Sutron MONITOR Operation & Maintenance Manual

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MONITOR®

Data Logger

MAINTENANCE MANUAL

PERATIONS &

Part No. 8800-1174

Revision – 1.04

Oct 20, 2008

Table Of Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................... 4

Models............................................................................................................................. 4

Connections......................................................................................................................... 5

Power/SDI/TB Terminal Block ...................................................................................... 5

DB9 Connector ............................................................................................................... 6

Sensor Connections......................................................................................................... 7

Measurements ..................................................................................................................... 9

Sensors ............................................................................................................................ 9

Inputs available ............................................................................................................... 9

Setup ................................................................................................................................. 10

Measurement setup ....................................................................................................... 10

Other Setup ................................................................................................................... 27

Measurement Setup Examples.......................................................................................... 30

RM Young Wind Speed and Direction......................................................................... 30

Thermistor..................................................................................................................... 31

Pressure Transducer (Analog Bridge Sensor)............................................................... 32

Thermocouple Sensor ................................................................................................... 34

Tipping Bucket.............................................................................................................. 35

Solar Radiation Sensor.................................................................................................. 36

SDI-12 Multi-Parameter Sensor ................................................................................... 37

Logging............................................................................................................................. 39

SD Card Interface ............................................................................................................. 41

MONITOR Time .............................................................................................................. 42

SDI Clock Synchronization .......................................................................................... 42

MONITOR Errors............................................................................................................. 44

Clearing errors .............................................................................................................. 44

Measurement errors ...................................................................................................... 44

System errors ................................................................................................................ 45

Front Panel Interface......................................................................................................... 46

Navigating the Menus................................................................................................... 46

Turning Display On/Off................................................................................................ 46

Backlight....................................................................................................................... 46

Contrast......................................................................................................................... 47

Viewing Data ................................................................................................................ 47

Front Panel Menu Tree ................................................................................................. 48

RS232 Command Line Interface ...................................................................................... 49

Status............................................................................................................................. 49

Setup ............................................................................................................................. 50

Measurements ............................................................................................................... 51

Recording...................................................................................................................... 51

Downloading the Log ................................................................................................... 51

Examples....................................................................................................................... 52

Machine to Machine Communication........................................................................... 53

Auto Output .................................................................................................................. 53

RS232 Command Reference......................................................................................... 53

Setup Transfer via HyperTerminal ............................................................................... 57

Upgrading Firmware..................................................................................................... 57

Connecting a Modem.................................................................................................... 58

More about SDI-12 ........................................................................................................... 61

Overview....................................................................................................................... 61

Wiring Guidelines......................................................................................................... 62

Connector...................................................................................................................... 62

SETUP of SDI sensors.................................................................................................. 62

Useful SDI commands .................................................................................................. 63

GPS ................................................................................................................................... 64

Timekeeping ................................................................................................................. 64

GPS Installation and Setup ........................................................................................... 64

GPS Positioning............................................................................................................ 65

GPS Operation .............................................................................................................. 65

GPS Errors .................................................................................................................... 65

Jumpers ......................................................................................................................... 66

RJ45 to RS232 Connector............................................................................................. 66

Modbus ............................................................................................................................. 68

Modbus Menu Tree....................................................................................................... 68

Modbus Menu Options ................................................................................................. 68

Modbus Function Codes ............................................................................................... 70

Get Log Command........................................................................................................ 73

Appendix A – Monitor Specifications .............................................................................. 75

Appendix B – Sutron Customer Service Policy................................................................ 77

Appendix C – Commercial Warranty ............................................................................... 78

Sutron Manufactured Equipment.................................................................................. 78

Non-Sutron Manufactured Equipment.......................................................................... 78

Repair and Return Policy .............................................................................................. 78

Extended Warranty and On-Site Maintenance ............................................................. 78

INDEX .............................................................................................................................. 79

Introduction

MONITOR is Sutron’s most easy-to-use and affordable data logger. It is designed to measure common hydrologic and meteorological sensors and log the data into its flash memory. The general purpose version of MONITOR supports up to 16 sensors with its analog, digital and SDI-12 interfaces. The built-in display/keypad makes it simple to set the station up and perform routine maintenance. MONITOR includes an SD memory slot for downloading data or setups. MONITOR can be used standalone or connected to wireless modems for integration into automatic data collection systems.

Models

MONITOR comes in several versions to meet varied customer needs. The table below shows the models currently offered. Check with Sutron for additional models or for a customized version of MONITOR.

MONITOR-1 Display/Keypad, qty 2 0-5VDC inputs, qty 3 (+39mV, +312mV or +2.5V inputs, qty 1 420ma input, qty 1 tipping bucket, qty 1 freq/period, 5x5x4” fiberglass NEMA box with qty 2 cable glands.

MONITOR-4 Same as MONITOR-1 but housed in a 12x14x8 NEMA box. Also includes a 7amp-hr battery and Raven CDPD modem.

MONITOR-1

Connections

Power/SDI/TB Terminal Block

Power (Battery), SDI and tipping bucket sensors are wired to a terminal block inside MONITOR. Connections are made to this terminal block with bare wires using a small flat blade screwdriver (3.5mm or 0.125” wide). The connections on the terminal block are as follows:

Connector name Description

Battery +

Battery GND Power ground

SDI Data SDI-12 data

SDI +

SDI Ground SDI-12 ground

TB + Tipping Bucket +

TB Ground Tipping Bucket ground

MONITOR requires external +12V power to operate. The most common power source is a lead-acid battery. Connect the battery to pins labeled Battery + and Battery Ground the external terminal strip.

Power +12V (supplies power to MONITOR).

12V output for SDI-12 sensors (always on, toggles on Monitor reset)

Power Connections

SDI-12 Connections

The SDI-12 interface has only 3 connections – GND, +12V and Data. Wire these connections directly to the SDI-12 connections on a compatible sensor. Please see the

SDI-12 measurement type for more information.

Tipping Bucket Connections

The tipping bucket connections are configured to measure the closure of a dry contact switch. In most circumstances it doesn’t matter which side of the switch is connected to + or Ground. For measurement setup, please see the precipitation

section.

DB9 Connector

MONITOR comes with a DB9F connector for connection to RS-232 devices. The DB9F can be connected to the serial port on most PCs using a straight cable. A null modem adapter is needed to connect to most PDAs and modems. There is a command line

interface that allows communication via RS-232.

The following table shows the pin assignments in the DB9F connector.

DB9F Pin Name

1 N/C No Connection 2 RXD Data from MONITOR 3 TXD Data to MONITOR 4 DTR Signal to MONITOR 5 Ground 6 N/C No Connection 7 RTS Request to Send, signal to MONITOR 8 CTS Clear to Send, signal from MONITOR

9* VOUT

*Pin 9 can be used to provide 12V, 5V or no voltage. Certain devices, such as Bluetooth dongles require power on that pin. Any setting will work for talking to a PC.

What voltage is output is controlled by an internal jumper. To setup the jumper, the case must be opened. Once the case is open, the jumper is easily accessible. The Jumper in question is J19, and is located next to the RS232 connector. Set the jumper across pins 1 and 2 to provide 12V, across pins 2 and 3 to provide 5V, or remove jumper to have no voltage output.

Another jumper J16 (located near J19) determines when MONITOR outputs the voltage on pin 9. If the jumper is across pins 1 and 2, MONITOR will always output the voltage on pin 9. Any other configuration will cause MONITOR to output the voltage only when it is using the RS232 port (such as when it’s talking to a PC or a GPS).

Notes

Jumper selectable for 5V or VBAT (100ma max)

Sensor Connections

Two terminal blocks are provided for making connections to analog and digital sensors. These blocks are located inside MONITOR, behind the front panel. The terminals are numbered 1 to 22. The following table gives a short description of each of the terminals. Detailed notes describing how to connect sensors to the terminal blocks are provided in the setup section of this manual.

Terminal Block

1 AGND Analog ground

2 Analog 0-5V ‘A’ Voltage input for sensors with 0-5V output

3 Analog 0-5V ‘B’ Voltage input for sensors with 0-5V output

4 AGND Analog ground

5 VREF

6 DIFF ‘C’ (+) Differential voltage input for bridge type sensors

7 DIFF ‘C’ (- )

8 DIFF ‘D’ (+) Differential voltage input for bridge type sensors

9 DIFF ‘D’ (- )

10 24V (4-20ma) 24 Volt output for 2 wire 4-20ma sensor

11 I-Input (4-20ma) Current input for 2 wire 4-20ma sensor

12 Counter Input Frequency/period measurements

13 Gnd Digital ground

14 SW’D Batt

15 4-20ma Output (+)

16 4-20ma Output (-) Connect 2 wire ‘-‘ terminal here – not used by MONITOR

17 GND Digital ground

Description Notes

2.5V output (turned on during warmup measurement)

Switched battery (turned on during warmup measurement) Connect 2 wire ‘VOLTAGE’ wire here (eq. 24 Volts) – not used by MONITOR

and analog sensor

Terminal Block

18 DIFF ‘E’ (+) Differential voltage input for bridge type sensors

19 DIFF ‘E’ (- )

20 I/O ‘F’ Digital input (discrete)

21 I/O ‘G’ Digital input (discrete)

22 GND Ground

Description Notes

Measurements

A measurement is the process of collecting data from a sensor. MONITOR provides the ability to setup multiple measurements, each with its unique setup. Each measurement will occur periodically and provide one or more results, which are usually related to weather conditions. Measurement results are always logged. The log can hold almost 250,000 unique readings.

Sensors

As a data logger, MONITOR’s primary function is to measure and log data from sensors. All commonly used environmental sensors are supported.

Here is a list of some of the many sensors supported by MONITOR and available through Sutron:

• AT/RH (Air Temperature and Relative Humidity) - using analog or SDI-12

sensors

• Precipitation – using a tipping bucket

• Wind Speed / Wind Direction - RM Young or Gill ultrasonic via frequency,

analog, and SDI-12 inputs (includes vector averaging)

• Stage - using SDI-12 Shaft Encoder, Radar Level Recorder, Stage Discharge

Recorder, analog submersible, Bubbler

• Barometric Pressure - using the SDI-12 Accubar

• Solar Radiation via Differential Analog Input

Inputs available

Each of these inputs is capable of having one sensor connected to it, except for SDI-12 which can connect to multiple sensors.

Analog inputs

• Two 0-5 V single ended analog input

• Three Differential Analog Inputs (for bridge type sensors)

• One 4-20mA input

Digital inputs

• One counter digital input (used for tipping bucket)

• One frequency/period input (used for wind speed)

• Two discrete digital inputs (read line state as 1 or 0)

SDI-12 input

• SDI-12 V1.3 compliant supports multiple sensors all connected to the same

bus

Setup

Once it is powered on, how MONITOR behaves is controlled by its setup. The user has the option of changing any part of the setup. MONITOR’s setup is stored in non-volatile memory and will not be affected when the unit loses power.

Setup can be changed while MONITOR is collecting data. However, if MONITOR is in the middle of making a measurement when the affecting setup is changed, unexpected effects may occur. Even if unexpected effects occur, MONITOR will correctly make the next measurement.

Changes to setup will not affect previously logged data.

Every time setup is changed, it is noted in the log with the entry ‘setup changed’. Details of the setup change are not logged.

If a password is enabled, changes to setup cannot be made until the password is entered.

MONITOR’s setup is broken into two sections:

• measurement setup

• other setup

Measurement setup

How a measurement behaves is governed by its setup. Each of the 16 measurements has its own setup. Changing the setup of one measurement will not affect other

measurements (except for Meta measurements).

To access the measurement setup using the front panel, press UP or DOWN until the

Station Setup menu shows. Press RIGHT and the Measurement Setup will show. Press

RIGHT again, and choose which of the 16 measurements to setup by pressing UP or DOWN. Once the desired measurement is selected, press RIGHT. You may then press UP or DOWN to choose one of the measurement settings, and press SET to change the setting. Please see the front panel interface

When using the command line, M1, M2, M3... M16 are used to designate the 16 different measurements. Type M1 to see the setup of measurement one. Type M1 WIZARD to setup the measurement. Please see the section on command line

Names and descriptions of each measurement setup field are below.

Active

Will MONITOR make this measurement? If a measurement is not active, it will not be measured or logged. Making a measurement active is the first step in setup.

section for more information.

for more details.

Label

User set name given to measurement, up to 7 bytes. This is used to identify and differentiate measurements. This value will be placed in the log each time a measurement is made, so that changing a label will not affect previously logged data. Example labels: AT, Stage, Baro, Precip, Batt.

Measurement Type

This field defines what kind of measurement to make. The available options are

• Precip Accumulation

• Precip Rate

• SDI-12

• Analog

• Battery Voltage

• Wind

• Digital

• Meta

For details on each of the types, see the section Measurement Types below.

Measurement Interval Measurement Time

Measurement interval and time dictate when the measurement will be made. The interval controls how often the measurement is made, and the time controls when the measurement is started.

• E.g. time 00:00:00 interval 00:10:00

• 00:10:00 data measured and logged

• 00:20:00 data measured and logged

• 00:30:00 data measured and logged

• and every ten minutes afterwards…

• E.g. time 00:00:30 interval 00:05:00

• 00:00:30 data measured and logged

• 00:05:30 data measured and logged

• 00:10:30 data measured and logged

• and every five minutes afterwards…

Averaging Time Sampling Interval Subsamples

MONITOR is capable of collecting multiple samples and averaging them in order to produce a measurement result. Averaging is useful for measuring changing conditions, such as wind and water level. For example, correctly measuring the level of choppy water requires that wave action be cancelled. That can be accomplished by averaging over several minutes.

Setting the Averaging Time to zero means that only one sample is to be collected (no averaging). This is the default setup. If Averaging Time is zero,

Sampling Interval and Subsamples will not show in the setup.

When averaging, MONITOR will take multiple samples and average them into a final result. Each sample may additionally be composed of a number of Subsamples.

• Averaging Time determines how long to collect samples for.

• Sampling Interval dictates how often to collect each sample.

• Subsamples tell how many sensor readings to include in each sample. Do

not use Subsamples unless you need two levels of averaging.

The simplest averaging requires only the use of Averaging Time. If one wanted to know the average temperature for an hour, one would setup the Averaging Time to one hour. Sampling Interval or Subsamples would not need to be changed.

MONITOR will collect sensor data all throughout the hour as fast as possible.

However, if the power consumption for measuring the sensor continuously for an

hour were unacceptable, one would use the Sampling Interval. If it were sufficient to take one sample every minute, the Sampling Interval should be set to

one minute. That way, MONITOR will take 60 samples every hour, with approximately a minute break between each sample.

