CSD - Miscellaneous (TDS, Solid & Water Density, etc.)

Miscellaneous System Definition

Various observations are definable under the Miscellaneous Systems category. For example: wind speed and direction, water temperature, TDS, water density, solid density.

Add a new system by selecting “Edit” from the menu bar, and then “New” and “System”, or right click on the item System in the item tree.

The following dialog opens. It is the first page of a wizard that steps you through the system definition process.

Enter an appropriate name that provides instant recognition in Online displays.

Select Miscellaneous System from the drop down list.

From the drop down list select the driver that corresponds to the data message output by the system to which QINSy is interfaced.

Note that the interfacing can be either serial or network so make sure to select the correct type.

Enter interface port parameters.

Please refer to A Note on Interfacing Parameters.

Enter the data update parameters. Depending on the driver selected one or other, or both, these parameters are shown:

Updates

Maximum update rate

Enter a value to determine how often data will be decoded by the interface driver. Some equipment is capable of outputting data at high output rates, but it may not be necessary to use each update. A sensor system may for example output values hundreds of times per second, where five times per second is sufficient. In this case, enter a value of 0.20s. Any data not decoded by the driver is lost and cannot be recovered later.

Latency

Latency is the time between the actual measurement made in the sensor system and the time the data message arrives at the port. The time in QINSy will thus be the arrival time corrected with the latency.
Modern sensor systems will exhibit no latency, or will have compensated for the latency in the time tag of each data message.

Press Next to advance to the second page of the wizard which will look like this:

Initially the dialog is empty. Click on the Add button which brings up the Edit Observation Properties dialog.

Enter a name for the observation which is easily recognizable when Online.

Usually an observation contained in a data message has an associated alphabetic, numeric or alphanumeric identification.

This is in order that the software can 'marry' the right data value to the observation.

Enter the identifier in the Slot field. Note that the Drivers and Interfacing Manual has identifier listings for many of the Miscellaneous System drivers.

Apply a scaling factor to the observation value if necessary. This could represent a change of unit for example.

Click OK to close the dialog.

If additional observations must be defined, click on the Add button again and repeat the process. A final definition might look like this:

To change observation names and/or slots use the Edit button to reopen the Edit Observation Properties dialog.

Click Next.

On the third and last page of the wizard enter all the observation parameters for each observation listed on the left.

Observation parameters
Name	Enter a descriptive name for the observation.
Unit	Select the appropriate observation unit. In some cases there will only be one choice.
a-priori SD	Enter the SD for each observation in turn.
Fixed C-O	Constant correction to the parameter value.
Variable C-O	Variable correction to the parameter value.
Scale factor	Use scale factor to convert the raw output to units in the Acquisition Software. For example if local output is in centimeters, then enter scale factor 0.01 here to convert to meters.
Apply C-Os offsets first	C-Os are added or subtracted before a scale factor is applied.
Apply Scale factor first	Scale factor is applied before C-Os are applied.
Apply automatically	The order in which corrections are applied is done in the software.

Click Finish to complete the Miscellaneous system definition.

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