Naneos Partector 2 User manual

Partector 2
Aerosol Dosimeter
Light Version
Operation Manual
English
Jan 2022
A nanoparticle dosimeter for easy workplace exposure monitoring

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Document information
© naneos particle solutions gmbh, 2022
Related device versions: v 1.0 standard pump & silent pump
Related firmware versions: ≥212
Older firmware may not offer all features
described in this manual
Document Date: 2022-01-11
Document Revision: X

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Abbreviations
DC Diffusion charging, diffusion charger
HV High voltage
LED Light-emitting diode
LDSA Lung deposited surface area
N Number concentration
d Average particle diameter
S Total surface area
PM0.3 Mass of particles smaller than 0.3 m
SD Micro secure digital memory card
Safety information
General notes and warnings
This operation manual must be read completely before using the
Partector 2. Incorrect use or handling and any consequences arising from
this may damage the device or endanger personnel.
The manufacturer declines all liability resulting from incorrect use and
handling.
Safety notes
Never operate the instrument at condensing conditions.
Do not blow into the instrument.
Do not open the Partector 2 as you may damage it.
The Partector 2 is a sensitive instrument made for measuring
nanoparticles. Sampling too much coarse dust will eventually lead to
deteriorating instrument performance. Use a cyclone when measuring in
environments where large numbers of microparticles might be present.
Do not operate the Partector 2 in an explosive atmosphere or in the
presence of flammable gases or fumes.
Have your instrument recalibrated once a year.
Use only the original USB power supply and USB cable.

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Instrument specifications
Measurements and accuracy Partector 2 (Light Version)
Measured values: LDSA Lung deposited surface area
Concentration range: LDSA 0 - 12’000 m2/cm3
Typical accuracy: LDSA ± 30 % or ± 3 m2/cm3
Particle size range: 10 nm to 10 m
Displayed LDSA value is only accurate in the size range of 20-400 nm;
however, the instrument can be used to measure micron-sized particles too.
Noise floor: ~ 0.5 m2/cm3in particle-free air (LDSA)
Time resolution: 1 s
Response Time: 2/4/8/16 s, user-adjustable
Technical specifications Partector 2 (Light Version)
Inlet flow: 0.5 l/min
Operating Temperature: 0 –40 °C
Storage Temperature: -10 –50 °C
Relative Humidity: 10 % to 90%, non-condensing
Operating height: 0 - 3000m above sea level
Battery: Rechargeable Li-Ion, 12Wh
Battery lifetime: ~ 24h (with a new battery; aging will occur;
low power mode enabled, ~20h with silent
pump)
Battery Charging: via USB, 5V / 1.5A
Data storage: SD-card
PC Interface: USB/serial by virtual COM-Port
Serial port adapter for SD card available
BT wireless range: 3 - 30 m, depending on obstacles
Noise: ~ 35dB in 1m distance (standard pump)
inaudible (silent pump)
Dimensions: 8.8 x 14.2 x 3.4 cm
Weight: 400 g (390 g with silent pump)
Pollution degree: 2, or with cyclone at inlet 3.

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Checking the shipment contents
When unpacking the device, verify that you have received the following
items. If any of the components are missing or damaged, contact naneos.
Type
Items
Standard
Partector 2 device
USB cable, 1.2m
SD-card 8 GB
SD/SD-card adapter or SD/USB-adapter
Carrying sleeve
USB charger
12 cm Tygon tubing
Peli case
Storage and transport
To avoid damage during storage and transport, please use original
packaging.
Avoid locations with high/low temperatures and high humid conditions or
places that can get wet.
Do not store the device with an empty battery.
Do not store the device in direct sunlight.
For longer storage, mount the protection cap.

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Getting started
Instrument description
The Partector 2 (Light Version) is a hand-held, battery powered instrument
to measure the lung deposited surface area (LDSA). It displays the
measured data on a graphical display and stores it on a SD card. A user-
defined LDSA alarm level can be set. If the alarm level is exceeded, the
instrument’s internal buzzer is turned on to produce an audible warning.
The device can communicate with Android smartphones that support BT
low energy.
Figure 1: Partector 2 main parts
1 aerosol inlet 5 display 9 charge LED
2 USB Port 6 right soft key 10 serial plate
3 SD card slot 7 middle soft key
4 power button 8 left soft key
10
, 12Wh