If the sensor being used were noisy and needed filtering, MONITOR could take

several Subsamples and average them into each sample. In the setup for temperature above, if the number of Subsamples were set to five, MONITOR

would take five readings at the start of every minute and average them. That result would be used as a sample. Once an hour, 60 samples would be averaged into a final result.

If Details is enabled (see below), MONITOR can record and display the minimum and maximum sample collected. Individual samples are not recorded. Minimum and maximum Subsamples are not recorded.

E.G. Averaging Time 1 minute, Sampling Interval 15 seconds Subsamples set to one. For each measurement, four samples will be collected; each sample has

only one subsample.

12:00:00 1

sample is collected 12:00:15 2nd sample is collected 12:00:30 3

sample is collected 12:00:45 4th sample is collected 12:00:45 all samples are averaged; result is time-stamped 12:00:00

Setting the Averaging Time to zero means that only one sample is to be collected

and is the equivalent of disabling averaging.

Setting the Sampling Interval to zero allows the system to collect samples as fast as possible. If Sampling Interval is zero, Subsamples will not show.

Setting the Subsamples to one means that each sample will consist of only one

data point (default).

The number of samples collected will be logged if the setting Details (see below) is enabled. Additionally if Details is enabled, it can be accessed by typing LAST in the command line. Regardless of whether Details is enabled, the number of samples can be seen using the Diagnostic Menu->Measurement Details menu via

the front panel.

Slope Offset

Every measurement is computed by taking the sensor reading, multiplying it by slope and adding offset to it.

Measurement result = (sensor output)*slope + offset

Slope defaults to 1.0 and offset defaults to 0.0, meaning they will not affect measurement result by default.

Traditionally, when using an analog sensor, slope and offset are required to convert the voltage output by the sensor into desired units. The required slope and offset are provided by the sensor manufacturer.

Note that MONITOR supports more complex equation processing (see Equations below). Slope and offset are applied after equations.

The reading before slope and offset are applied is referred to as the raw reading.

For example, if an analog sensor were to provide a voltage of 2 volts, and the user

had setup the Slope as 5 and Offset as 1, the final reading would be 11 (2*5 + 1). The raw reading would be 2. The raw reading can be viewed using Diagnostic

Menu->Measurement Details menu via the front panel. Additionally, if Details is

enabled, the raw reading is displayed on the command line by typing MEAS or LAST.

MONITOR offers easy ways to change the current reading of the measurement by modifying just the offset or both the slope and offset. Please see the sections on

measurement calibration and two point calibration.

Use Equation Equation

MONITOR allows the data collected from sensors to be processed by an equation. If the reading provided by the sensor needs more than just an offset and a slope applied, equations provide that functionality.

Equations are supported only by the first eight measurements. Equations may only be entered using the command line interface. The front panel may not

be used to enter equations.

The field Use Equations can be set to enabled or to disabled. It determines whether equation processing is to be applied to the raw data. The field Equation

can be set to an ASCII string no longer than 128 bytes (per measurement). That field contains the equation to be applied.

If both Equations and Slope and Offset are used, Slope and Offset are applied after

the equation is processed.

E.g. to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, type into command line:

M1 EQUATION = (X-32.0)*5/9

In the example above, X refers to the sensor reading.

Note: Equation processing can take a while to complete (up to several seconds).

If you are using a lengthy equation, Monitor may not be able to complete a

measurement every second, or even every two seconds (see Bad Schedule in the

Error section).

Equation Syntax

The equation is expressed in terms of "X" which will be applied to incoming sensor data. You may also reference each measurement by its label or by the M1, M2... designator. The expression is not case sensitive.

The following functions are available:

SIN, COS, TAN, ARCTAN, e.g. COS(90) = 0 SQRT is square root, e.g. SQRT(9) = 3 To raise a number to a power, use ^. For example X^2 is x squared. 2^X is 2 to the power of X. EXP, if EXP(x) = y, then LN(y) = x, e.g. EXP(1) = 2.718282 LN, natural log, e.g. LN(2.718282) = 1 LOG, 10 based log, e.g. LOG(10) = 1 INT returns the integral portion of a real number INT(11.456) = 11.000 INT(-1.345) = -1.000 FRACT returns the fractional portion of a real number. FRACT(11.456) = 0.456 FRACT(-1.345) = -0.345 ABS returns the absolute value of a real number. ABS(11.456) = 11.456 ABS(-1.345) = 1.345 POLY is used to compute up to a 5th level polynomial equation: POLY(x, A, B, C, D, E, F) equates to A + Bx + Cx^2 + Dx^3 + Ex^4 + Fx^5 STEINHART(x, A, B, C) is used for Steinhart-Hart equations, where x is the resistance and result is the temperature in Celsius A, B and C are thermistor specific constants Steinhart result is computed like so: 1/(A + B*ln(x) +C*(ln(x)^3)) - 273.15 VREF = Internal value of VREF (about 2.5Volts)

Example: X/VREF*355 (for wind direction scaling)

Comparison can be performed using <, >, <=, >=, !=, and =. The result of a comparison is 1 for true or 0 for false.

The following bitwise boolean operators are supported: AND, OR, XOR, SHL, and SHR. The last two are shift-left and shift-right. For instance (X SHL 4) would shift X left by 4 bits. AND & OR can also be used in logical expressions. For instance (X>100) OR (X<50) would result in 1 if X is above 100 or below 50; otherwise it would result in 0.

The NOT operator is logical not bitwise. This means that NOT 0 is 1 and NOT 1 is 0. Also, the NOT of any non-zero number is 0. eg. (X AND 128) != 0results in a 1 if bit 7 in X is set or 0 if bit 7 is clear. The bit mask 128 is 2^7. This assumes bit 0 is the least significant bit. In general, the bit mask for any bit N is 2^N.

Equations can also contain references to other sensors: e.g. (X + AirTemp)/2 would add X to the AirTemp value and divide by 2. You may also use the M1, M2.. designators instead of measurement labels: e.g. (X+M4)/2 would add X to the result of measurement four and divide it all by two.

Comments can be contained within braces { } {convert from degrees Celsius to degrees Fahrenheit} X*9/5+32

Other examples: SIN(X)+COS(X)+X^3+LOG(X) (X>1000)*1000 + (X<=1000)*X {would limit the value so that it could never be greater than 1000} STEINHART(10000*X/(2.5-X),0.001127098,0.000234445,0.0000000865403) {temperature sensor}

Details

Details can be enabled or disabled. If disabled (which is the default), the final result is the only data logged after a measurement completes. If Details are enabled, several readings are logged along with the final result:

• Minimum (the lowest sample collected)

• Maximum (the highest sample collected)

• Number of samples collected

Details can only be enabled if averaging (see above) is taking place; otherwise, the number of samples would be 1 and the minimum and maximum would be equal to the final result. Details are useful for diagnostics and for capturing the minimum and maximum values.

Log Error Value

When MONITOR is unable to get valid data from a sensor (more specifically, whenever a sensor failure error occurs), MONITOR will change the sensor

reading to match the user set Log Error Value which defaults to -99999. Such

outlandish numbers are used to attract the user’s attention when viewing the log.

Right Digits

The number of digits shown after the decimal place is referred to as the right digits. To make the measurement read 10.12 rather than 10.12345, set the right digits to 2. Note that MONITOR will round to the requested number of digits before logging the data.

Multiple Measurements Using the Same Sensor

Feel free to setup multiple measurements with the same input. For example, to log the daily rainfall and the rainfall during the last hour, setup two measurements: one a precip rate with an interval of one hour, and another as precip rate with an interval of one day.

To log the daily temperature as well as the hourly temperature, only one sensor is needed. Setup two measurements with the same setup, except for the

Measurement Interval and the Averaging Time and use a different Label for each. One would happen once a day (measurement interval 24 hours, averaging interval

24 hours), and the other once an hour (measurement interval 1 hour, averaging time 1 hour). It would be a good idea to setup the sampling Interval to one minute for both sensors in order to save power (see section on averaging).

If two separate measurements are scheduled to measure the same sensor at the same time (as they will in the examples above), only one reading of the sensor is made and the result is shared by both measurements.

Measurement Types

The Measurement Type setting will determine what kind of measurement is made.

Each of the different types will unlock other settings. For example, choosing

Analog as the Measurement Type will unlock the Analog Type setting.

Below are listed all the Measurement Types available.

Precip Accumulation Precip Rate

Connection: Tipping bucket type sensor connected to terminals 6-7

MONITOR can be setup with a tipping bucket in order to measure rainfall.

Precipitation accumulation is used to tally the total amount of precipitation since the station has powered up. Count is set to zero whenever the station resets.

Precipitation rate, unlike precipitation accumulation, measures the precipitation that has occurred since the last measurement. So, if the measurement interval is 15 minutes, this measurement will report the rainfall in the last 15 minutes only.

Feel free to setup multiple measurements with the same input. For example, if you wanted to know the daily rainfall and the rainfall during the last hour, setup

two measurements: one a Precip Rate with an interval of one hour, and another as Precip Rate with an interval of one day.

Usually, a slope is applied to convert the counts from the tipping bucket into

inches of rain. For example, setting the Slope to 0.01 means that one hundred

counts from the tipping bucket equal to one inch of rain.

SDI-12

SDI-12 is a standardized three wire digital interface. Many manufacturers provide SDI-12 sensors that measure different environmental effects. SDI-12 sensors provide digital data which improves their reliability and accuracy in terms of logger sensor communications. For more details on SDI-12, please refer to the

More About SDI-12 section and to the wiring section. Also see how to read

multiple parameters from the same sensor

Setting up an SDI-12 sensor requires the use of these unique setup fields:

SDI-12 Address

Multiple sensors can be connected to the same SDI-12 bus. However, each sensor needs a unique address. The address is a single ASCII character. Most sensors default with the address 0. If you are connecting multiple sensors, connect them one at a time. As each sensor is connected, issue the 0Ax! command, changing the sensor’s address from 0 to x, where x is a unique number or letter of your

choice. The front panel Diagnostics->SDI Find

menu can help do this.

SDI-12 Command

When the measurement type is set to “SDI-12”, data is obtained by sending a command to the SDI-12 sensor. The sensor will reply with the measured data. The command is set by the user through the “SDI-12 Address” and “SDI-12 Command” fields. For example, if the address is set to “0” and the command is set to “M!”, “0M!” will be sent to the sensor.

SDI-12 Param

Some sensors will respond with multiple data values. The “SDI-12 Param” designates which of these data values the user is interested in.

The common setup for SDI-12 sensors is to specify the “SDI-12 Address” as “0”, “SDI-12 Command” as “M!” and the “SDI-12 Param” as “1”. This commands SDI-12 device at address 0 to make a measurement and to take the first value returned. Newer SDI-12 devices support the following additional commands:

MC Measure and include CRC in reply C Measure concurrent CC Measure concurrent and include CRC in reply R Read real-time

Some SDI-12 devices can return more than one sensor reading, such as a water quality probe that returns Dissolved Oxygen, Conductivity, Temperature etc. Some of these devices will return more than one reading when issued a single

measurement command and others require that multiple measurement commands be given.

In the case of the devices that return more than one reading to a single measure command, the “SDI-12 Param” specifies which of the sensor readings returned by the SDI-12 device to use. Setting the parameter to 1 tells MONITOR to use the first value returned from the device; setting parameter to 3 tells MONITOR to use the third value returned from the device. If more than one parameter needs to be measured, a different measurement needs to be set up for each parameter. These measurements should have identical setups, except for the “SDI-12 Param”. Be sure to keep the measurement time and interval the same for these measurements. If you vary the time and interval, MONITOR will end up taking multiple sensor measurements even though one would have sufficed (thus slowing down the system and using more power). Also see how to read multiple parameters from

the same sensor.

In the case of devices which require multiple commands to be issued (e.g. 0M1! Retrieves pressure, 0M2! Retrieves temperature) multiple measurements need to be set up. It does not matter if these measurements are scheduled for the same time, as MONITOR will have to issue multiple commands to the sensors.

When multiple measurements of type SDI-12 are scheduled to go at the same time, MONITOR orders the measurement commands so that concurrent measurements are commanded first. Non-concurrent measurements occur while waiting for concurrent results. Also, MONITOR is able to recognize when two different measurement schedules rely on data from a single measurement command (e.g., measurement 1 commands “0M!” and expects parameter 1 while measurement 2 commands the same and expects parameter 2, both scheduled at the same time). In such cases, MONITOR outputs the measurement command only once.

Analog

Analog measurements involve reading a voltage or current provided by a sensor. Analog sensors come with instructions that provide information on how to translate the output voltage into desired units. Translating the analog sensor output into environmental units can be done via slope and offset for simple

sensors, and via equations for non-linear sensors.

Analog Type

This setting directs the input channel to which the sensor should be connected and the type of analog measurement to make. These options are available

• 0-5V A

• 0-5V B

• Diff C

• Diff D

• 4-20 mA

• Diff E

0-5VA and 0-5VB

Connection: A (2), B (3)

May also use AGND (1), GND (13), SW’D battery (14).

Analog Sensor (0-5v)

A 1 2

Gnd

Inputs 0-5V A and 0-5B are designed to be general purpose 0-5 Volt DC input. While sometimes referred to as a single ended input, it is designed to measure voltage with respect to analog ground. These inputs have a high impedance (>2 Meg Ohms) and will not load down or draw significant current. The input range is 0V to 5V.

Diff C, Diff D, Diff E

Connection: Diff C (6-7)

Diff D (8-9) Diff E (18-19)

Optional connection to VREF (5) and AGND (4) as needed

SDR with Analog Input Option.

4 5 6 7

Excitation (VREF)

Measurements Diff C, Diff D and Diff E are designed to operate with a special type of analog output found on many sensors that use a “bridge” configuration or any sensor that outputs a very small voltage. This input type has a “+” and “-“ input that connects to the sensor output.

Typically a bridge sensor will be powered on “VREF” (sometimes referred to as excitation), have a “signal +” and “signal –“, and provide a wire for the analog ground. NOTE: If after wiring the sensor, it displays a negative reading, you may reverse the “+” and “-“ leads coming from the sensor.

NOTE: The common mode voltage for differential sensors is 0.5V to 3.7V. If the sensor is floating, it should be tied to VREF and not to AGND in order to maintain this common mode voltage. Sensors that are not powered by MONITOR are generally floating (such as a pyranometer).

Input Range

This setting is relevant only to analog differential measurements. The following options are available:

• -39 to +39mV

• -312 to +312mV

Analog Gnd

• -2.5 to +2.5V

Choose the option that is close to and greater than the input range of the sensor that is being connected. E.g. if the sensor provides a reading from 0 to 100mV, choose the 312mV option. If you were to choose the 39mV option, whenever the sensor provided a reading greater than 39mV, the unit would indicate a sensor failure.

4-20 mA

Connection:10-11 for loop powered sensors

11, 13 for external powered sensors

4-20 ma Sensor

Example loop powered sensor.

