Evaporimeter System Testing

Abstract:

The system has been completed and we are now testing the components’ response to semi-realistic conditions. I say semi because it is only being tested right outside the lab. Here is what our setup looks like. 

Objective: 

With these tests that we are running, we aim to verify the functionality of the whole system. We need to make sure that the receiver and transmitter are communicating. On the receiver side, we want to see that it can run on the power supply and no connection to a computer. On the transmitter side, we want it to run on battery and be able to transmit all the data coming in from the sensors. We also intend to verify the data coming in from the sensors.

Materials and Methods:
We are going to implement an evaporimeter system right outside the lab and test the components’ response to the local enviroment. 

To simulate a rainfall we will use the OPEnS Lab rain catcher calibrator with the 20 min setting. Here is the setup:  


OPEnS Lab Evaporimeter TransmitterOPEnS Lab Evaporimeter Transmitter

OPEnS Lab Evaporimeter Transmitter

The image above displays the evaporimeter in action. 


OPEnS Calibrator SetupOPEnS Calibrator Setup

OPEnS Calibrator Setup

We set the calibrator setup above the evaporimeter and allowed it to drip 500ml of water in 20min. 

We have been testing the system and fixing anything to have it ready for deployment; this was all done during July 17th-21st. We will be doing more testing on the 24th to finalize the data collection and begin the analysis. 

One final thing to do is to print the electronics casing in white to prevent the humidity and temperature sensor from reporting incorrect data from the heat absorption of the black plastic.