Blog from June, 2013

June 5, 12:35

Gordon found the signal/power cable was unplugged inside the mote; likely got caught be Gordon's foot while ascending or descending the tower.

Licor at 32 m is flaky

June 5: 11:28 - 11:49

The Licor at 32 m (SN 1164) has been intermittent since the heavy rain on the afternoon of June 1.  Gordon found the "ready when off" light to be steady red.  The supply voltage was only 8.04 V, while the same voltage for the Licor at 38 m read 10.8V.

Chris suggested swapping heads to further diagnose the problem.

Tower sensor maintenance

June 5: ~ 11:25 - 12:40

Visited tower to service 32 m Licor and 8m mote.  Also added more bird-b-gone to top of tower.

Sonic azimuths

June 5:

Measured the sonic azimuths to be 265 deg magnetic. (Note the declination on the compass was actually ~ 1 degree east, not zero.)

Magnetic declination is about 2 deg W here, so the sonic azimuths are about 263 deg true.

June 12:

The consensus is that my azimuth measurement was in error by 180 degrees.

Daily status, June 5

SOAS ISFS Status, June 5, 2013

Tower work yesterday to fix TRH.8m and Tsfc.32m and clean optical sensors.

Also raised mote on tower to hopefully improve data transfer from rad and soil motes.

Sonics: 38m sonic has some flags in history

TRH, P, p: all okay; 

        problem with TRH.8m TRH was bad port #6 (& 17!) on low DSM

Wind speed & direction: ok

Soil, Rainr: OK!

        Vmote.(a,b,rad,pond) ~ 12.3, 12.2, 11.7, 12.3

Radiation, Wetness: 20m mote out from 05:45 to 10:00 CDT

                     8m mote out from 15:25 June 4

h2o, co2: 32m Licor has been flaky since hard rain on June 1.

System (GPS, Vdsm): ok 

8kva transformer fuses

On June 2nd one of the 30A fuses on the LEA-dynatech surge suppressor blew. Could not find a spare in the trailer.

Ordered 5 from Sequel Electric in Tuscaloosa, 700 14th St, 205-342-3181, and picked them up this morning.

Stamped on fuse: BUSS ABC 30A, 250V

On the flux base system, created new version of the NIDAS debian package, and the config:

# update debian isff-nidas package
cd svn/nidas/src
sarm install
cd $ISFF/admin/data_systems/isff-nidas
./build_dpkg.sh


# build tar-balls of config
make_dsm_tar.sh all

Then updated NIDAS on all dsms (low,mid,high,pond), with the "swupdate net base" command. The previous version had a bug in wisard code that would complain about duplicate IDs. This was done between 10:36 and 10:43 CDT.

Also updated the XML on the DSMs with "update_project_config" shortly thereafter.

Gordon, June 4

After the rain the night of June 1, WIFI to pond was dead.

DC power supply was sitting in 1/4 inch of water in bottom of the battery box. It's a small gray Lambda, marked LUS-10A-12, maxDC4.2A, and is dead.

Power levels on this station have been low for quite a while I believe. 11.6 V on May 28. Perhaps the power supply has been dead, or insufficient for a while.

Replaced the power supply with a "Power One", HB15-1.5-A. It showed 15V when not loaded.

The red "Load disconnect' LED on the charger was on, and it wasn't providing any load output, but I hoped that it would go off after a period of time charging the batteries. Not so. Station was still down on June 3. Battery voltage hadn't changed overnight, still 12.0 V.

Replaced the batteries on June 3, then realized that the power supply was not able to drive the station directly.

Replaced the power supply (model?) and the power now looks OK. There is room on the box for only one battery.

The power strip, charge controller and DC supply are on pieces of 2x4 to keep them off the floor of the cooler in case water leaks in again. Removed plug on spout and tilted cooler. Taped around holes.

The TRH was not coming in. Switched it from port 5 to 7 and it is now working.

The pyranometer here was bad (Epply 16107), reading a constant -5 W/m^2. Replaced with 16714.

The cable to the tipping bucket was stretched tight. I moved a cable=support post to slacken it. This sensor has been in and out. Switched it to port 8 in case that would help. It is not currently reporting.

Restarted soil.a mote

June 4, 10:54 - recycled power on soil.a mote.  It quit yesterday at ~19:15 CDT.

Status June 4

SOAS ISFS Status, June 4, 2013

Gordon spent most of yesterday getting power to Pond and troubleshooting its sensors.  Now only Rainr.tb is missing.  Pond will be a lower priority today.

Sonics: ok 

TRH, P, p: 8m TRH is RIP

Wind speed & direction: ok

Soil, Rainr: soil.a mote went down at 19:15, June 3.  
        Vmote.(a,b,rad) ~ 13.1V (@19:15), 12.4, 11.8.

Radiation, Wetness: Tsfc.32m is RIP (might be just disconnected)

h2o, co2: Gordon did a software reset yesterday for the 32m Licor.

System (GPS, Vdsm): ok

June 3

4:06 pm CDT- Recycled power on mote at site soil.b, which stopped this afternoon at ~13:45  

4:10 - replaced mote battery at site soil.a. New battery = 12.97V

32m Licor restarted

June 3:

h2o.32m (licor) appears flaky starting around 17:00, June 2.

Around 12:00 CDT, June 3, Gordon restarted the 32 m Licor over an rserial connection.

Turnipseed sonic

June 2:

Gordon installed Andrew Turnipseed's RMYoung sonic on the tower.  The bracket is 120 cm above our 38m sonic bracket.  The boom is 60 degrees counterclockwise (viewed from above) from our sonic booms (the boom is installed on the 'climbing' face of the tower).

He plans to use this for periodic REA measurements of trace gas fluxes.  He will pull up a sample line with a rope on a pulley attached to his sonic boom.

K&Z CNR4 height

June 2:

Gordon measured the height of the CNR4 bracket.  It is 275 cm above the 38 m sonic bracket.

June 2:

Gordon installed two new Everest Tsfc sensors on tower late this afternoon.

13.9m: 3389-1

32m:   3577-3

Could not read data with mote dump until Gordon changed the sensor type in the XML.  He did this at 13.9m, but not yet at 32m (12:30 CDT June 3).  There is also the possibility that he did not remember to plug in the Tsfc at 32 m!