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SnowMicroPen a high resolution snow micro penetrometer
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1. If you operate the unit directly with the charging supply e g for laboratory use connect the Power Ground to a good earth point Otherwise the metal parts will be charged statically up to 90 VAC e To insert the MMC simply push card in label upper side to release MMC push card will be ejected a bit then pull MMC out SMP6 and higher e Handle the sensor cables with care Don t bend them too much e In case of malfunction check fuses 10A main fuse access from outside 1A fuse on power supply board inside box there s also a 10A fuse inside the battery pack e When opening the SnowMicroPen controller wear an anti static wrist wrap to prevent electrostatic discharges to the electronics e Water condensing inside the front part of the penetration shaft may cause a drift of the force signal Therefore the penetration shaft containing the force sensor has to dry out well after measurements e Be careful while measuring close to hard surfaces rocks or frozen earth The penetration shaft is driven back automatically when an overload of 41 N occurs Don t put additional weight onto the motor unit while the shaft is driven back The sensor can be destroyed if an overload of 150 N is reached 6 1 6 2 Check list Before measurements Check if O Ring of sensor tip is not damaged Is the MMC inserted into the controller unit Is there enough free memory space for the measurements Has the battery been r
2. right before the start of the measurement The measuring parameters e g depth of measurement are set via the touch panel on the LCD Use a plastic pencil or your fingers The menu structure of the microcontroller is shown in figure 1 3 After switching on the instrument green button the following screen appears figure 1 2 if the MMC is inserted 2 1 3 Measuring Figure 1 1 SnowMicroPen in the field before a measurement pShowMicroPen_by_SLE Measure Control zu E Figure 1 2 Screen after startup of the SnowMicroPen The appearance may differ depending on the program version of the SnowMicroPen You can navigate through the menus by touching the corresponding field Before mea suring go to Setup Experiment In this menu the filename which consists of 4 characters and an incremented number and the length to measure can be changed 1 3 Measuring To measure go to the Main menu and touch the field Measure The motor stops either when e the intended length to measure is reached e an overload condition occurs force at the tip higher than 40 N 400 N for ski track and snow road version e the LCD screen is touched in the lower two thirds Operating the SnowMicroPen Version 2 Microcontroller Force Plot Read File Menu pa TT Enter N Comment Temp Plot AN AN Disk Menu tamat SS Measure N PN Z GPS N Temp N Check N Check AU height d Activa
3. SnowMicroPen a high resolution snow micro penetrometer User Manual Version 3 0 Rev 3 ENA SNV Davos Dorf March 2006 SnowMicroPen Team Contents 1 Operating the SnowMicroPen Version 2 Microcontroller 1 1 Setting up the instrument a 2a are go ae ad ea eS 1 2 Preparing to measure sed er rd a oh eS ee al AT Lo Mean o AS Be eo A E a 2 Transferring the data and evaluation 2 1 Installing the software 4 gs sd eli ee e a o ls 22 Transterring datas ss 2 gua E Bi ed A Rok eR ee SU 25 3 Evaluation ne user hone E q ee dee ae Redes ee BY et a Re a Ke 3 GPS Sol Monitoring the ABS A0 203 A Bante ee ine 3 2 GPS and measurements 0 rn Got GP oO Piola N AR A AL AG eo ah ig em af O 4 Special hints 4 1 Setting instrument back to default parameters 2 4 2 Download program from computer to controller 4 3 Control of tip temperature ses srs 2 2 223 ae ie 4 4 Local coordinates om mn 5 Important notice 6 Check list 6 1 Before measurements 2 2 om on nn 6 2 After measurements 2 Co mn en oo A A A Nene e oa a a Ol oa DD o o om Operating the SnowMicroPen Version 2 Microcontroller 1 1 Operating the SnowMicroPen Version 2 Micro controller The SnowMicroPen is the first instrument measuring the bonding force between snow grains with both high spatial resolution and high speed This short manual should help you to perform successful measurements Please read
4. echarged Don t forget controller unit motor unit battery battery cable and the two fixing poles After measurements Read out data from MMC and format MMC afterwards After measurements in wet conditions let the SnowMicroPen dry out well es pecially all the electronics and also the penetration shaft containing the force sensor Pull out penetration shaft manually approx 10cm Clean everything and place it somewhere warm and dry to dry out Recharge battery
5. it carefully 1 1 Setting up the instrument To setup the instrument in snow takes about ten minutes 1 Take the motor and drive rods out Buckle up the rods fasten the steel wire and pull it tight Above the end of the top rod this wire can be pulled until a screw appears Hold this screw and gently fasten the wire by screwing the nut Attention Make sure there is no gap between the rods by twisting them against each other it must be absolutely free of any gap If not tight enough the gear wheel and the rods will be damaged which requires expensive repairs When detaching the rods unscrew the nut by holding the screw so that the wire does not twist inside the rods Insert the two standing poles into the mounting holes on the motor box For the snow road or ski track version only position the sled at the point to be measured 2 Connect the cables of the motor the force sensor and the temperature sensor Each cable has a unique diameter and pin so they will not be confused Connect the battery cable last 3 The instrument is now ready to start measuring The force sensor is always cov ered by the white plastic tube at the bottom of the motor box do not move it out 1 2 Preparing to measure The SnowMicroPen should always measure perpendicular to the snow layers therfore on slopes the instrument must be positioned perpendicular to the slope This can be done by adjusting the poles Figure 1 1 shows a well prepared SnowMicroPen