This input is designed to function with sensors that have a 4 to 20ma current loop interface. This type of interface is superior to voltage outputs when the cables to the sensors must travel a long distance or when the equipment is located in electrically noisy environments. MONITOR will measure the current flowing when connected to the ‘4-20ma Input’. Typical 4-20ma sensors will give a 4 to 20ma current for a 0 and 100% FS. Readings that are greater than 21mA will be considered a fault. The current required for the sensor is provided by the 2 wire loop and does not typically require additional connections. MONITOR provides a 24 Volt supply that is designed just for the 2 wire interface 4-20ma loop.

Warmup

Analog sensors are powered by MONITOR via one of several outputs:

• VREF (reference voltage) which provides 2.5V

• Switched Battery which provides whatever voltage is powering

MONITOR, presumably 12V

• 24V which is normally used for 4-20mA sensors

Normally, these outputs are off. Prior to making an analog measurement,

MONITOR will turn on these outputs. After that, MONITOR waits Warmup

amount of time (which is expressed in seconds) before measuring the output of

the sensors. This Warmup time gives the sensors a chance to power up and

prepare their outputs.

If Warmup is set to zero, MONITOR will not wait at all prior to measuring. The value Warmup should be set to depends on the analog sensor being measured.

SDR with Analog Input Option.

10 11 24 v I-In

Battery Voltage

This type measures the voltage of the battery connection to MONITOR. This measurement is a useful diagnostic for tracking the performance of the battery and any solar panel or other charging equipment.

Wind

MONITOR supports a variety of wind sensors, including RM Young and Gill Ultrasonic sensors. Any sensor that provides an analog, frequency, or SDI-12

output can be handled by Monitor. RS-232 sensors are not supported.

Wind sensors, sometimes referred to as anemometers, provide two readings: wind speed and wind direction (sometimes referred to as azimuth). Wind speed is expressed in units of velocity (mph, kph, etc), while wind direction is expressed in degrees (0 to 360).

Wind Type

Each wind measurement can be one of the following

Wind Direction Analog Wind Direction SDI-12 Wind Speed Frequency Wind Speed Analog Wind Speed SDI-12

Wind is unlike all the other measurements in that it is a combination of two measurements: one setup for wind direction and the other setup for wind speed.

In order to correctly setup a wind sensor, two measurements must be set up.

One measurement must be wind speed, and the other wind direction. Setup the measurements in order, for example, make measurement one a wind speed sensor and measurement two a wind direction sensor. MONITOR can handle up to eight different wind sensors.

Both the wind speed and the wind direction measurements must have the following fields setup exactly the same:

Measurement Time Measurement Interval Averaging Time Sampling Interval

If the fields are not setup exactly the same way, MONITOR will show an error ‘Bad Wind Setup’.

Additional settings will appear based on the Wind Type chosen. Analog types will

allow the selection of analog input and warmup time. SDI-12 types will allow SDI-12 command and parameters to be chosen.

Wind Averaging

This setting can be set to Scalar or Vector.

Scalar Speed:

• Mean Speed Scalar – This is the scalar wind speed, not taking direction

into account. The scalar average of 10mph for an hour and 20mph for an hour is 15mph, regardless of changing direction.

Scalar Direction:

• Mean Direction Unit – This is the wind direction (in degrees) not weighted

for wind speed. Here, the average of 10mph at 0° with 20mph at 90° is 45°.

Vector Speed:

• Mean Magnitude Wind – This is the vector average of the wind speed

which takes direction into account. Here, the average of 10mph at 0° for 1 hour and 20mph at 180° for 1 hour is negative 5mph.

Vector Direction:

• Mean Direction Wind – This is the wind direction (in degrees) weighted

for wind speed. Here, the average of 10mph at 0° with 100mph at 90° is 84°.

Please note that the raw reading (the reading before slope, offset, and equation

processing are applied) is not available for wind measurements.

Digital

Use the setting Digital Type to tell MONITOR what kind of sensor is connected.

Digital Type

MONITOR supports the following digital types:

o Input F (terminal 20) o Input G (terminal 21) o Frequency (terminal 12) o Period (terminal 12)

Input F and Input G are discrete inputs. They will read either 0 or 1. Slope and Offset can be applied.

Frequency and Period share the same input

(terminal 12). Additionally, the RM Young sensor type requires the use of this input too. Only one of these should be setup at a time.

Frequency will have MONITOR sample the input for 750ms. It will provide a

result that is the average frequency of the input during that time span. If no signals are noticed on the input during the time, the measurement is considered bad.

When Period is the chosen type, MONITOR will watch the input line for up to 10

seconds. MONITOR stops watching as soon as one wave period is noticed on the input. If the input signal does not transition during this time, the measurement is considered bad.

Meta

Meta measurements use the result of another measurement as their basis. Usually, a Meta measurement is used to average results of another measurement.

Meta Index

This setting tells MONITOR what other measurement this Meta measurement

refers to. Why use meta measurements? If one had setup an hourly averaged temperature

measurement, a Meta measurement could be setup to be the daily average of all

those hourly readings.

Measurement M1 (used for Hourly Temperature) Measurement Type: Analog Analog Type: 0-5VA Measurement Interval: 1 hour Averaging Time: 1 hour Sampling Interval: 1 second

Measurement M2 (used for Daily Temperature) Measurement Type: Meta Meta Index: 1 (meaning it refers to measurement M1) Measurement Interval: 24 hours Averaging Time: 24 hours Sampling Interval: 1 hour

When scheduling meta measurements, take care that they occur at the same time or after the measurement they reference. If the meta and the reference are scheduled for the same time, MONITOR will try to delay the meta measurement until the reference completes.

Soil

Soil measurements are used with specific soil moisture/conductivity sensors

available from Sutron. Two sensors are available: soil moisture and soil conductivity. Both sensors can additionally measure soil temperature.

Soil Type

This setting tells MONITOR what kind of soil sensor is connected and what measurement to make. The choices:

Moisture Conductivity Temperature

A moisture sensor can measure moisture and temperature – it cannot measure conductivity. Likewise, a conductivity sensor cannot measure moisture. Both sensors can measure soil temperature.

Each soil sensor uses one 0-5V analog input. When setting up the sensor, choose

either 0-5V A or 0-5V B as the analog input, depending on what connector the

sensor is wired to. Besides the analog input, be sure to wire up the sensor to the ground and to switched battery.

No other setting needs to be setup. Please be aware that it takes up to 20 seconds to complete a soil measurement.

When measuring soil sensors, MONITOR will first ensure that the sensor has been powered down for at least 10 seconds. It will then power the sensor for one second and collect multiple samples for 300ms. It will average those samples into voltage V1. MONITOR will then wait until 8 seconds have passed since the sensor was powered on. It will then collect samples for about 300ms and average them out into reading V2. MONITOR uses the following equations to compute the results: Soil moisture:

D = 1/(V2-V1) Moisture = -0.076 + 0.135*D - 0.01145*D2 + 0.0003363*D3

Soil conductivity:

X = log(V2-V1) Conductivity = 10^(-.284 – 1.334*X - 0.573*X^2 - 0.136 * X^3)

Soil temperature:

Temperature Fahrenheit = -45.11 + 282.8*V1

Please note that you do not need to enter these equations into monitor. Simply setup the measurement type as Soil and choose the appropriate Soil Type.

MONITOR will do the rest.

Please note that the soil temperature reading will be in Fahrenheit. To convert to Celsius, set the slope to 0.555556 and the offset to -17.77778 or use equation (X-

32.0)*5/9.

If details are turned on for soil sensors, the minimum is not really a minimum but voltage V1 (see above), and the maximum is voltage V2.

The Averaging Time field is not available for soil sensors. In order to get the

average of soil measurements, two measurements will need to be setup: soil and meta. The example below shows how to get the four hour average while measuring the soil sensor every 15 minutes.

Measurement M1 (used for soil) Measurement Type: Soil Measurement Interval: 00:15:00

Measurement M2 (used for averaging soil) Measurement Type: Meta Meta Index: 1 (meaning it refers to measurement M1) Measurement Interval: 04:00:00

Averaging Time: 04:00:00 Sampling Interval: 00:15:00 (needs to be the same as Measurement Interval of M1)

Internal Temperature

Internal Temperature measurements use a temperature sensor installed on the

Monitor board. Every Monitor comes with a built in temperature sensor. The reading provided is in degrees Celsius. To convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit set the slope to 1.8 and the offset to 32.

Sensor Test

Once a measurement is setup, there is an easy way to test it. The front panel

offers the menu Sensor Test in the measurement setup. The menu will show both

the raw reading from the sensor and the final reading. Additionally, the menu will test the warmup (for appropriate sensor types) by first removing power from the sensor. Please note that the menu may not work correctly if recording is on and the measurement schedule such that power cannot be removed from the sensor.

Measurement Setup Defaults

To change the setup a single measurement to its defaults, please use the front

panel menu Measurement Defaults. You may also type “M1 SETUP

DEFAULTS” on the command line to reset measurement one. This will affect

only one measurement.

Measurement Calibration

MONITOR offers an easy way to change the current reading of any measurement. Via the front panel, navigate to the last reading of the measurement (top level of the menu tree). Press SET and enter the desired value. This calibration procedure

has the effect of modifying the measurement’s offset.

Measurement Two Point Calibration

Changing the slope and offset of a measurement can be accomplished by using the automated two point calibration. You will need to be able to affect the sensor so that it can provide two different readings. Via front panel, please use the Two Point Cal menu. On command line, type “M1

CAL”. This procedure requires that the sensor be placed so that it provides one

known value, then placed again to provide a different known value. This

procedure will end up affecting both slope and offset

Other Setup

These setup fields relate to general station setup.

Station name

User set identifier for the station.

Recording

Recording is the act of collecting and logging sensor data. If recording is off, MONITOR is idle and will not make any automatic measurements. If recording is on, MONITOR is active and collecting sensor data according to its setup.

of a measurement.

To turn recording on or off via front panel, first press any key to turn on display. If there are no errors, the recording status will show. If there are errors, press DOWN to reach the recording status menu. Once in the recording status menu, press SET to toggle recording. To change recording via command line, type “RECORDING = ON” or “RECORDING = OFF”.

Garmin GPS

MONITOR may be connected to a Garmin GPS for accurate time keeping. If this setting is enabled, a GPS menu will appear on the top level of the front panel

providing GPS details and showing the setting Local Time Offset which may be

changed to translate GPS time to local time. For more details on GPS, please see the section GPS.

Password

The password is used to prevent unauthorized access. You can enable password protection by configuring a password. If password protection is enabled, the user is allowed view setup and data. However, no changes to setup will be allowed until a password is entered. A password prompt will automatically appear whenever a setup change is attempted.

Via front panel, go to Station Setup->Other Setup->Password. Press set and enter a password. Press set again and the password will be enabled. Using the command line, type "PASSWORD = XXX" to set password to XXX. Type "PASSWORD =" to disable password usage.

To disable the password, enter a blank password.

Logging out is accomplished by turning off the display, by typing EXIT in the command line, or by powering down the unit.

SDI-12 is unaffected by password protection.

If you forget the password and want to clear it, reset the unit and press and hold the DOWN key. You must keep the key pressed until you see the message “Password Cleared” appear on the front panel.

Auto Output

When MONITOR has Auto Output mode enabled (via front panel, Station

Setup>Other Settings>Auto Output, command line AUTO OUTPUT), it will automatically send data out on the RS232 port. The data will come out at

whatever baud rate is setup (via front panel, Station Setup>Other Settings>Baud

Rate, command line BAUD RATE). If connected via HyperTerminal, and if command line mode is active, type EXIT to leave command line mode and to capture the auto output.

MONITOR will output data of every active measurement when it is measured

according to the user set Measurement Interval and Time. For example, if you

setup a battery voltage reading to be made once every minute, auto-output will place fresh battery data on the port once a minute. If multiple measurements are active, they will all be output every time new data is available for any measurement.

The data output is ASCII. This is an example of the output for two measurements:

46.3, 33.2

46.3, 33.0

46.4, 32.1

46.4, 30.0

Baud Rate

This setting configures the baud rate for serial communications. The range is from 9600 to 115200 bps with the data bits fixed at 8, the parity set to N (none) and the stop bits set to 1. Please see the section on Command Line for more details.

Hardware Flow Ctrl

This setting enables hardware flow control (handshaking) for serial communications. If enabled Monitor uses the CTS and RTS lines on the RS232. Please see the section on Command Line for more details.

Whole Setup Defaults

Selecting this option will return the unit to factory defaults. This is a complete erasing of the setup. All measurement and other setup will be lost. This option does not erase the log. You may access this via command line by typing “SETUP

DEFAULTS” or by using the menu Station Setup->Other Setup->Whole Station

Defaults.

Measurement Setup Examples

RM Young Wind Speed and Direction

This section describes how to connect the sensor and how to setup MONITOR in order to measure wind speed and direction. The sensor used is an RM Young 05103-11 which has a four blade propeller for speed and a vane for direction. The sensor provides a square wave signal for wind speed and uses a potentiometer for wind direction.

This device provides wind speed via a frequency output and direction via an analog output. To wire it up, connect like so

RM Young output MONITOR input

AZ SIG ANALOG 0-5V (either A or B) WS SIG CNTR IN REF AGND +V SUPPLY SW’D BATT AX EXC VREF

A 1.0 MOhm resistor needs to be placed from VREF (or AGND) to AZ SIG. This will ensure the value always goes to 355 (or 0 with AGND) when the potentiometer is in the “open” region.

This MONITOR setup will measure wind data from the RM Young:

Wind speed setup Value

M1 Active On Label WNDSPD Meas Type Wind Wind Type Wind Speed Freq Warmup 1 sec Averaging Time 00:00:10 Sampling Interval 1.0 sec Slope Depends on desired units – see below

Wind Speed Units Slope

m/s 0.098 knots 0.1904 mph 0.2194 kph (km/h) 0.3528

Wind direction setup Value

M2 Active On Label WNDDIR

Meas Type Wind Wind Type Wind Dir Analog Analog Type 0-5V A Warmup 0 sec Averaging Time 00:00:10 Sampling Interval 1.0 sec Use Equation On Equation X/VREF*355 {converts to degrees}

Please note how some settings have been excluded from the table above. Settings such as

Measurement Interval and Time are left to the user to decide. Also Wind Averaging can

be set to Vector or Scalar depending on the user’s needs.

Thermistor

This section describes how to physically connect the sensor and how to configure the setup in MONITOR.

The sensor used in this example is a PS103J2 thermistor. This sensor is a 10k ohm type and has two leads, so we need to add our own “completion” resistor (0.1% or better). This completion resistor will help MONITOR to calculate the resistance of the thermistor by measuring the voltage generated by two resistances (a known and unknown).

