Field Notes

<--2010-02-10 10:00:00 | 2010-02-25 09:00:00-->
Other sites visited today: Tonzi | Vaira

Tonzi: 2010-02-10 11:00:00 (DOY 41)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others: Siyan, Dennis

Summary: Installed Tram with 24VDC chargin station, left CO2 profile off, brought in old sap flow equipment.

Tonzi
2/10/2010

Arrived about 11am with Siyan and Dennis. Partly sunny, stronger breeze than at Vaira, still cool. Ground is very wet, saturated in many areas.

I reinstalled the tram. The left south wheel was loose. I reset the set screw and covered both wheel hubs and axels with silicon. I setup two solar panels (20W and 40W) to charge two car batteries in series to send 24 volts to the Campbell charger. Seemed like it was working when we left about 2:30. About 10 minute transit one way.

All solar was running. Tower had not lost data since Jan 28th. I checked the water in a couple of the tower batteries. Water levels did not look bad but the plates seemed to be coated in white mold (sulfate crystals?). Some additives and pulsing current/voltage techniques advertise to reduce sulfate formation, but no good science to support ads. Proper charging and maintenance should be enough.

Next time need to do a good job of cleaning up battery terminals and watering.

Replaced cards in z-cams. All seemed in good working condition.

Started to reconnect co2 profile system. The pump seemed to die. There was a spare in the box, but had the wrong connectors. Also discovered that even without the pump, the co2 profile system nearly doubled the load on the tower from 2.5 amps to 4.5 amps (plus another 1.3 amps for the pump). Both pumps returned to the lab for checkup.

Dennis brought in a data logger and AM416 that was unused in the field.

Field Data

No tank data

Well Depth