Blog from June, 2012

June 26, 2012

11:00am - 2:05pm MDT

Removal of all sensors on the Turbulence Tower today.  Sonics, Licors, TRHs, pressure, four-component, batteries and dsm.  Cables have remained on tower.  Kept beacon on also.

Since we left cables on tower we had to mark cables on the dsm side so we know what instrument it was and which port.  This was our organization codes using colored paper clips, zip ties and electrical tape.  All levels have a sonic, TRH and Licor which are bundled together.  This is the code for the bundle.

CSAT marked with zip tie

TRH marked with tape

Licor marked with nothing.

Heights are marked with paper clip colors.

45m - Green

30m - Pink

15m - Blue

8m - Yellow

2m - White

Additional random cables.

Ethernet - 1 SMALL zip tie, no clip

Rad22m - 2 SMALL zip ties, no clip

Pressure - 3 SMALL zip ties, no clip

dsm was taken down at 11:35am.

WE NEED PRESSURE TUBING!

We have all the sensors and the data system running in the staging area. We've added one Licor 7500 to what was last on the tower, for a total of 4 Licors. The data cables, and Licor power cables are different however, since the originals were left on the tower.

After setting it up, I increased the 4 Licor 7500s from 10 samples/sec at 9600 baud to 20 samples/sec at 19200 baud.

The spurious interrupts are happening, sometimes spiking to above 100:

Jun 28 21:27:02 manitou kernel: viper_irq_handler: irq=2 spurious= 326001, #/sec=102   
Jun 28 21:27:21 manitou kernel: viper_irq_handler: irq=2 spurious= 328001, #/sec=109   
Jun 28 21:29:06 manitou kernel: viper_irq_handler: irq=2 spurious= 338001, #/sec=102   
Jun 28 21:29:46 manitou kernel: viper_irq_handler: irq=2 spurious= 342001, #/sec=106   
Jun 28 21:29:56 manitou kernel: viper_irq_handler: irq=2 spurious= 343001, #/sec=102   
Jun 28 21:30:38 manitou kernel: viper_irq_handler: irq=2 spurious= 347001, #/sec=103       
Jun 28 21:30:48 manitou kernel: viper_irq_handler: irq=2 spurious= 348001, #/sec=101                                          
Jun 28 21:31:28 manitou kernel: viper_irq_handler: irq=2 spurious= 352001, #/sec=111
Jun 28 21:31:58 manitou kernel: viper_irq_handler: irq=2 spurious= 355001, #/sec=104           

root@manitou root# uptime
 21:44:36 up  1:43,  1 user,  load average: 0.16, 0.11, 0.09

The kernel issues a "spurious" message when they occur more often than 100/sec. The system came up at 21:44 - 1:43 = 20:01. At the time of the last message above, the system had been up for 1 hour 31 minutes. 355001 interrupts in 1 hour 31 minutes averages to 65/sec.

The above test is with the same kernel (2.6.16.28-arcom1-2-viper #1 PREEMPT Wed Sep 16 17:04:19 MDT 2009) and CPU (viper 4) as was deployed on the tower.

manitou:/dev/ttyS9           1     20        14 2012 06 28 23:13:12.975  06 28 23:13:26.005    1.00  0.938  1.043   19   19
manitou:/var/tmp/gps_pty0    1     30        29 2012 06 28 23:13:12.574  06 28 23:13:26.574    2.00  0.154  0.882   72   73
manitou:/dev/ttyS1           1    100       285 2012 06 28 23:13:12.624  06 28 23:13:26.820   20.01  0.046  0.054   12   12
manitou:/dev/ttyS5           1    120        15 2012 06 28 23:13:12.893  06 28 23:13:26.489    1.03  0.965  0.979   30   30
manitou:/dev/ttyS6           1    200       285 2012 06 28 23:13:12.654  06 28 23:13:26.852   20.00  0.044  0.058   12   12
manitou:/dev/ttyS7           1    210       285 2012 06 28 23:13:12.619  06 28 23:13:26.814   20.01  0.042  0.059   56   56
manitou:/dev/ttyS8           1    220        14 2012 06 28 23:13:13.516  06 28 23:13:26.256    1.02  0.974  0.986   29   29
manitou:/dev/ttyS10          1    300       285 2012 06 28 23:13:12.652  06 28 23:13:26.854   20.00  0.041  0.061   12   12
manitou:/dev/ttyS11          1    310       285 2012 06 28 23:13:12.621  06 28 23:13:26.825   19.99  0.045  0.056   49   49
manitou:/dev/ttyS12          1    320        15 2012 06 28 23:13:13.098  06 28 23:13:26.775    1.02  0.971  0.986   29   29
manitou:/dev/ttyS19          1    330         3 2012 06 28 23:13:10.785  06 28 23:13:20.787    0.20  5.000  5.002   56   56
manitou:/dev/ttyS13          1    400       285 2012 06 28 23:13:12.658  06 28 23:13:26.858   20.00  0.046  0.054   12   12
manitou:/dev/ttyS14          1    410       286 2012 06 28 23:13:12.593  06 28 23:13:26.845   20.00  0.047  0.052   49   49
manitou:/dev/ttyS15          1    420        14 2012 06 28 23:13:13.374  06 28 23:13:26.024    1.03  0.969  0.980   30   30
manitou:/dev/ttyS20          1    500       286 2012 06 28 23:13:12.622  06 28 23:13:26.869   20.00  0.047  0.053   12   12
manitou:/dev/ttyS17          1    510       285 2012 06 28 23:13:12.619  06 28 23:13:26.824   19.99  0.042  0.058   49   49
manitou:/dev/ttyS18          1    520        14 2012 06 28 23:13:13.284  06 28 23:13:25.990    1.02  0.970  0.984   30   30
TRH 012 (30m) fan out

Gordon Jun 27, 2012

After removing the sensors and data system, we're testing the set up back in Boulder, to see if we can duplicate the problem of not being able to sample 5 licors.

In setting up the test, noticed that the fan on TRH012 does not run, but the TRH does output data. Checking the data archive, that unit is data id 1,420, which was the 30 meter TRH. Will check with Chris in case he noticed whether the fan was running when he removed the sensor.

If the fan was out while the unit was on the tower, then T,RH at 30m data should be treated with suspicion. By looking at the profiles, one might be able to determine when the fan went out.

According to Ned, it is very likely that the fan connection was damaged when the unit was removed from the tower.

Jun 26, 2012

The entire turbulence tower was down from May 31 until June 8.  During this time, we were able to ping the datalogger but unable to log in.  Richard Oakes from the USFS cycled the power on the datalogger at about 2pm on June 8, which restored access to the system.

All sensors came happily back to life, with the exception of the 2m LiCor that Gordon was able to resuscitate via sending ASCII commands to the sensor.

Comments added by Gordon:

From a phone conversation with Richard Oakes: He recalled a hail and lightning storm in the vicinity of the MFO during the afternoon and early evening of May 31, and that his wife noticed a lightning strike that she thought was in the vicinity of the turbulence tower that afternoon. His record indicates just 0.01 inch of precip on May 31.

To bring back the 2m licor, I used the commands shown in https://wiki.ucar.edu/x/CAK9B:

adn
minicom ttyS2
ctrl-a w  (enable line wrap)
ctrl-a e  (enable local echo)
ctrl-a f  (send BREAK)
(Outputs (BW 10) (Delay 0) (RS232 (Freq 10.0)))
ctrl-a q
aup