Since our thermistor is a 10k Ohm type, we will use a 10kohm completion resistor. The equation

10000*X / (VREF-X)

Where the 10000 is our completion resistor in ohms and X is the voltage reading.

will give us the resistance of the thermistor, which can then be placed into the SteinhartHart equation to calculate temperature. Note in MONITOR, the Steinhart equation already converts the retuned value from Kelvin to Celsius.

To wire it up, connect like so (NOTE: The lead numbers are not marked with numbers, this is just a reference.)

Completion Resistor MONITOR Connections

Lead 1 Vref Lead 2 ANALOG 0-5V (A or B, same as thermistor).

Thermistor

Lead 1 ANALOG 0-5V (either A or B) Lead 2 AGND

Thermistor Setup Value

Active On Label TEMP Meas Type Analog Analog Type 0-5V A (or B) Warmup 0 sec Averaging Time 00:00:00 Sampling Interval 0.0 sec Slope 1 for Celsius

1.8 for Fahrenheit

Offset 0 for Celsius

+32 for Fahrenheit Use Equation On Equation (note this is entered all on one line in the setup)

STEINHART(10000*X/(VREF-X)

,0.00146732513897221

,0.00023841146463031

,0.00000010078969927)

Notice measurement interval and averaging are not addressed in this setup, which will depend on the application requirements.

Pressure Transducer (Analog Bridge Sensor)

Pressure transducers using a strain gauge (analog 4 wire bridge) is a common choice for water level applications. These transducers are designed to be driven by an excitation voltage, VREF for this example, and the output of the bridge is a differential reading that will have a full scale output that is a percentage of the excitation voltage, VREF. The sensor will have a rated pressure, and a typical full scale output for a particular excitation voltage. This example will be for a 10 PSI transducer that has an output of 100 mV with an excitation of 10 Volts. Since VREF is 2.5 volts (1/4 of the data sheet excitation of 10V), the Full Scale, or FS output of the sensor will be 25 mV (1/4 of the data sheet output of 100mV). Since the Differential Input Range is 39.0625 mV, then the 25mV FS of the sensor is always within range.

The nature of the bridge sensor will automatically place the differential reading in the allowable common mode range of the Differential input and in this case, in the ballpark of 1.25 volts.

Connect the sensor as follows:

Excitation (VREF)

“DIFF C” input

4 5 6 7

Gnd

Analog

Terminal

Block

Description

4 AGND Negative Supply 5 VREF Positive Supply 6 DIFF ‘C’ (+) Positive Output 7 DIFF ‘C’ (- ) Negative Output

Pressure Transducer Pin Description

COLOR

WHITE RED YELLOW BLUE

NOTE: Connect the shield wire on the pressure transducer to the earth ground on the side of the Monitor. The wire color column refers to a Druck PDCR 1830 series Sensor.

The setup to have the MONITOR measure STAGE from the sensor in units of feet is as follows:

Stage setup Value

Active On Label Stage Meas Type Analog Analog Type Diff C Input Range -39 to +39mV Warmup 1 sec Averaging Time 00:00:00 Slope 922.92

The slope is calculated as follows: (10 PSI / 25 mV) * (1000 mV / 1 V) * (2.3073 feet / PSI) = 922.92 feet / V

Thermocouple Sensor

The Thermocouple sensor is a common sensor for temperature readings. This application note will show operation using the Type K thermocouple.

This sensor outputs a voltage that represents the difference in temperature from the terminal block to the junction of the wires. Since the voltage is small, typically uV per degrees Celsius, we will use the differential input to be able to select a smaller scale on the A/D input, in our example we will select +- 39mV.

Connect the sensor as follows:

“DIFF C” input

4 5 6 7

Junction

Terminal

Block

Monitor Description

AGND, wire to DIFF ‘C’ (-)

Thermocouple Description

5 VREF (not used) 6 DIFF ‘C’ (+) Positive Output 7 DIFF ‘C’ (- ) Negative Output

This MONITOR setup will measure the temperature difference from the sensor in units of Celsius.

Stage setup Value

Active On Label TDIFF Meas Type Analog Analog Type Diff C Input Range -39 to +39mV Warmup 1 sec Averaging Time 00:00:00 Slope 24716

Note: This example uses a linear approximation for the type K thermocouple. Over the delta T range of -8 to +64 degrees C, the error in this approximation is less than 0.3 degrees C. The linear approximation (slope) was calculated from two points. In this case 0 degrees (0 mV) and 50 degrees (2.023 mV).

Slope = (50 degrees / 2.023 mV) * (1000 mV / V) = 24716 degrees per volt

The resultant temperature is relative to the temperature of the terminal strip to which the thermocouple is connected. If the terminal strip is at 20C and the thermocouple is at 30C, Monitor will read the difference (10C) in the thermocouple. In order to have an absolute temperature reading you’ll need to measure the temperature of the terminal strip and then add to it the thermocouple temperature.

Tipping Bucket

This section describes how to physically connect the sensor and how to configure the setup in MONITOR.

The sensor used in this example is a standard switch closure tipping bucket. This sensor closes a switch for each tip of the bucket and has two leads, polarity doesn’t matter.

To wire it up, connect like so (NOTE: The lead numbers are not marked with numbers, this is just a reference.)

Tipping Bucket MONITOR Connections

Lead 1 Terminal block 6 Lead 2 Terminal block 7

Tipping Bucket Setup (Total Rain)

Active On Label RAIN Meas Type Precip Accumulation Meas Interval 00:15:00 Averaging Time 00:00:00 Slope .01 (for tenth inch tipping bucket)

Offset 0 Use Equation Off

This will provide the accumulated rain at this station, with a 15 minute interval. If Daily. Hourly, etc. rain is needed, then the setup would look like this (wiring is the same).

Tipping Bucket Setup (Rain for period of time)

Active On

Value

Label DAYRAIN Meas Type Precip Rate Meas Interval 24:00:00 (will give daily rain) Averaging Time 00:00:00 Slope .01 (for tenth inch tipping bucket)

Offset 0 Use Equation Off

NOTE: It is possible to gather the total rain and a daily, hourly, etc. rain reading, just set up two sensors both reading the Precip Accumulation and Precip Rate.

Solar Radiation Sensor

This section describes how to connect the sensor and how to setup MONITOR in order to measure solar radiation sensors. The sensor used is an SP Lite with an analog output and sensitivity expressed as 79.4uV /Wm².

This device provides radiation via an analog output. To wire it up, connect like so

Solar Radiation output

Wire Vref to Diff C + + SIG Diff C +

- SIG Diff C -

This MONITOR setup will measure solar radiation, in units of Watts per m², from the sensor that has a sensitivity of 79.4uV / Wm² (.0000794 V/ Wm²).

Since the Monitor multiplies the voltage by the scale factor we want to know how many Wm² one volt equals. Also, we have tied the + side to the Vref to keep the input within the range of the analog circuit, so we also need to apply a negative slope (a posivite change from the sensor will look like it is going negative to the Monitor). So: 1 Volt / (0.0000794V / Wm²) * -1= -12594.46 Wm²

Therefore for an instantaneous reading of solar irradiance, not an integrated reading, where you want the reading in Watts per square meter and not kilo-Watts per square meter, then you have a large slope. For kW/m-2 the slope would be 12.59446

MONITOR input

Solar Radiation

Value

setup

Active On Label SOLRAD Meas Type Analog Analog Type Diff C Input Range -312 to +312mV Warmup 3 sec Averaging Time 00:00:00 Slope -12594.46

SDI-12 Multi-Parameter Sensor

This section describes how to connect the sensor and how to setup MONITOR in order to measure multiple parameters from a single SDI-12 sensor

The SDI-12 sensors use three wires for connection, one for data, one for power “+” and one for power “-“. To wire it up, connect as follows:

SDI-12 Sensor MONITOR input

Data Terminal Block 3 Power + Terminal Block 4 Power - Terminal Block 5

This MONITOR setup will measure multiple parameters from a single SDI-12 sensor. Note how the address, command, measurement time and interval are all the same (This is what tells Monitor to only issue the measurement command once, then get the three parameters from the one measurement):

Wind speed setup Value

M1 Active On Label SDI0P1 Meas Type SDI-12 SDI-12 Address 0 SDI-12 Command M! SDI-12 Param 1 Meas Interval 00:15:00 Meas Time 00:00:00 Averaging Time 00:00:00 M2 Active On Label SDI0P2 Meas Type SDI-12 SDI-12 Address 0 SDI-12 Command M! SDI-12 Param 2

Meas Interval 00:15:00 Meas Time 00:00:00 Averaging Time 00:00:00 M3 Active On Label SDI0P3 Meas Type SDI-12 SDI-12 Address 0 SDI-12 Command M! SDI-12 Param 3 Meas Interval 00:15:00 Meas Time 00:00:00 Averaging Time 00:00:00

Logging

MONITOR automatically logs data that it collects according to schedule. Data is logged on a secure flash chip with a capacity of approximately 240,000 entries. An entry looks

like this: WNDDIR,04/14/2008,16:09:00,7.6655, Data will not be lost if power is removed. Once the log is full, the oldest data will be

overwritten.

Logged data can be downloaded using either a SD card or via RS232. The downloaded data is in ASCII CSV format and can be easily displayed using Sutron’s GRAPHER program (downloadable from www.sutron.com) or common spreadsheet/word processing programs.

MONITOR does not log live readings initiated by turning on the front panel. Additionally, MONITOR logs events such as power up, log download, and setup change.

Each log entry consists of

• date and time (with a one second resolution)

• name (e.g. STAGE)

• measurement reading (optional)

• measurement quality (optional)

Here are several examples of log entries:

• STAGE,10/11/2006,10:00:00,3.08,

• Setup Change,10/10/2006,16:22:33,

• Reset Powerup,11/09/2006,15:52:17,1,

To help preserve data integrity and reliability, there is not a means of erasing data from the log.

Occasionally, MONITOR will log events. Events are used to help troubleshoot the data. The following actions will cause the MONITOR to log an event:

• Setup change (whenever any setting is changed)

• Log download (whenever the log is downloaded)

• Display On and Display off (whenever the user wakes the unit up by pressing a

button)

• Command line enter (whenever the user connects via the RS232 port)

• Reset (log contains reset type and count)

• Errors (such as low battery and sensor failure)

• Before cal and after cal (logged whenever the user sets the sensor level to record

the value before and after the calibration)

• Log in events (if password is enabled), including failure to log in.

Downloading the Log

To logged data may be accessed via the front panel, via the RS-232 interface, and via an SD card. SDI-12 does not provide access to the log

The log can be examined via the front panel (the Logged Data menu), downloaded via command line (using the LOG command – see Downloading the Log SD card (see SD Card Log Download

), and downloaded to

When downloading the log, the whole log or only parts of it can be downloaded. You may specify the start date and optionally the end date for the downloaded data. You may also ask for data from the last X days. In addition, MONITOR remembers the last log download and will allow downloads ‘since last download’, which means that the only parts of the log downloaded are those that have not been previously downloaded.

Logged Measurement Time

Measurements are not instant. Once initiated, a MONITOR measurement will take the user defined averaging time plus some overhead to complete. For example, a measurement that starts at 12:00:00, with an averaging time of 10 seconds will complete at about 12:00:11. That measurement will be logged with 12:00:00 as the timestamp.

The timestamp of the logged measurement is the time the measurement was started.

SD Card Interface

MONITOR supports SD card usage for downloading logged data and setup changes. An SD card is a portable media storage that is widely available on the commercial market. MMC cards may also be used with MONITOR.

SD Card Log Download

To download the log using an SD card, simply plug the card in.

• If the front panel is off when the card is plugged in, an automatic log download

will start in 10 seconds. The automatic download will download since last download.

• If the display is on when the card is plugged in, the download log menu will

appear. Navigate the menus and choose the appropriate log download type. There is a red LED that will light up while the SD card is in use. Please do not remove the card when it is in use.

Automatic Log Backup

If an SD card is left plugged in, the unit will perform an automatic backup of the log to the SD card. All the user needs to do is leave the SD card plugged in, and MONITOR will periodically download the log and save it to a file on the SD card.

With an SD card left plugged in, four hours after the user stops using the display, and every four hours afterwards, the unit will download the logged data and append it to a file. Once the file exceeds about 2MB, a new file will be started. The backup will work until the SD card gets full, at which point it stops downloading.

When visiting the station for maintenance to retrieve the log, it is only necessary to remove the card that was left plugged in.

Setup and SD Cards

It is possible to save the current setup to an SD card. SD Card Operations > Write MONITOR Setup to Card.

A setup saved to the SD card can be transferred to a PC using an SD card reader. A setup file can be edited using a text editor on a PC (such as Notepad). Once settings are changed, the file can be saved to the SD card and sent to MONITOR, changing MONITOR’s setup.

Setup files on an SD card can be sent to MONITOR using the SD Card Operations > Read MONITOR Setup From Card menu.

MONITOR Time

MONITOR time can be viewed and set via the front panel top level menu or by using the TIME command line.

MONITOR uses an RTC (real time clock) backed by an internal battery. The RTC will keep ticking even if the main battery to the MONITOR is removed. The RTC will, at worst case, drift ±2 minutes per month (0 to +50C). The lifetime of the RTC battery is about 5 years .

A GPS unit can be attached to the MONITOR via RS232 in order to provide accurate timekeeping. Please see the section on GPS for details.

SDI Clock Synchronization

Certain Sutron SDI-12 sensors (such as the SDR, RLR, and the CF Bubbler) support a command to set the time of the sensor via SDI-12. MONITOR takes advantage of that feature, and periodically sets the clock of the sensors using an SDI-12 command, ensuring that all devices share a common time.

Additionally, if you are using a GPS, a MONITOR, and a Sutron SDI-12 device such as the SDR, RLR, or CF Bubbler, you may connect the GPS to the SDI-12 device rather than to MONITOR. The correct time will then be used by the sensors and by MONITOR. This way you will free up the RS232 port on MONITOR for another device (such as a modem).

When recording is enabled and every 24 hours thereafter, MONITOR will perform a time sync with all the Sutron devices that support the XDT! command. Every time sync will be started by sending an I! command to every SDI-12 device that MONITOR has been setup to measure. If the device replies favorably to the I! command, an XDT! command will be issued to the device. MONITOR will then decide whether or not to sync that device’s clock based up on time validity, the presence of a GPS (either on MONITOR or on one of the attached devices), and the time difference between MONITOR and the device.

The XDT set time command takes the format aXDTYYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS!

a is address

XDT is the command to set the date and time

YYYY is the year

MM is the month (01 to 12)

DD is the day of the month (01 to 31)

HH is the hour (military time 0 to 23)

MM is the minutes

SS is the seconds

Example set date time command: 0XDT2008/06/26 13:15:00!