6. l compatible format 3 GPS Some SnowMicroPen instruments are equipped with a global positioning system GPS The GPS can be turned on and off from the Control menu Before turning the GPS on the antenna has to be attached to the SnowMicroPen If the instrument does not have a GPS GPS not available is shown in the Control menu 3 1 Monitoring the GPS To monitor the GPS go to the GPS menu There the status of the GPS and the position is shown Latitude and longitude are given in degrees and the GPS height is given in meters If the rectangle behind the word Valid is filled in the position estimate is valid Otherwise the GPS receiver has not yet calculated and fixed the actual position Also the fixmode and dilution of precision dop are given when the position is fixed 3 2 GPS and measurements If the GPS is turned on when a measurement is taken the SnowMicroPen will wait for a GPS fix before automatically starting the measurement After the measurement the GPS data will be stored in the header of the pnt file If the user does not want to wait for a fix of the GPS the measurement can be started manually 3 3 GPS options In the GPS menu the height of the SnowMicroPen can be entered manually and fixed to improve the precision of the position measurement Also the GPS receiver can be reset It should be noticed that the GPS may need up to 30 minutes to calculate its position after a reset because the almanac has to be reloaded fr
7. om the satellites 4 Special hints 4 1 Setting instrument back to default parameters Go into the Disk menu and choose Format Disk All data on the disk will be erased After disk is formatted switch controller off and on again On display Check setup wait 5sec appears Now the instrument is set back to the default parameters Check setup wait 5sec always appears if power is switched on and MMC is empty 6 4 2 Download program from computer to controller 4 2 Download program from computer to controller Check if controller is switched off while still connected to the battery Connect controller to your computer COM 1 with the 9 pin RS232 cable Make a DOS bootable disk and copy the 2 files flash exe and myflash bat from folder SMP Flash to disk Boot computer with this disk At DOS prompt type myflash After a few seconds you ll be asked to switch the SnowMicroPen on if this is done download begins When finished switch controller off and on again Now the program is installed and it s best to do a Format Disk now 4 3 Control of tip temperature In spring it may occur that the temperature of the SnowMicroPen tip is above 0 C This means that snow crystals in contact to the tip may melt This may influence the measurement e g when water enters the force sensor unit and refreezes blocking the sensor tip Therefore a warning message is displayed if the temperature of the sensor is above 0 C when a measurement is taken The opera
8. te local coordinates C et Filename Set length and number Experiment Setup ontrol Setup Menu Menu A GPS On Off Save energy PR N Drive Rod Question 2 Ph Set 2 tipdiameter Settime et sensor N sensibility nee 2 Ar Ze condition Ciltumination i ey AP length Set contrast je ol ia A Set Figure 1 3 Menu structure of the microcontroller of the SnowMicroPen The big boxes represent the main menus Diamonds represent questions and ovals show possibilities to set parameters or to operate the Snow MicroPen After the measurement the data is written to the disk the sensor moves to the home position and the signal is shown on the screen If another measurement is necessary go back to the Main menu and touch again the Measure field The parameters of the last measurement are taken as template for the next 2 Transferring the data and evaluation 2 1 Installing the software The data transfer from the MultiMediaCard MMC is done either via notebook PC Card slot or with the OmniDrive a general purpose PC card reader Version notebook PC Card slot in notebook Connect the Hardlock to the par allel port of your notebook and switch power on Insert the SoftDrive Win2000 CD Rom and follow the on disk installation hints Restart notebook Usually the system should be ready to read the MMC Otherwise consult the on disk manual From the Snow MicroPen CD Rom copy the folder SnowMicroPen somewhere to yo
9. tor can choose between three options Ignore temp suppresses the warning message until the SnowMicroPen is restarted Proceed continues the measurement but the warning message will be dis played when the next measurement is taken and the temperature is still above 0 C Cancel will cancel the measurement 4 4 Local coordinates If the local grid is activated via the Experiment Menu the operator is advised to enter local coordinates before a measurement is taken The variables x y z and theta can be entered If a variable is not set it will be initialized with zero The local coordinates are stored in the header of the pnt file Important notice 7 5 Important notice e If the force sensor is not connected always put on the short circuit connector otherwise the amplifier can be destroyed e The instrument may not be operated in horizontal or upside down position Oth erwise the geared rods can be damaged which requires expensive repairs e When tightening the rods together make sure there is no gap between the rods by twisting them against each other It must be absolutely free of any gap If not tight enough the gear wheel and the rods will be damaged which requires expensive repairs e The O Ring version of sensor tip is maintenance free In case of tip or O Ring replacement handle the unit very carefully No lateral force and no force to tighten the tip should be applied e Operate the SnowMicroPen only with battery power
10. ur file system Version OmniDrive USB or parallel port Connect OmniDrive to the USB or parallel port Install OmniDrive software See readme htm on CD for details From the SnowMicroPen CD Rom copy the folder SMP somewhere to your file system 2 2 Transferring data After completing the measurements the data has to be transferred from the MultiMe diaCard MMC to the PC Open the large red plastic screw on the SnowMicroPen controller and pull out the MMC push eject pull For notebook check if the hardlock for softdrive is plugged into the parallel port before switching on the notebook Insert the PC Card adaptor in the PC Card slot of your notebook or into OmniDrive and insert the MMC in the PC Card adaptor Copy the directory mmcread to the place where your data should be stored Directory is usually in folder SMP This directory contains the files e mmcread Ink e mmcread exe e CsmDIl dll Double click mmeread Ink and a terminal window will open Type on the command line mmcread this will give you a start help notice with all the commands Type on the command line mmcread a to get information about the status of the PC Card Type mmcread r on the command line and all files on the MMC will be extracted After that move all data files pnt to a final directory Special hints 5 2 3 Evaluation The files can be viewed and printed with the program PeneWin PeneWin has also the possibility to export the data in an Exce
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