When Leila swapped the s9 DSM for s1, I discovered the disdrometer messages were broken. The quick summary is that the eeprom got erased, leading to these questions.  The details follow.

  • Can we take up this problem with Ott Hydromet?
  • Any clues as to what could be causing the Parsivel2 to lose it's memory?
  • Is voltage or current supply borderline for reliable operation?

It looks like the first data file at setup for s1 is s1_20200325_120000.dat. Disdrometer was working as of 2020-03-25,17:49:13. I'm guessing the site was setup that day, and for whatever reason the disdrometer data messages start there, without the boot messages. Probably the time was not synchronized until then.

[isfs@barolo raw_data]$ data_stats -a -i 1,-1 s1_20200325_120000.dat 
2020-04-29,09:39:54|NOTICE|parsing: /h/eol/isfs/isfs/projects/SWEX/ISFS/config/swex.xml
Exception: EOFException: s1_20200325_120000.dat: open: EOF
sensor                           dsm sampid    nsamps |------- start -------|  |------ end -----|    rate        minMaxDT(sec) minMaxLen
s1:/dev/ttyDSM1                    1      8       371 2020 03 25 17:49:13.254  03 25 23:59:10.090    0.02      57.007   60.021 4142 4142
s1:/dev/gps_pty0                   1     10     44573 2020 03 25 17:48:16.892  03 25 23:59:59.024    2.00      -2.133    1.253   59  147
s1:/var/log/chrony/tracking.log    1     18      2654 2020 03 25 17:48:16.958  03 25 23:59:59.913    0.12       0.000 2578.788  100  100
s1:/dev/ttyDSM2                    1     20     22436 2010 02 01 00:00:57.185  03 25 23:59:59.275    0.00-1946506.446    1.342   42   44
s1:/dev/ttyDSM3                    1     22         0 ***********************  ******************     nan         nan      nan  nan  nan
s1:/dev/ttyDSM4                    1     40    446122 2010 02 01 00:00:57.159  03 25 23:59:59.974    0.00-1946507.325    0.493   60   60
s1:/dev/ttyPWRMONV                 1     60    445799 2010 02 01 00:00:56.308  03 25 23:59:59.422    0.00-1946506.527    1.172    3   90
s1:/dev/ttyDSM5                    1    100    223047 2020 03 25 17:48:17.032  03 25 23:59:59.976   10.00      -2.889    0.428   32   32
s1:/dev/ttyDSM7                    1 0x8000      4467 2020 03 25 17:48:20.498  03 25 23:59:57.411    0.20       1.616    5.689   26   60

The messages appeared to be fine, including reporting the serial number 450620:

2020 03 25 17:49:13.2549       0  1,   8    4142 450620;0000.000;00;20000;024;27025;00000;0;000;...

It booted up again 2020-03-26,01:35:11, for reasons unknown. It reported one good message, then started rebooting and reporting "POWERSUPPLY TEST FAILED !!!".

2020-04-29,09:13:52|INFO|opening: s1_20200326_013511.dat
2020 03 26 01:35:11.6336   121.6  1,   8       3 \r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:11.6346 0.001042  1,   8      22 BOOTLOADER PARSIVEL\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:12.9390   1.304  1,   8       3 \r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:12.9400 0.001042  1,   8      21 *** PARSIVEL 2 ***\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:12.9518 0.01182  1,   8      20 OTT HYDROMET GMBH\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:12.9631 0.01129  1,   8      22 COPYRIGHT (C) 2019 \r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:12.9755 0.01238  1,   8      18 VERSION: 2.11.6\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:12.9843 0.008857  1,   8      17 BUILD: 2112151\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:13.0045 0.02015  1,   8       3 \r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:13.3090  0.3045  1,   9      40          0          0      20000         15          0          0          3          0          0          0 
2020 03 26 01:35:13.3090       0  1,   8    4142 450620;0000.000;00;.....;\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:28.0125    14.7  1,   8       4 \x80\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:29.6423    1.63  1,   8      22 BOOTLOADER PARSIVEL\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:30.9507   1.308  1,   8       3 \r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:30.9517 0.001042  1,   8      21 *** PARSIVEL 2 ***\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:30.9635 0.01181  1,   8      20 OTT HYDROMET GMBH\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:30.9748 0.01131  1,   8      22 COPYRIGHT (C) 2019 \r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:30.9858 0.01094  1,   8      18 VERSION: 2.11.6\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:30.9961 0.01028  1,   8      17 BUILD: 2112151\r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:31.0044 0.008336  1,   8       3 \r\n
2020 03 26 01:35:35.0523   4.048  1,   8      31 \xf8POWERSUPPLY TEST FAILED !!!\r\n

Eventually it starts repeating the messages "ERROR: No Valid Serial Number found !!!" and "ERROR: No Valid Hardware info found !!!".