MONITOR Errors

During the course of operation, Monitor may notice system errors. If it does, it will blink the RED led on the front panel.

To see the error details, turn on the front panel. They will be the first menu displayed. ON the command line, type “STATUS” to see any potential errors.

Clearing errors

Some errors can only be cleared by fix the condition that is causing them. For example ‘Time Not Set’ can only be fixed by setting the time.

Most errors can be cleared via the front panel by pressing SET while viewing the error. On the command line, type “STATUS 0” to clear the errors.

Measurement errors

Measurement errors occur as the system is collecting sensor data. When data from the sensor contains an error, that error will be logged along with the sensor reading. The system will note this error until it is rebooted or until the error is cleared. Even if the error were to occur only once, it will remain in the system until cleared or rebooted.

Sensor failure

This error indicates a problem with a sensor or a setup. This error is recorded for SDI-12 sensors when the SDI-12 sensor does not reply to the measure and to the data commands. It is also recorded for analog measurements when the MONITOR analog to digital converter indicates a problem reading the input which could be to the input voltage being out of range or not being connected (MONITOR will not always be able to tell if an analog sensor is present).

When the sensor failure error occurs, MONITOR will change the sensor reading to match

the user set Log Error Value which defaults to -99999. Such outlandish numbers are

used to attract the user’s attention when viewing the log.

Bad schedule

If this error is present, then the measurement schedule is inappropriate. Please check

settings Meas Interval, Averaging Time, Sampling Interval, and Subsamples. One of the

following likely took place:

• The system missed a scheduled measurement (likely due to measurement taking

longer than Meas Interval to complete – e.g. system was told to measure every 5

seconds even though the sensor takes 10 seconds to finish a reading

• A measurement sample took longer to complete than the user set Sampling

Interval

• Averaging Time is set less than Sampling Interval

• Equations are enabled and the Meas Interval is short (once a second or once every

two seconds). Monitor can take several seconds to compute a lengthy equation

and will not be able to complete a measurement as quickly.

Bad setup

This error is recorded to indicate one of the following:

• The equation processor reported an error (could be a divide by 0 or syntax error)

• A meta measurement referenced an inappropriate measurement

• SDI-12 Command was set to an invalid value

• SDI-12 sensor did not provide enough data values in the result (check SDI-12

Param)

Bad wind setup

MONITOR requires that two measurements be setup for Wind - a speed and a direction and that the two measurements have an identical schedule. See section on wind setup.

System errors

Recording off

MONITOR’s job is to record data. If recording is turned off, MONITOR is not collecting data. That is why this condition is considered an error. This error will persist until recording is turned on.

Time not set

This error is noted when MONITOR does not have valid time. This error can only be fixed by setting the time which can be done via the front panel, via the TIME command, or via the SDI-12 XDT command.

MONITOR sports an RTC (real time clock) backed by an internal battery. The clock is set at the factory. The RTC keep ticking even if the main battery is removed. This means that MONITOR should not forget the correct time when it loses power. If it does, it is time to replace the RTC battery. The battery lifetime is about five years.

Battery Low

If the battery voltage is below 10.5 Volts, MONITOR will consider that an error in an effort to indicate that the battery needs to be changed. The only way to fix this error is to provide a supply of more than 10.5V.

GPS Error

If the Garmin GPS has been enabled, this error will show when MONITOR is unable to

get the correct time from the GPS. For more details on GPS, please see the section GPS

Hardware Failure

This error is noted if any hardware issues were noted since bootup. The errors will also be placed in the log. Every hardware error will have a code logged with it. A hardware error usually indicates a serious problem with the unit. Please contact Sutron customer support at 703 406 2800 for help with hardware errors.

Front Panel Interface

MONITOR features a two line LCD interface, six buttons and two LEDs. The front panel interface can be used to setup the station, examine it’s status, view the current measurements, and view logged data.

Navigating the Menus

The menu has a tree structure, like directories in an operating system.

1. The menu tree can be navigated with the arrow keys. Press ▲ (UP) and ▼ (DOWN)

to browse the menu items that are on the same level. On certain menus, press ► (RIGHT) to enter a sub menu, and ◄ (LEFT) to go up to the parent menu.

2. Some menu items offer a means to change setup. To change a value press SET. The

prompt will change and a flashing cursor will appear. You can then use the arrow keys to select a different value.

3. Once you have the desired value on the display, press SET again to make the change

permanent or to cancel a change, press the OFF/CANCEL button.

4. In the case where there are only two possible values for a setting, pressing SET will

flip-flop between the values and the change is made immediately.

Front panel key functions

a. RIGHT will navigate to a sub-menu (assuming there is one). b. LEFT will go back to the parent menu. c. UP and DOWN will navigate among the menus on the same level. d. SET starts a change or confirms an action. e. CANCEL cancels a change or action. The CANCEL key is also labeled OFF. f. CANCEL also goes back levels. g. Hold CANCEL to go to the top of the menu. h. Hold UP or DOWN to change contrast setting. i. Hold SET turn on backlight

Turning Display On/Off

MONITOR will continue to measure and log data as long as a good battery is connected. The display turns off automatically after 5 minutes of inactivity in order to conserve power. The display can be turned on at any time by pressing any key.

To turn off the display, press the OFF/CANCEL button. You may need to press it several times to exit out of some menus first. Holding the OFF/ CANCEL button in any menu will turn off the display.

Backlight

The display is equipped with a backlight to assist in viewing in many different lighting

conditions. To turn on the backlight, press and hold the SET button until the backlight

turns on. The backlight will turn off automatically when the display is turned off.

Contrast

If it becomes difficult to read the display, you may need to adjust the contrast. To set the contrast, press and hold the UP or DOWN arrow buttons until you see the CONTRAST prompt and keep holding the button until the display is readable. If the display becomes too dark or too light, press the opposite arrow key to reverse the contrast. Once the display is readable, release the arrow, and this setting will be stored for the next time the display is turned on.

Viewing Data

MONITOR will display the last measured values for all the setup sensors. To see those, press DOWN twice after turning on the front panel. You will see the name of the measurement, the last measured value, and the time of the last measurement. To cause a live reading to occur, press SET. MONITOR will indicate that it is making a new reading. Once a new value is available, it will be shown. MONITOR will then proceed to make another live reading. Pressing SET while viewing a live reading will allow the user to change the current reading (MONITOR ends up changing the

Measurement Offset).

To view previously measured data from the log, press RIGHT. You may then press UP or DOWN to scroll through the logged values for that measurement.

Understanding the “?” indicator

If MONITOR displays a “?” after a value if there is a question about the quality of the data. It is normal to see the ? right after power up, while MONITOR is still computing the first readings. However, if it occurs at other times, it is most likely due to failure of the sensor or a bad setup.

If there are errors, the message ‘Hardware Error’ will be displayed when the front panel is turned on. In that case, you may press RIGHT for details. You may then press SET to clear the errors.

Viewing Measurement Details

MONITOR always remembers a few details of the last measurement. Those are minimum, maximum, number of samples collected, and raw reading. For an explanation of what these details represent, please see section titled Details

. To view measurement

details, use the Diagnostic->Last Meas Details Menu

Front Panel Menu Tree

Errors

(only show if errors are present)

Error details (only show if multiple or hardware errors

occur) Status (is recording on, and how many measurements are active) Station Name and Time M1 reading (if M1 is active), press SET

for live readings and calibration

M2 reading (if M2 is active) , press SET

for live readings and calibration Etc till M10 Battery Voltage (Live)

GPS* Logged Data

Logged Measurements

Logged Events

All Logged Data Station Setup

Measurement Setup

M1 Setup

M2 Setup

Etc. till M10

Active Label Meas Type

{SDI-12

{Precip Rate {Precip Accumulation {Internal Temp {Soil Soil Type* {Meta

{Digital Digital Type* {Wind

{Battery {Analog

}

SDI-12 Address* SDI-12 Command* SDI-12 Param*

}

Meta Index*

}

Wind Type* Wind Averaging*

} }

Analog Type*

}

Modbus Settings

Other Settings

SD Card

Diagnostic

* Download log to card Write setup to card Read setup from card Format SD card

Find SDI Devices

Send SDI-12 Command

2 Point Calibration Last Meas Details

Recording since Software version

Input Range*

Warmup* Meas Interval Meas Time Averaging Time

Sampling Interval*

Subsamples*

Slope Offset Use Equation

Equation* Details Log Error Value Right Digits Sensor Test Measurement Defaults

Modbus Enable Modbus Device ID Modbus Protocol Modbus Parity Delay before Tx Delay after Tx Modbus BaudRate

Station Name Garmin GPS Password Auto Output Baud Rate Hardware Flow Ctrl Whole Setup Defaults

Software version

* Menu items marked with a * will only be shown if relevant. For example, the Wind Type menu only appears if the Measurement Type is set to Wind.

RS232 Command Line Interface

The RS232 interface provides a simple way to connect the MONITOR to PCs, modems and other communications devices. Details on the DB9 connector are on page 5.

Microsoft Windows usually comes with a program called HyperTerminal. It can be found by going to the Windows start menu, Programs, Accessories, Communications.

By default the RS232 interface operates at 115200 Baud, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit. Monitor supports hardware handshaking; it’s use is recommended. Please see the setup section for more on Baud Rate and Hardware Flow Ctrl.

The DTR line (pin 7 RS232) must be asserted for communication to work. Asserting DTR wakes up the unit. Please allow at least half a second between asserting DTR and starting communication (automatically done by HyperTerminal).

If connecting to a PC, use a standard DB9 serial cable. If connecting to a modem or a logger, you are likely to need a null modem adapter.

To start command line mode, send carriage return or line feed (or both). If using HyperTerminal or a similar program, simply press ENTER. MONITOR will respond with a prompt >

Once in command line mode, type “HELP” to get a list of supported commands. Also try “HELP SETUP”.

Changing the baud rate can be done via the front panel: Station Setup > Other Settings > Baud Rate, or via the command line by typing “BAUD RATE”. The default baud rate is

115200.

With the terminal program, if the emulation is set for VT100, pressing the up arrow will bring back the last typed command.

Status

To check the status, type “STATUS” (or just “S”).

>STATUS Monitor: Monitor 1.00

Station Name = SUTRON

Recording = On 3 Meas Active

System Time 2008/06/04 09:56:33

Recording since 2008/06/04 09:56:30

Booted at 2008/06/04 09:42:22 Battery 12.6V

Setup

To view the whole measurement setup, type “SETUP”. To view just the setup of measurement one, type “M1”. Likewise, “M2” will show the setup of the second measurement. Note that only pertinent data is shown. If a measurement is not active, it will not show it’s setup fields. If a measurement is of type analog, it will not show it’s SDI-12 setup fields.

An easy way of setting up your station is to type “WIZARD”. A setup wizard will guide you through the most commonly used settings of the station and of each measurement. The setup wizard may be used to configure one specific measurement: typing “M1 WIZARD” will setup measurement one.

Every setup field can be changed by typing setup = value where setup is the name of the

field and value is the new value. By just typing the name of the field, the current value and the range of the field are shown.

For example, typing “STATION NAME” will show the current station name. Typing “STATION NAME = SUTRON” will change the station name.

>STATION NAME Setup NOT changed Station Name = DEMO, max length 23

>STATION NAME = SUTRON Setup changed Station Name = SUTRON, max length 23

Changing measurement setup fields requires that the measurement be named. For

example, to change the Measurement Type it is not enough to type “MEAS TYPE”. You

need to provide the number of the measurement in question: “M1 MEAS TYPE” will

show the Measurement Type of the first measurement. “M2 MEAS TYPE” works for the

second measurement.

>M1 MEAS TYPE Setup NOT changed Meas Type = Internal Temp, Range (0=Precip Accumulation, 1=Precip Rate, 2=SDI-12 , 3=Analog, 4=Battery, 5=Wind, 6=Digital, 7=Meta, 8=Soil, 9=Internal Temp)

In the example above, the user typed “M1 MEAS TYPE”, which will show the measurement type field of the first measurement. The example shows the type as being

Internal Temp. After the current type is shown, the range shows all the options for the

measurement type. To setup the measurement as SDI-12, the user may type either “M1 MEAS TYPE = SDI-12” or “M1 MEAS TYPE = 2”.

Setting the whole setup to defaults can be accomplished by typing “SETUP DEFAULTS”. Setting just measurement one to defaults can be done via “M1 SETUP DEFAULTS”.

Measurements

To view the setup and the last reading made measurement one, type M1. Use M2 for measurement two, etc.

To view all the last measured readings, type “LAST”. It will show a reading for every sensor that is active. Typing “LAST” does not initiate new measurement.

To initiate a new measurements for each active sensor, type “MEAS”. MONITOR will measure each sensor one at a time and display results as it goes along.

Interested in only one specific measurement? Try “M1 LAST” and “M1 MEAS”. Those will show the last measured value and initiate a new measurement, respectively. To get more details on the measurement readings from “LAST” and “MEAS”, type “M1 DETAILS = ON”. See section on details for more information.

Instead of using M1, M2, etc, you may also the measurement’s Label. For example, if

you have named measurement one as “BARO”, typing “BARO” will show the setup of the measurement an typing “BARO MEAS” will make a new measurement and show the results.

To change the current reading of a sensor, type “M1 = 12.5”. This will change the

Measurement Offset such that the said measurement reads the user entered value. For

example, if my water level sensor, once setup, read 3.50, and I knew the water level was at 1.50, I would type “M1 = 1.50”. The next it was measured, M1 would read 1.50

(assuming the level does not change). The Measurement Offset would have changed

from 0 to -2.00.

Recording

By default MONITOR is not running. That means that it is neither making measurements nor recording data.

To start MONITOR, type “RECORDING = ON”.

Downloading the Log

MONITOR will save the measured data in its flash memory each time a measurement is made. This data is then available to download to via the RS232 port. The command “LOG” command will start a Y-Modem transfer of the log to the connected device.

There are optional parameters that alter what data is downloaded:

“LOG” with no parameters will download since last. “LOG ALL” gets whole log. “LOG X” gets X last days ("LOG 3" gets last 3 days worth of data) “LOG timeStart” gets data since provided date “LOG timeStart timeEnd” gets data between provided dates time can be YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS or YYYY/MM/DD or HH:MM:SS

e.g. "LOG 12:00:00 13:00:00" e.g. "LOG 2006/01/20 12:00:00 2006/01/21 12:00:00"

“LOG HELP” Shows details on how to use the download command.

Examples

What follows is the captured communication of a user setting up measurement one for a battery voltage measurement, making a measurement, and turning recording on.