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Aerosol inlet and outlet
The aerosol inlet is located at the top of the instrument. The internal pump
provides a regulated air flow of about 0.5 l/min. The standard aerosol inlet
has a 6-mm barb for tubing connection and contains a coarse wire mesh
to keep coarse dirt and small insects out of the instrument.
The air exits the device via the slits in the right-hand side of the housing.
Note that the air is not filtered internally, so do not connect the instrument
to hazardous nanoparticle sources!
Tubing
When using the Partector 2 with tubing make sure not to use
conductive silicone tubing. It releases silanes which lead to rapid
fouling of the Partector's corona wire. We recommend using PVC tubing
instead –a nice flexible version is Tygon S3 E-3603, a sample of which
is included in the Partector 2 case. If in doubt about using tubing, please
contact us. In any case, tubing should only be as long as necessary to
prevent particle losses in the tubing.
Figure 2: different tubing options
Supplying power
To chargethe Partector 2 or to operate it forperiods longerthan the battery
lifetime, connect the Partector 2 USB port to a PC, Laptop or to a USB-
charger or to a mobile power bank to charge the device.
While charging, the blue charge LED on the front panel lights up. When
the Partector 2 is fully charged, the LED turns off.
The Partector 2 supports fast charging (1.5A charging current). For
optimum charging, use the original USB power supply and USB cable.
Some PC’s and USB power supplies only provide 0.5A charging current,
which will prolong the charging duration.
Turning the device on and off
To switch on the device, press the power button. To turn it off, press and
hold the power button for two seconds and release it when the goodbye
message appears.

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Insert / remove SD-card
To store data on the microSD-card, insert it in the Partector 2 as shown in
Figure 3 till it snaps in.
To remove the SD-card, press on the inserted
card which will force the release. To insert the
card in your SD-card slot on a PC you need to
insert the card first in the SD/SD-card adapter or
SD/USB adapter provided.
Recording measurements on the SD-card
If a SD-card is inserted in the Partector 2 before startup, the device
automatically starts recording on the SD-card when the device is turned
on. It automatically generates a filename depending on start date, time
and device serial. For more information about this, read the “Partector 2
data file” section.
If you insert the SD-card while the device is running, the data
logging will not start automatically. You need to turn the device
on after inserting the card. The Partector 2 will complain that
the SD card is missing if it is not in the slot at startup. When the
Partector 2 is recording data, you can see a blinking red dot in
the status bar of the main screen.
Do not remove the SD-card while the device is running. The data file
needs to be closed properly, otherwise it will be corrupt.
Figure 3: micro-SD
card slot

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Keypad functions & symbols
In the picture below, you can see the Partector 2 (Light Version) display
screens:

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Figure 4: Partector 2 (Light Version) menu screens
Home screen
On the home screen you can see the LDSA, the number concentration,
the average particle diameter, date and time and the charge state of the
battery. If no key is pressed for more than one minute and the low power
option is activated in the configuration, the display goes dark to prolong
battery life. By pressing any key, the display turns on again.
The lightning symbol indicates that the high
voltage in the charger is on and working properly.
The blinking red dot indicates that data is being
written on SD-Card.
The exclamation mark indicates that an error
occurred at some point during the current
measurement.
Color coding of LDSA values
The LDSA display is color-coded to provide a quick assessment of air
quality. LDSA values below 50 m2/cm3are displayed in green, values
above 250 m2/cm3in red, and values in between in yellow.
Figure 5: color coding of LDSA values

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Info screen
The info screen displays device specific system information:
Serial: serial number of the device
Minutes: total operating time in minutes
LDSAmin: LDSA value integrated over time
Pulses: number of high voltage charging pulses
Calib: calibration factor for LDSA
Date: date of calibration
Pressing the “status” soft button brings you to the status screens. Pressing
the “config” soft button brings you to the config screen.
Status screens
The status screens show the most important device data. You can switch
between the individual status screens by pressing “next”.
Ambient
p air pressure [hPa]
RH internal relative humidity [%]
T internal temperature [°C]
alt calculated height above sea level [m]
Note: Altitude is calculated for average pressure. It may be off
by several 100 meters if ambient air pressure is very high or
low due to a high or low pressure area passing through.
High voltage
HV charger corona voltage [V]
Idiff charger diffusion current [nA]
DV deposition voltage [V]

