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Flowmeters

eshimabAbout 3 min

Sensor Viewer Screenshots

asset "I have most of the Sensor Viewer screenshots"

The screenshots are located in docs/influx-flight/flight-begin/img/img-flowmeter/ but the pictures need to be:

  • Cropped
  • Annotated
  • Implemented in this page's Markdown file
  • Ideally, image sized reduced with tinypng

Sensor Viewer Software

  1. Start Sensor Viewer by clicking the icon on the menu bar at the top of the screen
    • Once the program is runnning, additional instances of Sensor View can be opened by right clicking on the menu bar item to opening a new window.
  2. Using the dropdown menus, set the Sensor Product to Liquid Flow Sensor (SF04 Chip) and the COM Hardware to RS485/USB Sensor Cable.
  3. After the Sensor Product and COM Hardware are set, a side menu will open up asking for the COM port to connect to.
  4. There are two flow meters, referred to herein by the last 4 digits of their serial numbers.
    • Flowmeter 1503 is on COM5 and is the outboard of the two meters. 1503 is closer to the sample cradle.
    • Flowmeter 1411 is on COM6 and is closer to the nozzle assembly.
  5. For each flowmeter, select the COM port from the dropdown and click Ok at the bottom of the window. Leave the other options on the default values.

    `Sensor Viewer` COM Ports

    • The COM port numbers are assigned to the USB ports on HP PC. The software will work regardless of which USB 3.0 (colored blue inside) port you use, but the COM number may change.
    • You cannot change the Type Of Measurement or the Data Logging filename while Sensor View is running (ie gathering data from flowmeter). Set those options first.
  6. Choose the Type of Measurement from the dropdown menu in the upper left corner. We use two types of measurements:
    • Flow [Linearized] for sample flow rate and volume measurements
    • Temperature [Linearized C] for instrument monitoring, curiosity, and posterity.
  7. Unless you have a specific need to measure the sample water temperature, set both flowmeters to Flow [Linearized].
  8. Optional Create a logfile to record the flowmeter data. This is not as good as it sounds (see section below).

    The logfile will not record the totalizer volume.

    Sensor View records momentary flow rate (or Temperature) at each time point in a csv file.

  9. Press Run in the upper left corner of the Sensor Viewer window (Measurement Control box).
  10. If logging Start recording the log file by pressing Start Logging on the right side of the Sensor Viewer window.
  11. If the Measurement Type is set to Flow [Linearized] (which, if you're reading this, it should be), then Start the Totalizer on the right side of the Sensor Viewer window.

Sensor Viewer Logfile

It's not all it's cracked up to be.

Creating the logfile

The logfile may not be abundantly useful, but it is easy to record.

  • Use Select File on the left side of the window to create a logfile in C:\FCM\SensirionLog (or a directory of your choosing) with a (suggested) filename of the form YYYYMMDD_<MeterNumber>_flow.csv

    Suggested logfile filename convention

    • The YYYYMMDD is the date. May 25, 1904 would be 19040525
    • The <MeterNumber> will be 1411 or 1503 (check for the Serial Number in the Product Settings section in the upper center of the Sensor Viewer window).
    • If you are recording Flow [linearized] then the final part of the filename will be flow. For Temperatured [Linearized C], replace flow in the example with degc. Creating a filename with the word temp as an isolated term seems like trouble.
    • If recording flow rate data on meter 1411 on May 25, 1904, the filename would be 19040525_1411_flow.csv.
    • Hypothetically, it wouldn't be complicated to process these log data to find the points where the flow direction changes, and then use that to integrate the volumes for each sample, based on the time the .fcs files are recorded.

Logfile Cautions

Sensor Viewer will overwrite files

Sensor Viewer does not like to append liness to logfiles. If you try to Start Logging with a filename that already exists, Sensor Viewer will ask if you want to overwrite that file.

Pause vs Stop when logging

  • You can pause the logging with Pause on the right side of the filepath.
  • Stopping the logging with either Data Logging Stop button (to the right of Pause) or the Meassurement Control Stop (upper left corner, next to Run) will halt the creation of the logfile.
  • You will need to begin a new logfile with a new file name to start recording data again.
  • This happens even if you keep the Measurement Type and all other settings the same.

Sensor Viewer defaults to "Relative" time-stamps

The logs will be much easier to interpret if you set the Timing Information to Absolute.

Note

  • The default value is Relative, which reports your time as a count from when the logging started.
  • Find Timing Information in Measurement Control, upper left corner of Sensor Viewer window.

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