>M1 ACTIVE= 1 Setup changed Active = On, Range (0=Off, 1=On)

>M1 M1 Sense1 SETUP Active = On Label = Sense1 Meas Type = SDI-12 SDI-12 Address = 0 SDI-12 Command = M! SDI-12 Param = 1 Meas Interval = 00:15:00 Meas Time = 00:00:00 Averaging Time = 00:00:00 Slope = 1.0000000 Offset = 0.0000000 Details = Off

Log Error Value = -99999.00 Right Digits = 4 M1 Sense1 No Reading

>M1 MEAS TYPE = BATTERY Setup changed Meas Type = Battery, Range (0=Precip Accumulation, 1=Precip Rate, 2=SDI-12, 3=Analog, 4=Battery, 5=Wind, 6=Digital, 7=Meta, 8=Soil)

>M1 LABEL = BAT Setup changed Label = BAT, max length 7

>M1 MEAS Calculating...

M1 BAT reading

13.1860 2008/04/14 11:38:08

>RECORDING = 1 Setup changed Recording = On, Range (0=Off, 1=On)

>STATUS Monitor: BETA Monitor 0.23

Station Name = SUPA

Recording = On 1 Meas Active

System Time 2008/06/04 09:56:33

Recording since 2008/06/04 09:56:30 Booted at 2008/06/04 09:42:22 Battery 12.6V

Machine to Machine Communication

All commands may be preceded with an “!”. If they are, a concise reply meant for machine to machine interaction is returned. Commands would be preceded by an “!” if they were sent by an Xpert or some such computer. For example, instead of typing “SETUP”, you may type “!SETUP”. When command are preceded with an “!”, no help text is given, no range is shown for measurement, no confirmation of commands is shown, and no key stroke is expected between scrolling pages.

Auto Output

When MONITOR has auto output mode enabled it will automatically send data out on

the RS232 port. For more details, please see section Auto Output

RS232 Command Reference

Documentation Legend:

+ If any command is followed by +, it means that as long as the command starts

with the indicated word, it will be accepted.

E.g. MEAS + means that typing “MEAS”, “MEASURE”, or

“MEASXXX” will all have the same effect.

0 If a 0 follows a listed command, it means that the command can optionally be

followed by the character 0.

E.g. “DIAG” will show the system diagnostic status. “DIAG 0” will first

show current status and then clear the status.

! NOTE:

All commands may be preceded with an !. If they are, a concise reply meant

for machine to machine interaction is returned. Commands would be

preceded by an ! if they were sent by an Xpert or some such computer. E.g. “MEAS” will show

M1 BARO

6.41

2007/12/12 14:55:22

“!MEAS” will show

6.41, 2007/12/12 14:55:22

NOTE:

Every setup variable can be viewed by typing its name.

E.g. “STATION NAME” will show the current name. Every setup variable can be changed by typing its name = new value.

E.g. “STATION NAME = STURON” will set the current name to

SUTRON.

List of commands

BATTERY

Shows the current battery reading.

DIAG + 0

Shows system diagnostics, including system resets. If followed by 0, it will clear system resets.

DOWNLOAD

See LOG

EXIT

Quits command line.

HELP

Brings up the help (lists commands). Also try HELP SETUP and HELP LOG

System replies with “Hello.”

LAST +

Shows the last measured reading of every active measurement. This command does not make a new measurement, only shows the last results of the last measurement. If preceded by the measurement designator (E.g. “M1 LEAS”), it shows only one sensor.

LOG

This command is used to download the log. It can be followed by optional parameters indicating what part of the log to download. LOG with no parameters will download since last. “LOG ALL” gets whole log. “LOG X” gets X last days ("LOG 3" gets last 3 days worth of data) “LOG timeStart” gets data since provided date “LOG timeStart timeEnd” gets data between provided dates time can be YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS or YYYY/MM/DD or HH:MM:SS

e.g. "LOG 12:00:00 13:00:00" e.g. "LOG 2006/01/20 12:00:00 2006/01/21 12:00:00"

M1 M2 .. M10

Type M1 to see the setup of the first measurement. Type M2 to see the setup of the second measurement. Type “M1 SETUP DEFAULTS” to change to defaults only the setup of measurement one. Type “M1 LAST” to see the last measured value, and type “M1 MEAS” to make a new reading. Additionally, you may say “M1 = 15.0” to calibrate the sensor. That ends up changing the offset. There is also a two point calibration that changes the slope and the offset. Two point calibration is started by typing "M1 CAL”

MEAS +

Use this to make a measurement on all or some sensors. After receiving this command, MONITOR will measure every active sensor and display the results. If preceded by the measurement designator (E.g. “M1 MEAS”), it measures only one sensor.

PASSWORD

Used to prevent unauthorized access to station. Type "PASSWORD = XXX" to set password to XXX. Type "PASSWORD =" to disable password usage.

REBOOT

Does a software resets of the system.

RESETS + 0

Shows system diagnostics, including system resets. If followed by 0, it will clear system diagnostic status.

SDI

Use this command to gain access to the SDI-12 bus. You may put any command on the SDI-12 bus and see any reply. “SDI xxx” puts xxx on the SDI-12 bus. E.g. type “SDI 0M!” to send the 0M! command. Additionally, type “SDI FIND” to seek sensors. MONITOR will issue I! commands to all SDI-12 addresses in hopes of locating sensors.

SETUP

If provided without any other parameters, it lists all setup details. That includes each setup variable and its current value. Can be followed by a setup variable name and a new value for that variable. E.g. “STATION NAME = SUTRON” If SETUP DEFAULT is issued, it will reset the entire setup to defaults.

STATUS 0

Shows system status including time, boot time, battery readings, last measurements, current internal sensor readings, and any hardware errors that may exist. If followed by 0, it clears the hardware errors.

TIME

Shows the current system date and time. If followed by a new time, it changes the system time. E.g. TIME = 2008/12/12 changes the date. TIME = 10:15:30 changes the time.

UPG +

Initiates a system software upgrade. It needs to be followed by the YModem transfer of an .upg file specific to the product. Both the main application and the bootloader are upgraded this way (but each needs its own .upg file). Check

www.sutron.com for software upgrades.

VER +

Shows the current software version, including build date and time and the bootloader version.

WIZARD

Guides the user through station set up. Typing M1 WIZARD will do the setup just for measurement one.

List of setup variables

The setup variables are fully detailed in section Other Setup.

STATION NAME RECORDING AUTO OUTPUT GARMIN GPS GPS LOCAL TIME OFFSET

List of measurement setup variables

The listed variables are preceded with M1 indicating they are settings for the first measurement. If they were preceded with M2, they would reference the second measurement. M16 is the last measurement. For full details on what the variables do, please see section Measurement setup.

M1 ACTIVE M1 LABEL M1 MEAS TYPE M1 WIND TYPE M1 WIND AVERAGING M1 SOIL TYPE M1 SDI-12 ADDRESS M1 SDI-12 COMMAND M1 SDI-12 PARAM M1 DIGITAL TYPE M1 ANALOG TYPE M1 INPUT RANGE M1 WARMUP M1 META INDEX M1 MEAS INTERVAL M1 MEAS TIME M1 AVERAGING TIME M1 SAMPLING INTERVA M1 SUBSAMPLES M1 SLOPE M1 OFFSET

M1 USE EQUATION M1 EQUATION M1 DETAILS M1 LOG ERROR VALUE M1 RIGHT DIGITS

Setup Transfer via HyperTerminal

It is possible to save the setup to a file. There are two ways to do this:

1. SD Card: a setup file can be saved to SD card via the front panel. The file will

have the same format as if !SETUP were typed on the command line.

a. Insert SD card. b. Press DOWN arrow to show the Write Setup to Card menu and press SET.

2. Command line

a. Using HyperTerminal, establish RS232 connection first. b. Once you are able to talk to MONITOR, use HyperTerminal’s Transfer

menu and select Capture Text.

c. Then type !SETUP on the command line. d. MONITOR will stream out it’s entire setup and it will be saved in the file

selected.

e. Make sure to tell HyperTerminal to stop text capture after getting the setup

in the file.

Once the setup is saved to file, feel free to edit the file using a text editor, changing any of the settings. To send a setup file to the unit, you may use an SD card or the command line.

With the SD card, save the setup file to the card, preferably to the Monitor/Setup folder.

Try to use a filename that is shorter than 20 letters, which is how wide the display is.

Insert the card into the unit and press the DOWN arrow to show the Read Setup from Card menu. Press SET and then use the UP, DOWN and RIGHT keys to select the

directory and file. Once the desired file is shown, press SET to load the setup.

HyperTerminal will need to be properly configured to delay after sending every line.

To do so, user HyperTerminal’s File, Properties menu. Click on the Settings tab and click the ASCII Setup button. Change the Line delay to 300 milliseconds and change the Character delay to 5 milliseconds. If these changes are not made, HyperTerminal

will send the file too fast for MONITOR to capture any but the first few settings. Once

the changes are made, choose HyperTerminal’s Transfer menu and click Send Text File.

Select the file with the saved setup. You will see the transfer take place on HyperTerminal’s main window. MONITOR will report which settings have been changed.

Upgrading Firmware

The software running in MONITOR can be upgraded. The first step is to download from the Sutron web site the program upgrade file.

Method 1: Using ‘UPGRADE’ command using HyperTerminal:

Open and run HyperTerminal on a PC. Set the properties to: Baud Rate: 115200 Bits: 8 Parity: None Stop Bits: 1

• Start with the Sutron unit powered up and running.

• Connect DB-9 serial cable and establish communications by typing ‘enter’.

(connect port)

• Once the prompt is found, type ‘UPGRADE” or ‘UPG’.

• Now the system is waiting for HyperTerminal to send the file.

• An upper case “C” will repeat every 2 seconds or so over the serial port. Select

‘Send File” and choose ‘Y-Modem’ and then select the upgrade file name previously stored on the computer.

• Once the download is completed, the system will reboot.

• Type the command ‘Ver’ to confirm that the upgrade was successful

Method 2: Using HyperTerminal and ‘Escape’ key:

Open and run HyperTerminal on a PC. Set the properties to: Baud Rate: 115200 Bits: 8 Parity: None Stop Bits: 1

• Start with the Sutron unit powered DOWN.

• Open the serial port with HyperTerminal.

• Power up the Sutron unit simultaneously while holding the ‘Escape’ key on the

keyboard of the computer running HyperTerminal. Release the escape key once the unit has powered up.

• An upper case “C” will repeat every 2 seconds or so over the serial port. At this

time, use ‘Send File’ and choose ‘Y-Modem’ and then select the upgrade file name previously stored on the computer.

• Once the download is completed, the system will reboot.

• Type the command ‘Ver’ to confirm that the upgrade was successful.

Connecting a Modem

It is possible to connect a modem to MONITOR, allowing for remote access to the station. Use the RS232 port to connect the modem. Most modems will need a null modem adapter between the modem and MONITOR.

The modem will need to be configured before it can be used. Please make sure to test out the modem- MONITOR connection before deploying them in the field. The following modem settings must be configured:

• Autoanswer: enable (otherwise a connection will never be established)

• Connect timeout: enable (otherwise the modem will keep MONITOR awake,

increasing power consumption)

• Command echo: disable (otherwise the modem and MONITOR will forever talk

to each other, preventing further connections and increasing power consumption)

• Telnet mode: enable (this is required only if using a modem over TCP/IP – if not

enabled, log downloads may fail, especially if using HyperTerminal)

• Carrier Detect: always on (also know as LSD Action, DCD, and CD)

• Baud rate, parity, etc: set this up to match the settings of MONITOR (defaults

are 115200 Baud, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit)

Xpert-Xlite Modem 8080-0005

Sutron manufactures a modem (Xpert-Xlite Modem part number 8080-0005) that is suitable for use with MONITOR. When connecting this modem, make sure to set the modem's internal jumper for external power AND for either 5V or 12V depending on which you provide. A null modem is needed between MONITOR and the modem. The default settings from Sutron for the modem will work. If the settings have been changed, issue these commands to the modem:

AT&F ATS0=1 ATE0Q1&D0&W

This is what the commands mean:

AT&F set to factory defaults S0=1 answer on first ring E0 don't echo characters Q1 don't send result codes &D0 ignore DTR &W save settings into profile.

Raven Modem

A Raven modem allows you to access the system through the internet. The Raven should be ordered with a fixed IP address. Using that IP address, you will be able to use HyperTerminal or other TCP/IP aware communications programs to use the command line interface. Make sure to place a null modem adapter between the Raven and the station.

The Raven modem must be configured as follows:

Device Port 3001 Configure Serial Port 115200,8N1 Command Echo 0 TCP Auto Answer 2 TCP Connect Timeout 30 TCP Idle Timeout 2 Telnet Echo Mode 0 UDP Auto Answer 2

You can connect the Raven to the same battery powering the station; however, remember that it will increase the power consumption (both when the modem is idle and when it is connected). As a result, you will need to make sure your battery is large enough to provide the power needed by the station.

More about SDI-12

Overview

SDI-12 is a standard for interfacing data recorders with microprocessor based sensors. SDI-12 stands for serial data interface at 1200 baud. SDI-12 is intended for applications with the following requirements:

• Battery powered operation with minimal current drain

• Low system cost

• Use of a single data recorder with multiple sensors on one cable

• Up to 200 feet of cable between the sensor and a data recorder

SDI-12 has the following advantages:

• It defines a standard way for a data recorder and sensor to communicate.

• Unique and complex self-calibration algorithms can be done in the sensor itself.

• Sensors can be interchanged without reprogramming the data recorder with

calibration or other information.

• Power is supplied to sensors through the interface.

• The use of a standard serial interface eliminates significant complexity in the

design of the data recorder.

• Low cost, small sensors can be designed with SDI-12 compatibility.

• SDI-12 data recorders interface with a variety of sensors.

• SDI-12 sensors interface with a variety of data recorders.

• Personnel trained in SDI-12 will have skills to work with a variety of SDI-12 data

recorders and sensors.

SDI-12 is used in water resource research and management, industry, government, and agriculture. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey uses over 4000 SDI-12 sensors in its data collection networks. SDI-12 sensors are available that measure the following:

• bridge scour

• conductivity

• dissolved oxygen

• distance

• groundwater level

• petroleum hydrocarbons in water

• pH

• pressure

• redox (ORP)

• tank level

• temperature

• tide and sea state

• turbidity

• water velocity

• weight of snow and ice on a snow pillow

• wind speed and direction

Sutron also offers general purpose interfaces for making analog and digital measurements via SDI-12.

For more information on SDI-12, go to www.sdi-12.org.

Wiring Guidelines

SDI allows you to connect up to 10 sensors with as many as many as 9 parameters each. The interface is implemented using three wires: data, ground, and +12V. The ground conductor of the SDI interface line should be large enough to keep the voltage drop between the data recorder and the sensor to less than 0.5 volts during the maximum sensor current drain. Failure to observe this specification will cause bad communications and/or bad data. The maximum current used on the +12V line should not exceed 2 amps at any time.

