CR9000X

The CR9000X and CR9000XC differ only in the number of I/O cards they can hold. The CR9000X can hold 9 I/O cards, and the CR9000XC can hold 5 I/O cards. We provide both sizes to accommodate our customers; the same I/O cards can be used in either chassis.

There are two ways to upgrade an operating system:

Method 1

1. Connect to the CR9000X using the serial link or the Ethernet link.
2. Use the RTDAQ | Clock/Program Tab | Send Program… button.
3. In the Files Type box in the file browser window, use the drop-down arrow to select OBJ Files (*.obj). Browse to the computer file where the desired operating system resides.
4. Double-click the file, or click the Open button. A warning will appear.
5. After reading the warning, click Yes to begin downloading the new operating system.

Method 2

1. Download and install the Device Configuration Utility software, or launch it from RTDAQ.
2. Connect the CR9000X RS-232 port to the computer.
3. Select CR9000X from the list in the Device Configuration Utility.
4. Select the Send OS tab, and follow the instructions displayed in the software interface screen.

A USB-to-serial cable is required.  This can be purchased from Campbell Scientific (p/n 17394) or from a local electronics store. USB-to-serial cables with the FTDI chipset are easier to use and seem to perform better than cables with the Prolific chipset.

Common causes include the following:

• loss of power to the datalogger and the program Run On Power-up attribute not being set  (See www.campbellsci.com/tips-how-do-you-run for help with this.) 
• a FillStop instruction in a CRBasic program used to set data tables to stop storing new data when full
• logical conditions for writing to data tables that do not evaluate as TRUE

It is possible that an older version of Short Cut is being used. Download the latest version of Short Cut.

If the latest version of Short Cut for Windows has already been downloaded, open the program.

1. Go to Tools | Options and make sure that the Enable Creation of Custom Sensor Files box is checked.
2. In the Generic Measurements folder, right-click the type of measurement to be made for the sensor, and select Create Custom Sensor.
3. Fill in the fields, and save the settings with the Save As button. 

Yes. The datalogger can control power to external devices under program control. For more information, see www.campbellsci.com/tips-decisions.

To turn a generator on and off, a solid state relay with a load capacity that matches or exceeds the power of the generator is needed. The relay is controlled by one of the control ports on the datalogger.

Yes, but only with a direct connection, such as an RS-232 cable or USB-to-serial adapter.

Short Cut for Windows (SCWin) is a free program generator for Campbell Scientific dataloggers, including the CR1000. The Campbell Scientific YouTube channel has a two-part series on using Short Cut. 

This might happen because the datalogger clock is being adjusted by a remote time source. If this occurs close to the same time that the datalogger is due to store data, it can result in either a skipped record or an additional record of data.

If the automatic clock synchronization option (LoggerNet [version 4] Setup, Datalogger, Clock tab) is used, do not set the Allowed Clock Deviation too tight (e.g., 1 s), as the PC will try to change the clock either due to drift in its own clock or because of delays in the communication from the PC to the datalogger. If the clock is updated too often, there is the risk of the datalogger “skipping records” if the time is pushed for just before it is supposed to store data.

While most PCs are usually synchronized with Internet time, the default update time is several days, and a PC can typically drift tens of seconds in that period.

Clock issues also appear when changing to or from daylight saving time, as the datalogger does not automatically adjust for DST. Data continuity can be maintained by keeping datalogger clocks on standard time.

The datalogger assigns two attributes for program files:

• run now: specifies the file should be run as the current program
• run on power up: specifies that the file should be run as the program when the datalogger powers up

If the latter option is not set for the datalogger, the datalogger will not have a program running when it powers up, which will result in lost data. See the article at www.campbellsci.com/tips-how-do-you-run for more information.

The advantage of the BrHalf4W circuit is that lead resistance does not affect the measurement. The disadvantage is that it requires two differential (four single-ended) voltage input channels and four wires to the sensor.

Some sensors have four wires and are sensitive enough that the lead resistance would cause too great an error.

The BrHalf, a two-wire measurement, does not compensate for lead resistance.

The BrHalf3W lead compensation assumes that the leads are of the same resistance.

The CRBasic Editor Help contains example program code for all instructions in the datalogger. Look for the Example link at the top of each instruction topic. The CRBasic Help Tutorial demonstrates how to access this and other online CRBasic Editor Help files.

An IfTimeIntoInterval()/EndIf construction with a PortSet() or WriteIO() instruction can be used to turn on and off external devices. See the article at www.campbellsci.com/tips-decisions for more information.

Some Campbell Scientific sensors with an RS-232 output are supported in Short Cut. Due to the large variety of serial data formats, other sensors require creating a program in the CRBasic Editor. CRBasic Editor is included in several of the purchased software packages, such as LoggerNet. See the “Interfacing Serial Sensors with Campbell Scientific Dataloggers” application note for more information.

RTMC Pro software is capable of email alarms. An alarm could be set to trigger when there is a communication failure.

A skipped system scan can be seen in the datalogger’s Status Table. It indicates there was not enough time for the datalogger to do its background calibration procedures, which it does on a regular cycle. (Refer to the datalogger’s manual for more details.)

If these system scans are skipped, they are usually deferred until the next time they should run. This may not necessarily be a problem as long as the system scan does run some of the time. All it means is that the datalogger becomes slower to respond to changes, such as temperature, that can affect its calibration.

Yes. The simplest method is to use conditional program statements that execute most of the code based upon time. For example, the data could be scheduled to log at 6 a.m. and finish at 8 p.m. using CRBasic instructions such as TimeIntoInterval(). Another option is to use an IfThen/EndIf construction that does a logical test of light-level measurements based on a light sensor. An additional option is to use calculated sunrise and sunset times along with a combination of RealTime() and Case instructions.

For more information, see this article: www.campbellsci.com/tips-decisions.