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Electrometers
EM1 signal of electrometer 1 [mV]
A1 electrometer 1 amplitude [mV]
Miscellany
Batt battery voltage [V]
error displays the current error status (0 = no error)
flow approximate flow through device [lpm]
pump pump current [mA]
Config screens
In the config screens, you can change some settings of the Partector 2.
Alarm: use the “up” and “down” soft key to change the alarm level to the
desired value. When the measurement value exceeds the alarm level, the
internal buzzer of the Partector 2 will produce an audible warning.
Heater: The Partector 2 can use the built-in buzzer for the alarm to heat
the device slightly. This can only increase the temperature of the device
by about 2°C compared to not using the heater; but this is sufficient to
reduce the internal relative humidity by 5-10% depending on ambient
conditions. If you are operating the Partector 2 in a very humid
environment (e.g. in the tropics) the heater may help to avoid issues with
high humidity. Please note that the heating power is low, so it will take
several minutes to make a noticeable difference. Please also note that
"wasting" power for heating the device will reduce battery life. For all
normal conditions, it is recommended to keep the heater off.
The heater will also turn on automatically if a relative humidity > 80% is
detected.
Wireless: The Partector 2 has a built-in wireless communication module.
This allows other devices, like smartphones with BT low energy support,
to receive data from the Partector 2 via wireless communication.
Timebase: Here you can choose over which interval the Partector 2
should integrate its signals to calculate its readings. You can choose
between 2, 4, 8 and 16 seconds. Shorter integration times give a faster
response at the cost of higher noise levels.

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Time and Date: the internal clock of the Partector 2 has an accuracy of
about 1s per day. It does not change to daylight saving time and back
automatically. Therefore, you may need to set the clock from time to time.
Press the “next” soft button until you are on the field you want to modify,
then use the “up” and “down” soft buttons to change the field’s value.
SD: The SD card of the Partector 2 canbe used as a serialport ifyou need
a serial connection to the device. Naneos offers an SD-to-serial adapter
piece that you can use for this purpose. To use the SD card
as a serial port, change the setting from SD to UART. You
need to restart the Partector 2 for the change to become
effective. In the UART mode, you can no longer use an SD-
card, and the Partector 2 will no longer write data files to SD-cards! If you
want to use this feature (e.g. to integrate the Partector 2 in a data
acquisition system) please contact naneos for details.
Demo mode: In the demo mode, the entire screen of the Partector 2
changes to the color corresponding to the LDSA value, and only the LDSA
value is shown in white. This mode can be helpful to demonstrate air
quality changes.
Low power mode: you can choose whether the device should operate in
low-power mode or not. In low power mode, the display turns darker
automatically after a minute of inactivity to increase battery lifetime, and
turns off completely after 10 minutes of inactivity. Pressing any button
(also the power button) will turn on the display again. The display will also
turn on automatically if an error message is displayed.
Hardware: shows hardware version of the device, only for information
Firmware: shows firmware version of the device, only for information
Reset: Reset some of the device parameters to factory settings. This
should not be used in normal operation.
Statistics screen
The statistics screen allows you to view the time series of the measured
data over a recent time interval. Press the “scale” soft button to change
the time scale (last minute, last hour, last day).

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Extended information
Different inlet options
The Partector 2 comes with a standard inlet –a 6mm tube fitting with a
steel mesh. You can use either this or you can add a cyclone in front of
the tube inlet to remove coarse particles. The internal pump cannot
support high pressure drops, so you should not use an impactor.
The Partector 2 is a miniature instrument with extremely
sensitive internal electrometers. Fibers or dust particles which
are larger than about 1 mm in size can produce short circuits
in the instrument. Therefore, the tube inlet has a steel mesh to
prevent really coarse dust particles or small insects from entering the
instrument. If you do not use the inlet, you risk aspirating coarse dust that
may result in a deteriorated instrument performance.
We recommend the use of a cyclone if you are measuring in dusty
environments where a large number of coarse particles are present. For
example, the SKC GS-3 cyclone would be useful for this purpose.
https://www.skcinc.com/products/gs-3-respirable-dust-cyclone-
conductive-25-mm
A possible assembly of the cyclone is shown in Figure 6.

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Figure 6: SKC GS-3 cyclone mounted on a Partector 2
If you are certain that you have no coarse particles in your air (which is
normally the case in ambient air), then you can also use the standard tube
inlet.
In normal ambient and indoor air measurements, no cyclone is necessary.