2020 03 26 01:38:57.7429 0.001042  1,   8      22 BOOTLOADER PARSIVEL\r\n
2020 03 26 01:38:59.0512   1.308  1,   8       3 \r\n
2020 03 26 01:38:59.0522 0.001042  1,   8      21 *** PARSIVEL 2 ***\r\n
2020 03 26 01:38:59.0641 0.01184  1,   8      20 OTT HYDROMET GMBH\r\n
2020 03 26 01:38:59.0740 0.009899  1,   8      22 COPYRIGHT (C) 2019 \r\n
2020 03 26 01:38:59.0879 0.01393  1,   8      40 VERSION: \xf8POWERSUPPLY TEST FAILED !!!\r\n
2020-04-29,09:13:52|INFO|opening: s1_20200326_120000.dat
2020 03 26 19:49:41.7501 6.544e+04  1,   8      42 ERROR: No Valid Serial Number found !!!\r\n
2020 03 26 19:49:41.7597 0.009589  1,   8      43 ERROR: No Valid Hardware info found !!!\r\r\n
2020 03 26 19:49:58.6922   16.93  1,   8      22 BOOTLOADER PARSIVEL\r\n
2020 03 26 19:50:00.0337   1.341  1,   8      42 ERROR: No Valid Serial Number found !!!\r\n
2020 03 26 19:50:00.0577 0.02407  1,   8      43 ERROR: No Valid Hardware info found !!!\r\r\n

It keeps reporting the "No Valid Hardware info" messages until 2020-03-27,01:50, then some noise, then nothing until 20:13, when it starts reporting the default messages with the serial number of XXXXXXXX:

2020 03 27 01:50:38.3070 0.001042  1,   8      22 BOOTLOADER PARSIVEL\r\n
2020 03 27 01:50:39.0419  0.7349  1,   8      42 \x00\xe0\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\xff\x00\x00\xfe\x00POWERSUPPLY TEST FAILED !!!\r\n
2020 03 27 01:50:42.5119    3.47  1,   8      33 \x00\x00\x00POWERSUPPLY TEST FAILED !!!\r\n
2020 03 27 01:50:44.8753   2.363  1,   8      44 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x0e\x00\xff\x00\xfe\x00\x00POWERSUPPLY TEST FAILED !!!\r\n
2020 03 27 01:50:47.5648    2.69  1,   8      63 \x00\x00\xff\x02\x00\xfe\x00\xff\x00\x00\x00\x00\x9d(\x80\x00\xff\x00\xff\x00\xfd\xff\x00\x00\xfe\x00\xff\x00\x00\xff\xff\x00\x00POWERSUPPLY TEST FAILED !!!\r\n
2020 03 27 01:50:51.8081   4.243  1,   8      49 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00@\x14\x00\x00\x00\xfe\x00\x00\x00\x0e\x00\x00\xff\x00POWERSUPPLY TEST FAILED !!!\r\n
2020-04-29,09:13:56|INFO|opening: s1_20200327_120000.dat
2020 03 27 20:13:06.5367       0  1,   8      71 XXXXXXXX;0000.000;0000.00;00;-9.999;20000;0000.00;025;27028;00000;0;\r\n
2020 03 27 20:14:06.5447       0  1,   8      71 XXXXXXXX;0000.000;0000.00;00;-9.999;19320;0000.00;025;27018;00000;0;\r\n

There are still some reboot messages later on and more error messages, so it's not like the disdrometer is stabilized again but just missing eeprom. Either way it's in a broken state, and I don't think this is the only one to have had this kind of problem.

For the moment, I have modified the NIDAS config to parse the messages but skip the serial number field. However, that is not a fix since the whole configuration of the data messages has been lost, and we don't know if losing the hardware info and any other eeprom settings makes the data useless.