PiCUS TMSO Manual
64
9 Maintenance of the Active System
This chapter deals with the possibilities of on-site and remote maintenance of the PTMSO and
gives recommendations for implementation.
An activated PTMSO system is always fully automated. Therefore user intervention is only
required to set a new measurement plan. However, it is useful to check the current status of
the system regularly to be able to react quickly to unforeseen situations.
9.1 Checking the System Status
9.1.1 Recommended Interval
The status of an active system should be checked at least once a week in order to be able to
detect and react to possible problems in time.
More than 1 time per day is usually not useful because the status is updated only every few
hours, depending on the configuration. The default setting is an interval of 12 hours.
9.1.2 Data to be Checked
I.
Always check the battery voltage (
battery
column) of each individual device in the
system!
If the voltage of a device drops below 3.6V, action must be taken!
II.
Check the solar efficiency (
solar efficency
column) of each device in the system from
time to time!
If a device has little or no solar efficiency on a sunny day, it can be assumed that the
solar cells of the device are covered (dirt, snow, leaves, ...). If this condition persists
and the battery voltage drops, then there is a need for action as well.
III.
Check occasionally the
signal quality
(column
signal quality
) and thus the
accessibility of all TMSO.IM!
If transmission errors (column
radio connection errors
) accumulate at a sensor and
at the same time the signal quality (during active measurements) falls below 70%
several times as a result, data loss may occur during radio transmission to the
TMSO.CU. Possible reasons for this are e.g. obstacles in the radio path, or a source of
interference in the surrounding area (but the latter should then have an influence on
the signal quality of all sensors!)
If a sensor is no longer accessible at all, it may have failed due to a flat battery or a
hardware error.
IV.
If the system is in sleep mode, check the last update time of the system log (change
time of the log file with the highest index or the time stamp of the last line entered)!
During a measurement phase, you can also check the time at which the last data file
was uploaded (time of modification of the .tmso file)!
As with a mobile phone, it is always possible that an LTE connection cannot be
established for a short period of time, for example because reception is poor due to
current weather conditions or the mobile phone cell is overloaded. Likewise, the
Internet connection via WLAN can also fail briefly if, for example, the WLAN router
regularly disconnects briefly from the Internet and reconnects.
As a result, individual data files may be missing or gaps may occur in the log file. This
is completely normal and unproblematic, since the internal backup memory of the
TMSO.CU is used for exactly such cases.
However, if you notice that the period of the last update in the cloud is further back
(several new measurement files should have been uploaded in the meantime, or
several log update cycles have already passed), then there is a problem and action is
needed. Possible reasons are e.g. a switched off WLAN router, changed login settings