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The Partector 2 data file
To view the measured and stored Partector 2 data, remove the SD and
insert it in your PC as described in a previous section. Now you either
download the Partector 2 data analysis tool from the naneos website to
view the data or you open the data file with your favourite data analysis
program (Excel, Origin, Igor etc). The data file is a simple tab-delimited
text file. File names encode the recording time and device serial no. For
example, if you start recording a file on 2nd August 2017 at 12:35:44 with
a device with the serial no. 8019, the file will be stored in the folder
2018_08_02 with the file name 8019_123544.txt.
The Partector data analysis tool allows you to quickly view graphs of all
instrument parameters, to average data in different intervals, and to
combine measured data with a GPS signal and plot it in Google Earth.
Read the separate quick guide on our website for more information.
Wireless communication
The Partector 2 supports wireless communication. It works in the
advertising mode, i.e. it continuously sends out small data packets that
can be read by nearby BTf low energy (BLE) receivers. An Android app
and an IoT solution are under development. Contact naneos for more
information if you are interested.
If you wish to develop your own application to listen for the Partector 2
advertisments, this is fairly easy by scanning for nearby devices, filtering
by the name "P2", and reading the advertisment custom data. Contact
naneos for details on the data format if you are interested in developing
your own application.

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Error messages
Error conditions
Whenever an operation parameter of the Partector 2 is outside of its
normal range, a warning message appears on the Partector 2 screen.
The warning shows up in red on the home screen:
Figure 7: generic warning message on home screen
There are different reasons for warnings to appear, and a click on the
“show” soft button will display details on the warning. Some error
conditions may disappear again by themselves (particularly such related
to high humidity), upon which the warning message will also disappear
again. However, it can be important to know that an error occurred, and
therefore, a red exclamation mark remains in the title bar as a reminder
that an error occurred at some point:
Figure 8: home screen after recovery from an error condition

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The following table gives an overview over the possible error conditions
and on what to do to remove them.
message
possible cause
what to do
SD card error:
“Card missing?”
“FS init”
- no SD card inserted
- SD card initialisation
problem
- bad card format
- insert SD card
- reboot device
- format SD card
- try a different SD card
Pulse low error
- too high relative
humidity
- device
contamination
- try measurement with lower
humidity
- contact naneos
Pulse high error
- diffusion current
does not reach
setpoint
- contact naneos for
customer self-repair
Pulse unstable
error
- contact naneos
Ucor low
- high voltage module
broken
- contact naneos for
customer self-repair
Buffer overflow
- software loop time
delayed.
- report error to naneos. You
can still measure with the
device if it only appears
infrequently.
RH high
- relative humidity is
very high and may
affect measurement
- if possible, measure at
lower RH (use a dryer at
inlet or turn on heater)
EM 0 x.y mV
- high RH
- device
contamination
- if possible, measure at
lower RH (use a dryer at
inlet or turn on heater)

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EM overflow
- extremely high
aerosol
concentration
- use a diluter for the
measurement as the
instrument will age quickly
and readings will be
inaccurate
EM1 gain error
- electrometer
defective
- contact naneos
Flow error or
pump current
error
- pump defective
- clogged Inlet
- check flow with a flowmeter
- clean the inlet
- contact naneos
Selftest error
- contact naneos and report
error code on display
Calib error
- contact naneos
Some of the error conditions are rather harmless (e.g. high electrometer
zero offset, high RH error), whereas others like the pulse errors or
broken high voltage modules will interfere with a correct measurement. If
you experience frequent errors, please contact us by email, and send us
a description of the error message, what you were doing when it
occurred, and the data file of that measurement. A data file helps us a lot
in diagnosing the problem.

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Maintenance
High voltage is present in the device –do not open!
unless you have received other instructions from naneos.
Clean the device
Use a soft, slightly damp cloth to clean the housing surface.
Clean the inlet
Use a 14mm open-end wrench to detach the inlet. Clean the inlet with
water, in an ultrasonic bath if possible. Dry the inlet thoroughly and only
screw it back on when it is completely dry, because the remaining water
could damage the device.
Disposal
The device contains a lithium-ion battery and must be disposed of
accordingly. Under no circumstances should it be disposed of with
domestic refuse, nor crushed or burnt. Naneos offers to take products
back for correct disposal.
Standards and approvals
The Partector 2 is in conformity with the provisions of the following
European Directives:
2011/65/EU Restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS)
2014/53/EU Radio Equipment Directive (RED)
EN61000-3-2:2014,EN61000-3-3:2013,
EN61326-1 :2013,
IEC61010-1 :2010,
EN300 328 V.2.1.1