Field Notes

<--2020-08-26 09:30:00 | 2020-09-16 09:30:00-->
Other sites visited today: East End | West Pond | Bouldin Alfalfa | Bouldin Corn
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Tonzi: 2020-09-01 11:30:00 (DOY 245)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others:

Summary: Tower batteries out of water, FLIR not responding - brought in, trees losing dead leaves

Tonzi
2020-09-01

I arrived at about 11:30 after helping Daphne move the BC tower for harvest. It was sunny, hazy and hot. Rob got a new air conditioner â€“ it was in a box by the gate waiting for him to collect it. The trees are losing their dead leaves. There were many leaves on the ground and the light breeze was blowing more off the trees.

The main objective today was to troubleshoot the power on the tower. The computer was hung up in booting saying it was not shutdown properly. The solar controller was reporting reasonable numbers with the tower using about 1.8A at 24V. I turned everything off and disconnected all the batteries (sn BB-TT) isolating each of them for testing. I started checking water levels and discovered they all seemed to be bone dry. I had brought the spray tank with DI that we use to clean solar panels but it was nearly empty after filling the first battery. I drove to Ione and bought six gallons of purified (reverse osmosis) water and two 2.5 gallon jugs of distilled water. The distilled water is probably better for the batteries. I ended up putting eight to nine gallons of water into 12 batteries (the four batteries of the southeast row got the purified water). After refilling and sitting isolated for about two hours all the batteries tested good with the load tester except the two western most. I disconnected those two and brought them home. The rest I reconnected and powered everything up. Power-wise all seemed well.

After power was restored I checked on the FLIR, sn 48013741, which had lost its focus. But the FLIR was not responding. I changed the 24V power distribution at the tower top to a pluggable strip and added a power adapter for the Ethernet switch (still needs work). Iâ€™m pretty sure the camera had good power and I tested two different Ethernet cables. On power up the camera made some okay sounding noises. The power indicator went from amber to solid red (indicates error) and no lights on the Ethernet port. I decided to bring the camera in to clean up its cables and test it in the lab.

There were other things on the list but they will have to wait until next time.

I left at about 15:30.

Field Data

No tank data

No TZ Well data found

No TZ Moisture Point data found

No VR Moisture Point data found

No TZ grass heigth found

No VR grass heigth found

No TZ Tree DBH found

No water potential data found

No TZ Grass Biomass data found

No TZ OakLeaves Biomass data found

No TZ PineNeedles Biomass data found