Connector

The connector type is not part of the SDI specification. On MONITOR, the connections are made on the terminal block, labeled: 3 (Data), 4 (+12V) and 5 (Ground). Multiple sensors can be connected to these connections.

SETUP of SDI sensors

Each SDI-12 sensor has an address from 0 to 9. This address differentiates one sensor from another. Most sensors are factory default set to address zero (0). If/when interfacing more than one sensor to MONITOR, each sensor must be assigned a unique address. This is normally done by setting dipswitches on the sensor or by software commands. Failure to set unique addresses for each sensor will result in failure of the communications interface (i.e. no data logged). Consult the sensor manufacturer’s data for information on your particular sensor(s).

When setting up multiple SDI-12 sensors, connect one sensor at a time. Once a new sensor is connected, you will need to give it a unique address. To do so, you may use the

Diagnostics->SDI Find

menu. That front panel menu will search for sensors on the bus,

and offer to change their addresses. You may also use the command line to find and change addresses of sensors. Type “SDI-12 FIND” to detect new sensors. Once a sensor is found, change its address by typing “SDI xAy!”, where x is the old address, A is A, and y the new address. E.g. “SDI 0A1!” will change the address from 0 to 1.

When getting more than one parameter from a single sensor, be sure to set the measurement schedules the same. When MONITOR finds multiple parameters from a single sensor (same address), it will only issue a measurement of the sensor once, then read each of the parameters from the one measurement. This is important to ensure that data from one sensor is gathered at the same time and for sensors that have multiple parameters that take a long time to process.

Useful SDI commands

Resetting the address by software (some sensors) is normally done by sending the aAb! command. (a A b !, where a is the current address of the sensor you want to change and b is the address you want to change to, e.g. 0A5! changes the address of sensor 0 to address

5.)

Another useful SDI-12 command is the aI! (where a is the address of the sensor, e.g. 3I! for sensor at address 3) command. 4I! will return an identification string from the sensor at address 4 which includes the SDI version number, vendor's name, sensor model number, sensor version number, and serial number. This is a quick way to see if the sensor is responding properly.

A way to verify data collection (manual data collection) is to issue the aM! command. For example 7M! would collect data from the sensor at address 7. The sensor will respond with a 5-digit code -- the first digit is the address, the next 3 digits are the required time for measurement in seconds, and the last digit is the number of data values returned. Wait for the number of seconds. Then issue the aD0! (address, D, zero, !) the sensor should respond with one or more data values. You may issue further aD1! … aDn! till you get all of the data.

If the SDI sensor is version 1.3 (which can be found out by sending the ?I! command; the version is returned as the second and third characters of the response), then make sure to use the CRC measurement commands. These commands work just like normal measurement commands, except that they use an error checking mechanism that minimizes errors. So, instead of 0M!, use 0MC!. Instead of 0M1!, use 0MC1!. This will ensure reliable SDI communication.

GPS

It is possible to use a GPS to provide the MONITOR with an accurate, self setting clock. MONITOR can be connected to a Garmin GPS 16HVS.

Timekeeping

When equipped with a GPS, the MONITOR will keep UTC time. UTC (Universal Coordinated Time) is an internationally accept time standard. UTC will differ from the

local time by a number of hours. The user can setup the MONITOR so that it keeps local

time by changing the variable Local Time Offset. To get EST, set the local time offset to

-5 hours.

A MONITOR equipped with a GPS will provide a timing accuracy of ± 1 second.

If you are using a GPS, a MONITOR, and a Sutron SDI-12 device such as the SDR, RLR, or CF Bubbler, you may connect the GPS to the SDI-12 device rather than to MONITOR. The correct time will then be used by the sensors and by MONITOR. This way you will free up the RS232 port on MONITOR for another device (such as a modem). For details on SDI-12 time sync, please see the section SDI Clock

Synchronization.

GPS Installation and Setup

When first installing the GPS, make sure the GPS is positioned so that it has a clear view of the sky. Make sure to connect the GPS to the MONITOR via RS232. Sutron provides a custom RJ45 to RS232 connector for this purpose (the diagram for the connector is on page 66).

After connecting the two devices, go the Station Setup menu on the front panel of the MONITOR. Find the entry called Garmin GPS and press set to enable the GPS. Then go back to the top of the menu, and hit the down button until the GPS status menu is

shown. If the MONITOR is communicating with the GPS, the menu will say

GPS initializing. If the GPS has acquired a time fix, the MONITOR will show GPS functioning.

Pressing right in the GPS status menu will provide more details. If the GPS has locked on satellites and is providing accurate time, the menu will show a message such as

GPS has valid time 5 satellites used in time fix

Pressing down from the detailed status menu will show the last GPS time sync. The

time show is the time when the GPS last had a time fix. If it has been more than 12 hours since the last valid time fix, the GPS is not working properly and may need to be repositioned (please see page 65).

The next entry in the menu is local time offset. The user can setup the MONITOR so

that it keeps local time by changing the variable Local Time Offset. To get EST, set the local time offset to -5 hours.

When installing, it is recommended that the user wait until the GPS has valid time before leaving the station. If the GPS does not acquire the time in ten minutes, the GPS should be repositioned so that it has a better view of the sky.

Keep in mind that whenever the display is turned on, MONITOR will power up the GPS. This helps with GPS positioning. As long as the display is on, the MONITOR will provide power the GPS, allowing it to track satellites. When the display is off, the MONITOR will power the GPS once an hour for up to 15 minutes.

GPS Positioning

If the MONITOR is reporting that the GPS cannot get a time fix, it means that the GPS

is unable to get a clear view of the sky. It could also be the case that the GPS is picking up interference. The best solution is to reposition the GPS. The GPS needs to have a

clear view of the sky in order to properly function.

Place the GPS antenna in the most open space possible. Do not place it directly under anything nor directly beside something. Always attempt to achieve a "full sky" view with the antenna.

Place the GPS antenna high up on a pedestal or in a protected location. Flat surfaces may tend to cover with ice and snow more so than elevated locations. Keep away from areas where birds may nest. Placement is very important and great care should be taken in selecting the location.

GPS Operation

Once every hour, the MONITOR will wake up the GPS. Once the GPS has acquired a time fix (should not take more than 40 seconds), the MONITOR will set its clock and put the GPS in low power mode. Powering the GPS once an hour provides the optimal power consumption.

In addition, whenever the display is turned on, MONITOR will power up the GPS. This allows the user to see whether the GPS can acquire a time fix and helps in positioning the antenna.

GPS Errors

If the GPS is either not communicating with the MONITOR or if the GPS cannot acquire a time fix, the MONITOR will blink the red LED to indicate that there is a problem. In addition, the MONITOR will show a message describing the problem on the front panel.

Once a day, the MONITOR will write an event to the log indicating that it has GPS problems.

The MONITOR reporting “No GPS Detected” can indicate that the connector between

the GPS and MONITOR is bad (please refer to the section on the connector on page 66) or that the MONITOR does not have its jumpers set properly (please see the section on page 66 about Jumpers)

If the GPS cannot get a time fix, please see the section on GPS Positioning on page 65.

If the MONITOR reports “GPS Comm Failure”, it means the MONITOR is detecting

data on the RS232 line, but that the data is incomprehensible. It could indicate that the GPS has been improperly configured. If possible, try using a different GPS module.

If a faulty GPS is connect to the MONITOR, of it the GSP is not connected to the MONITOR, the MONITOR will take a full minute before deciding it cannot talk to the GPS. Ensure that the MONITOR is given enough time to talk to the GPS before leaving the station.

Jumpers

There is a jumper inside the MONITOR that ensures that the MONITOR provides 12

Volts on RS232 which the Garmin GPS requires in order to function. If the MONITOR is reporting “No GPS Detected”, it may be the case that the jumper is not properly

setup.

To setup the jumper, the case must be opened. Once the case is open, the jumper is easily accessible. The Jumper in question is J19, and is located next to the RS232 connector. Place a connector on jumper J19 so that it connects 12v to the middle pin (pins 1 and 2)

In addition to J19, there is another jumper needs to be properly configured in order for the unit to provide power to the GPS. However, this jumper is properly setup at the factory and it is unlikely to be the cause of the problem. The jumper in question is J16 (located next to J19). It should have a connector across pins 2 and 3 or have no connector at all.

RJ45 to RS232 Connector

A custom connector is required to get the Sutron and the Garmin GPS together. The connector bridges the RJ45 on the Garmin GPS to the RS232 on the Sutron unit. The table below provides the wiring diagram for the connector.

Note: The colors on the Garmin GPS RJ45 do not match the colors of the RJ45 to

RS232 converter.

Rj45 pin RJ45 to Rs232 RS232 on Function comments

Garmin

converter Sutron unit

plug color

1 Red Blue 9 Power 8 to 40V for 16HVS

2 Black Orange 5 Ground

3 Yellow Black 8 CTS Remote

power

On if <0.3V, Off if open circuit

on/off

4 Blue Red 2 Port 1 Data

NMEA input to GPS

5 White Green 3 Port 1 Data

out

NMEA output from GPS

6 Gray Yellow no connect PPS 1Hz

7 Green Brown no connect Port 2 Data

RTCM output

8 Violet White no connect Port 2 Data

reserved

out

Modbus

MONITOR can be configured as a Modbus slave device. In this mode, the unit will respond to properly formed Modbus messages in either RTU (default) or ASCII format. Keep in mind that when Modbus has been enabled, the unit will not be capable of connecting to a PC/PDA to download a log or make setup changes, but AutoPoll can be used to access log data. For more information on AutoPoll, please visit www.sutron.com

To enable Modbus, go to the Station Setup menu on the front panel and press right when the Modbus Setup option is shown. The first option shown is the current status of

Modbus, enabled or disabled. Pressing Set will switch between the two options. If Modbus is disabled and it is turned on, a warning message will display showing that GPS and PC communications will cease to work. Hitting Set will enable Modbus.

Modbus Menu Tree

Modbus Setup

Modbus Enable

Modbus Device ID

Modbus Protocol

Modbus Parity

Delay before Tx (ms)

Delay after Tx (ms)

Modbus Baud Rate

Modbus Menu Options

After enabling Modbus, other setup options become available allowing more customization of the unit. Initially, each of these settings is defaulted to those expected by the Modbus protocol.

Modbus Enabled

Default is DISABLED. Enabling will cause the unit to not communicate properly with any other type of device on the DB9 connector for example a PC/PDA or Garmin GPS unit.

Note: If GPS is enabled and Modbus is turned on, the user will be prompted with ‘WARNING! GPS/PC comm. Will no longer work!’ Pressing Set will enable Modbus

and disable GPS.

Modbus Device ID

Default is 1. The device ID is the address that is used by the Modbus master to select which device to communicate with. Each slave on the bus must have a unique device ID ranging from 1 – 247. Address ‘0’ is reserved as the broadcast address.

Modbus Protocol

Default is RTU. There are two protocols available to the user, RTU and ASCII.

In RTU mode a compatible Modbus master device must generate messages, as strict timing is required for a successful communication. This mode allows for better data throughput than ASCII mode for the same baud rate.

In ASCII mode, the user may connect to the device using a serial communication program (i.e. HyperTerminal or ProComm) set to 7 data bits and 1 stop bit. Messages can then be sent to the unit by typing the proper command. Each command is prefixed with a ‘:’ and ended with a carriage-return / line-feed (<CR><LF> usually just the ‘Enter’ key). This mode offers much less throughput than RTU since 2 ASCII characters are required to describe a single binary byte (e.g., the value 0xB5 would be communicated by sending the ASCII characters ‘B’ and ‘5’). Since a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) is required on each message, the ability to send the message via HyperTerminal is almost of no use unless the CRC can be generated by the user.

Note: Care must be taken to make sure the selected protocol matches that of the master or

there will be communication problems.

Modbus Parity

Default is Even. Available choices include Even, Odd and None.

Note: Care must be taken to make sure the selected parity matches that of the master or

there will be communication problems.

Modbus Delay before Tx

Default is 10ms. This identifies the number of milliseconds to wait after asserting CTS before starting data transmission. This is useful if the device is connected to a radio requires keying initialization before data transmission. The possible delay ranges are 10ms – 2000ms.

Modbus Delay after Tx

Default is 10ms. This identifies the number of milliseconds to wait after data transmission is complete before de-asserting CTS. This is useful if the device is connected to a radio that requires a hold-off time after data transmission has completed. The possible delay ranges are 10ms – 2000ms.

Modbus Baud Rate

Default is 19.2 Kbps. Available communication speeds range from 1200bps – 115 Kbps.

Note: Care must be taken to make sure the selected speed matches that of the master or

there will be communication problems.

Modbus Function Codes

The following table identifies the functions that are supported. Each diagnostic counter is cleared when the device is powered up or reset.

Code Hex Subcode Hex

Read Holding Registers 0x03 Read Input Register 0x04 Write Single Register 0x06 Diagnostic 0x08 Return Query Data 0x00 Diagnostic 0x08 Clear Counters 0x0A Diagnostic 0x08 Return Bus Message Count 0x0B Diagnostic 0x08 Return Bus Comm Error 0x0C Diagnostic 0x08 Return Bus Exception Count 0x0D Diagnostic 0x08 Return Slave Message Count 0x0E Diagnostic 0x08 Return Slave Broadcast Count 0x0F Diagnostic 0x08 Return Bus Char Overrun Count 0x12 Write Multiple Registers 0x10 User Defined Code 0x41 GetLog GL

Identifying Registers

There are two types of data that can be accessed using the Modbus protocol. These

include Holding and Input registers.

Holding Registers

Holding registers are reserved for the purpose of setting and getting data such as the date

and time and diagnostic counts if the ability to send the above Diagnostic (0x08)

command is not available. The following table identifies the holding registers and their locations. Each of these registers is an unsigned 16-bit value (if readings registers using

an Xpert, set the data type to ushort).

Data Register Valid Data

Values

Hour of current time 1001 0 – 23

Minute of current time 1002 0 – 59

Second of current

1003 0 – 59

time

Year of current time 1004 > 2000

Month of current date 1005 1 – 12

Day of current month 1006 1 – 31

Recording status

1007 1 means running

0 means stopped

Reset Unit 1008 Write 1 to reset

Modbus Protocol 1009

0 – RTU

1 – ASCII

Force Measurement * 1010 0 – force all active

measurements

1-16 force that

measurement only

Bus Message Count 1011 Read Only

Bus Comm Error 1012 Read Only

Slave Exception

1013 Read Only

Count

Slave Message Count 1014 Read Only

Broadcast Message

1015 Read Only

Count

Char Overrun Count 1016 Read Only

*Note: When forcing a measurement, be sure to wait the proper amount of time for a measurement to finish before requesting data.

