the NEW data loggers testo 184, you can monitor every step of the cold chain. The loggers travel on your behalf in freight and loading rooms, monitoring temperatures during the transport of sensitive goods on rail, in the air or on the road. At their destination, your see at a glance whether the configured limit values have been adhered to. In order to obtain detailed information, it is sufficient to connect the logger to a PC – a PDF report is immediately generated with all relevant data.

Logistic operators are no measurement experts. How will they know how to configure the loggers?

New testo data loggers 184 come with a common standard preconfiguration (+2…+8 °C) that fits to many customer requirements. If the customer is fine with these settings, he just has to press the START button – no further configuration! Even a layman can use these loggers. No download, no installation and no additional costs.  Furthermore, testo 184 is intuitively operated, and can be used without special training or previous knowledge: The "Start" button begins data recording. "Stop" ends it.

Loggers generally come with software.  The sender of the freight may have the software installed along with accessories that act as interface. But how shall the receiver arrange for the software installation along with the interface accessories?

The sender of the package is geographically somewhere totally different than the receiver of the package. To their advantage, testo has launched these loggers of 184 series that require no software installation at all. Just plug in any USB cable to the computer and the data can be accessed. These are new generation ‘Plug and play’ data loggers.

How is the data read-out from the logger if there is no additional software?

A PDF/A report with the transport data is created immediately on connection of the testo 184 data logger to the USB interface of a computer. This is suitable for long-term archiving according to PDF/A standard. All testo 184 data loggers can be read out on site also with an NFC-capable Android smartphone. Data transfer from the data logger to a compatible Testo printer also functions wirelessly via NFC.

Often loggers once sent through the shipment are difficult to be received back.  Are there use & throw loggers? 

Thanks to globalization, cold chain products are shipped throughout the whole world today. Very often the costs of sending back the logger to the origin are very high and hindered by custom regulations. In the distribution of cold chain products we also very often see the problem, that they are transported to external partners, who have no interest at all in sending the data logger back to the sender. In such cases, use & throw loggers can be used.

Testo offers 184 T1 (90 days) and 184 T2 (150 days) that can be used any number of times during the given time period. Although they are use & throw, testo loggers offer multiple usage during the defined usage time. 

Fitting in a logger in every package or a box and keeping a record of the same is very time consuming. Do testo 184 loggers save you any time?

Yes, testo 184 transport loggers save your time in many different ways. Firstly, they are preconfigured and hence its just a press of start button to start data logging. They require no time for programming or configuring in the first place. Secondly, these are such sleek & flat devices that they easily fit inside or on top of packages. Unique serial number displayed as bar code is used to include logger in logistic processes easily so that record of all the shipments corresponding to the logger can be maintained very easily. A glance at the display or the LEDs is enough to know whether limit values have been violated during transport. An on-site analysis of data is also possible through NFC smartphone. Easy to use, easy to read loggers also therefore save time at the receiver’s end as an automated PDF report is generated by merely plugging the USB to the computer.

What about some sensitive fright such valuable art, delicate machinery or electronics which may get damaged due to shocks during transport?

Testo offers a special shock logger - testo 184 G1 which can measure acceleration or shocks. It constantly keeps scanning for a certain high frequency of shock or acceleration. Logger starts recording as soon as the trigger value is reached. Shock event is indicated by a dot in the PDF report. Logger then goes back to the scanning mode. 

There are certain products that are transported with dry ice. Are there data loggers that can operate at such low temperatures?

Dry ice (-80 ⁰ C) is used for transport especially in the pharmaceutical industry, for example when transporting blood plasma, organs, virus, scientific material, etc. The testo 184 T4 was especially developed for dry ice applications. testo 184 T4 logger housings are made out of a special ABS polymer that can survive in such low temperatures. The extremely cold conditions are also very harsh for the batteries. Nevertheless testo 184 T4 batteries can hold for 100 days at -80 °C.

What are other variants available in testo 184 series?

The new transport data logger family has six different variants:

1. testo 184 T1:  It is a temperature use & throw logger, that has 90 days lifetime and is without a display
2. testo 184 T2:  It is a temperature use & throw logger, that has 150 days lifetime and is with a display
3. testo 184 T3:  It is a temperature logger that has 1.5 years battery life and comes with a  display
4. testo 184 T4: This temperature logger is especially for dry ice applications (-80 °C)
5. testo 184 H1: This one measures temperature as well as humidity and comes with 1 year of battery life
6. testo 184 G1: This data logger measures temperature, humidity and shock.

There are various industry-relevant norms and regulations that must be fulfilled during cold chain monitoring. Is testo 184 logger compliant?

testo 184 data loggers are compliant to the most important standards for the transport of pharmaceuticals and food products, namely, GxP (GMP, GLP & GDP), 21 CFR Part 11, HACCP and EN 12830.

Write back to us to know more about testo 184 data loggers: info@testoindia.com or visit our site www.testo.in/184