Input Registers

Input registers return the last measured data from the device. Ideally these values should be requested on a schedule slightly lagging the measurement schedule on the MONITOR. This will ensure data will follow that found in the MONITOR log. If the last measured

data is not acceptable, a live reading can be forced by writing to the Force Measurement (1010) holding register. Care must be taken to allow enough time to pass for taking a

measurement before requesting the data.

Since the system works with floating point numbers and Modbus only allows for 16-bit registers, a multiple register read can be used to access the entire reading. The Modbus master device should be configured to treat these reads as a single floating point number.

For example, if accessing Last measured via an Xpert, read 1 value of type float starting

at register 1. If the quality is also desired, change the number of values to 2 and choose

ushort for the second reading type. The complete list of registers and their locations are

below.

Modbus registers

measurement

M1 1 2 101 102 201 202 301 302 401 402 M2 3 4 103 104 203 204 303 304 403 404 M3 5 6 105 106 205 206 305 306 405 406 M4 7 8 107 108 207 208 307 308 407 408 M5 9 10 109 110 209 210 309 310 409 410 M6 11 12 111 112 211 212 311 312 411 412 M7 13 14 113 114 213 214 313 314 413 414 M8 15 16 115 116 215 216 315 316 415 416 M9 17 18 117 118 217 218 317 318 417 418 M10 19 20 119 120 219 220 319 320 419 420 M11 21 22 121 122 221 222 321 322 421 422 M12 23 24 123 124 223 224 323 324 423 424 M13 25 26 125 126 225 226 325 326 425 426 M14 27 28 127 128 227 228 327 328 427 428 M15 29 30 129 130 229 230 329 330 429 430 M16 31 32 131 132 231 232 331 332 431 432 Battery

Voltage 61 61

Last Measured min max

msw lsw msw lsw msw lsw msw lsw msw lsw

number of samples raw

M1, M2, .. M16 refer to MONITOR measurements. E.g. to read the last measured sensor value for measurement M10, read registers 19 and 20 and combine the result into a single 32 bit IEEE floating point value. E.g. to read the number of samples used in the last measurement of M5, read registers 309 and 310 and combine the result into a single 32 bit IEEE floating point value.

Get Log Command

The Get Log subcode is used to retrieve log data from the unit. The format of the command is as follows:

GL,logfilename,datetime,recordID,numbytes

• The logfilename can be used to return log entries of specific types. The available

types are data, events, and all.

• The datetime value must be in the following format: MM/DD/YYYY

HH:MM:SS.

• The numbytes value refers to the number of data bytes from the log entry to

include in the response, not the number of bytes to store in the return packet. Since the master station or transport medium may be limited in the number of bytes that can be handled in a single packet, the numbytes value should be sized small enough to allow for header and CRC information, as well as translation to ASCII if that is the selected protocol (the ASCII protocol uses two bytes to represent every data byte). If numbytes is *, the all log records found will be returned. Regardless of the requested numbytes, only complete log records are returned.

The format of the reply is as follows:

GLR,status,recordID,numbytes,data[numbytes,data]

The value of status can be any of the following values:

Value Description

0 Ok.

1 File not found.

6 Record not found.

7 Command format

error

The datetime value in the response message is the datetime of the returned record and, therefore, may be different from the datetime in the GetLog command statement.

The data to the end of the file can be read by leaving datetime at the desired starting point and incrementing recordID until the status indicates record not found. The [numbytes,data] represents an additional record of data if there is room in the message.

Example:

command: GL,data,02/07/2007 15:50:00,80,0 reply: GLR,0,0,38,02/07/2007,15:51:00,VBAT,13.16,Volts,G 37,10/07/2003,15:51:10,A,10.89,5.2,-25.4 command: GL,data,02/07/2007 15:50:00,80,2

Wrapped for illustration purposes only.

reply: GLR,0,2,37,02/07/2007,15:54:00,C,10.89,5.2,-25.4,0

The GLR response will contain as many log records as can fit into the response.

The numbytes value in the GLR response does not include the comma preceding the data, and refers to the number of data bytes from the log that are being returned, not the number of packet bytes used to store the response (which would be twice the data bytes when ASCII protocol is selected).

Appendix A – Monitor Specifications

Electrical

Power Required 8-16VDC Power Consumption <1mA standby

<20mA active

Mechanical

Enclosure NEMA-4 Fiberglass Dimensions Monitor-1 5”x5”x4”,

Display 2x20 character backlit LCD Keypad 6 buttons SD card slot with activity LED For download data and re ad/write setups Red Warning LED Indicates setup or operational error Green Heartbeat LED Indicates unit is operating properly

Environmental

Temperature Humidity 0-95% Non-condensing

Clock Internal real-time clock w/battery backup.

Log capacity >250,000 readings, flash memory Data Communications RS232 DB9 (female) connects to PC/PDA/modem/radio

Key Features

Clock Internal real-time clock w/battery backup.

Log capacity >250,000 readings, flash memory Data Communications RS232 DB9 (female) connects to PC/PDA/modem/radio

Advanced Features

Equation processing Multiple level averaging Autodump data when SD card is inserted SD card can also read/write setups Command-line interface for operation without custom

Separate schedules for each measurement Upgrade firmware via RS232.

SDI-12 Interface

Supports up to 16 SDI-12 sensors SDI V1.3 compliant logger Automatically combines requests to the same device +12V @ 500 mA

Monitor-4 12” x 14” x 8”

-40°C to +60°C (LCD operates to -10°C)

Standard accuracy: + Optional high accuracy: + Optional GPS clock

+5 or +12V on pin 9 (71 mA at +5V)

Standard accuracy: + Optional high accuracy: +

+5 or +12V on pin 9 (71 mA at +5V)

programs

2 minutes/month

20 seconds/month

2 minutes/month

seconds/month

Single ended Analog Inputs

Number Available 2 Range 0 to 5V Resolution 0.298 uV Noise (p/p) @25C 6.5uV (p/p) Noise (rms) @25C 3.4uV RMS Accuracy @25C 0.02% Input Impedance >2M Ohm

Differential Analog Inputs

Number Available 3 Range +39mV, +312mV or +2.5V Resolution 4.657 nV Noise (p/p) @25C 1.6uV (p/p) Noise (rms) @25C 0.38uV RMS Accuracy @25C 0.01% Input Impedance >3M Ohm

4-20mA Analog Input

Range 0-22mA Resolution <1nA Accuracy @25C 0.02% Loop Power 24V +5%, short protected Loop resistance 100 Ohm built-in load

Digital Input 1 – tipping bucket type

100KOhm resistor to +5V Switch contact type

Digital Input 2 – frequency type

Maximum frequency Input range 0-5V

Ordering Information

Part Number Description

Monitor-1 Monitor, 5x5x4 NEMA enclosure Monitor-4 Monitor, 12x14x8 NEMA with 7amp-hr battery and

regulator

Appendix B – Sutron Customer Service Policy

CUSTOMER SERVICE POLICY

Dear Customer:

Thank you for making the important decision to purchase Sutron equipment. All Sutron equipment is manufactured and tested to the highest quality standards as set by Sutron’s Quality Assurance Department. Our Customer Service Representatives have years of experience with equipment, systems, and services. They are electronic technicians with field and applications experience, not just with a technical background.

Customer Phone Support

Customer Service Representatives routinely handle a wide variety of questions every day. If questions arise, please feel free to contact me or one of the Customer Service Representatives. We are available from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday and will be happy to take your call.

We can answer most sensor and interface questions on the first call. If we cannot quickly answer a question on an interface, we will work with you until we find a solution.

Sometimes a problem is application related. Although we pride ourselves on handling 95% of application related questions over the phone, we maintain constant contact with our Integrated Systems Division and Engineering Division for additional assistance.

Introductory Training

Training is an important part of the Sutron Customer Service philosophy. The Sutron training policy is simple---If you buy Sutron equipment, you get Sutron training! Without the proper training, you cannot take advantage of the benefits and advantages that Sutron equipment provides. We often supply on-site introductory training at your facility for no charge. You provide the classroom, students, equipment, and coffee---we'll provide the instructor.

On-Site Visits

Of course not all problems can be fixed over the phone. Sometimes a customer needs an on-site technician to identify site related problems or troubleshoot a network. Sutron can provide these services at a reasonable cost. Call for details. If you would like to learn more about Sutron products email sales@sutron.com

Thanks again for your order,

Paul Delisi Customer Service Manager Sutron Corporation

Appendix C – Commercial Warranty

Sutron Manufactured Equipment

THE SUTRON CORPORATION WARRANTS that the equipment manufactured by its manufacturing division shall conform to applicable specifications and shall remain free from defects in workmanship and material for a period ending two years from the date of shipment from Sutron’s plant.

Sutron’s obligation under this Warranty shall be limited to repair at the factory (21300 Ridgetop Circle, Sterling, VA 20166), or at its option, replacement of defective product. In no event shall Sutron be responsible for incidental or consequential damages, whether or not foreseeable or whether or not Sutron has knowledge of the possibility of such damages. This warranty shall not apply to products that have been damaged through negligence, accident, misuse, or acts of nature such as floods, fires, earthquakes, lightning strikes, etc. Sutron’s liability, whether in contract or in tort, arising out of warranties or representations, instructions or defects from any cause, shall be limited exclusively to repair or replacement parts under the aforesaid conditions. Sutron requires the return of the defective electronic products or parts to the factory to establish claim under this warranty. The customer shall prepay transportation charges to the factory. Sutron shall pay transportation for the return of the repaired equipment to the customer when the validity of the damage claim has been established. Otherwise, Sutron will prepay shipment and bill the customer. All shipments shall be accomplished by best-way surface freight. Sutron shall in no event assume any responsibility for repairs or alterations made other than by Sutron. Any products repaired or replaced under this warranty will be warranted for the balance of the warranty period or for a period of 90 days from the repair shipment date, whichever is greater. Products repaired at cost will be warranted for 90 days from the date of shipment.

Non-Sutron Manufactured Equipment

The above Warranty applies only to products manufactured by Sutron. Equipment provided, but not manufactured by Sutron, is warranted and will be repaired to the extent of and according to the current terms and conditions of the respective equipment manufacturers.

Repair and Return Policy

Sutron maintains a repair department at the factory, 21300 Ridgetop Circle, Sterling, VA 20166. Turn

around time normally ranges from 10-30 days after Sutron receives equipment for repair. Call Customer Service at (703) 406-2800 for a Return Material Authorization (RMA) number. Return the defective

equipment to the factory, transportation charges paid.

Extended Warranty and On-Site Maintenance

Extended warranty and on-site maintenance contracts are available. Price quotations may be obtained from Sutron customer service representatives.

INDEX

? Indicator ........................................... 47

Auto Output .................................. 28, 53

Battery

Battery Low .................................... 45

Connections....................................... 5

Measurement................................... 23

Baud Rate............................................ 29

Calibration

Measurement................................... 27

Two Point........................................ 27

Command Line.................................... 49

Baud Rate........................................ 49

Commands ...................................... 54

Connections

DB9 ................................................... 6

Power ................................................ 5

RS232................................................ 6

SDI-12............................................... 5

Sensor................................................ 7

Tipping Bucket.................................. 5

Contrast............................................... 47

DB9 Connector ..................................... 6

Display ........................... See Front Panel

Errors................................................... 44

Bad Schedule .................................. 44

Bad Setup........................................ 45

Bad Wind Setup .............................. 45

Battery Low .................................... 45

Clearing........................................... 44

GPS ................................................. 45

Hardware Failure ............................ 45

LED................................................. 44

Recording Off ................................. 45

Sensor Failure ................................. 44

Time Not Set................................... 45

Events.................................................. 39

Front Panel.......................................... 46

Backlight......................................... 46

Contrast........................................... 47

Key Functions ................................. 46

Navigating the Menus..................... 46

Turning On/Off ............................... 46

View Measurment Details............... 47

GPS ..................................................... 64

Installation and Setup...................... 64

Local Time Offset..................... 64, 65

Positioning the Antenna.................. 65

Hardware Error ................................... 47

Hardware Flow Ctrl ............................ 29

Installation........................................... 57

Jumper Power Options........................ 66

Local Time Offset......................... 64, 65

Log ...................................................... 39

Download.................................. 40, 51

Events.............................................. 39

Format............................................. 39

SD Card........................................... 41

Timestamp....................................... 40

Measurement

0-5V ................................................ 19

4-20mA ........................................... 22

Active.............................................. 10

Analog............................................. 18

Anemometer.................................... 23

Averaging........................................ 11

Battery Voltage ............................... 23

Bridge.............................................. 20

Details ............................................. 15

Differential...................................... 20

Digital ............................................. 24

Equations......................................... 13

Frquency ......................................... 24

Input Range..................................... 20

Inputs F and G................................. 24

Internal Temp.................................. 27

Interval and Time............................ 11

Label ............................................... 11

Log Error Value .............................. 15

Meta ................................................ 25

Period .............................................. 24

Precip .............................................. 16

Recording........................................ 27

Right Digits..................................... 16

Sampling Interval............................ 11

SDI-12............................................. 17

Setup ............................................... 10

Setup Examples............................... 30

Slope and Offset.............................. 13

Soil .................................................. 25

Subsamples ..................................... 11

Temperature .................................... 27

Tipping Bucket................................ 16

Type ................................................ 11

Type ................................................ 16

Warmup........................................... 22

Wind................................................ 23

Menu Tree........................................... 48

Modbus ............................................... 68

Modem

Data................................................. 58

Raven .............................................. 59

Xpert ............................................... 59

Password ............................................. 28

Power Connections ............................... 5

Raw Reading....................................... 13

Recording............................................ 27

Right Digits......................................... 16

RS232 Connector.................................. 6

SD Card............................................... 41

Automatic Log Backup................... 41

Log Download ................................ 41

Setup ............................................... 41

SDI-12

Address ........................................... 62

Commands ...................................... 63

Connector.......................................... 5

Minimizing Errors........................... 63

Overview......................................... 61

Sensor Setup.................................... 62

Wiring Guidelines........................... 62

www.sdi-12.org............................... 62

Sensor Example

Bridge.............................................. 32

Pressure Transducer........................ 32

RM Young ...................................... 30

Solar Radiation................................ 36

Thermistor....................................... 31

Thermocouple ................................. 34

Tipping Bucket................................ 35

Setup

Capturing......................................... 57

Saving ............................................. 57

SD Card........................................... 41

Wizard............................................. 50

Setup ................................................... 50

Software Upgrade ............................... 56

Station Name....................................... 27

SW’D Batt............................................. 7

Switched battery.................................... 7

Tipping Bucket

connector........................................... 5

VREF .................................................... 7

Sutron MONITOR Operation & Maintenance Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual