Unihedron SQM-LU-DL-V User manual

SQM-LU-DL-V Operator’s Manual
©Copyright 2005 - 2021
Version: 20211013
Company information
Mailing address Unihedron
4 Lawrence Avenue
Grimsby, Ontario L3M 2L9
Canada
Telephone [phone]
Website unihedron.com

Contents
List of Figures ........................................................ 6
List of Tables ......................................................... 7
1 Introduction ....................................................... 10
1.1 QuickStart ..................................................... 10
1.1.1 Settinguptheinstrument......................................... 10
1.1.2 Savingthedatalog............................................. 11
1.1.3 Getting the data from the data log into MS Excel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.1.4 Gatherskysurvey ............................................. 11
1.1.5 Othersoftware ............................................... 13
1.1.6 FITSintegration .............................................. 13
2 Measurements ...................................................... 14
2.1 Gettingaccuratereadings ............................................. 15
2.1.1 Seeingconditions.............................................. 15
2.1.2 Lightpollution ............................................... 15
2.1.3 Otherluminancescales .......................................... 16
3 Theory of operation ................................................... 19
3.1 Lightmeasurement................................................. 19
3.2 Altitude (inclination) measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.3 Azimuth(heading)measurement ......................................... 20
3.4 CommunicationtothePC............................................. 20
4 Specifications ....................................................... 21
5 Hardware connections .................................................. 22
5.1 Batteryoperation.................................................. 22
5.2 DiagnosticLED................................................... 23
6 Software development .................................................. 25
6.1 Writing your own software interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
6.2 Pascal ........................................................ 26
7 Unihedron Device Manager .............................................. 27
7.1 GettingUDM.................................................... 27
7.2 Installation ..................................................... 27
7.2.1 Systemrequirements............................................ 27
7.2.2 Windows .................................................. 27
7.2.3 Mac ..................................................... 27
7.2.4 Linux .................................................... 27
7.3 Operation...................................................... 28
7.3.1 Startup................................................... 28
7.3.2 Mainscreen................................................. 28
3

Contents
7.3.3 Mainmenu ................................................. 29
7.3.4 Filemenu.................................................. 29
7.3.5 Viewmenu ................................................. 30
7.3.6 Toolsmenu ................................................. 36
7.3.7 Helpmenu ................................................. 39
7.4 Informationtab................................................... 41
7.5 LogContinuous................................................... 42
7.5.1 Import.datintospreadsheet........................................ 47
7.6 Calibrationtab................................................... 48
7.7 ReportIntervaltab................................................. 49
7.7.1 Continuousreports............................................. 49
7.8 Firmwaretab .................................................... 49
7.9 Configurationtab.................................................. 51
7.9.1 Sensorarrangement ............................................ 51
7.10DataLoggingtab.................................................. 52
7.10.1 Vectordatalogger.............................................. 55
7.10.2 Contourplot ................................................ 56
7.10.3 Minimum.datrequirements........................................ 57
7.11Simulationtab ................................................... 57
7.11.1 Simulationfromfile ............................................ 58
7.12Accessoryoptions.................................................. 59
7.12.1 Humidityaccessory............................................. 59
7.12.2 Displayaccessory.............................................. 59
7.12.3 LEDaccessory ............................................... 59
7.12.4 Relayaccessory............................................... 59
7.13Commandlineparameters............................................. 60
8 Commands and responses ............................................... 61
8.1 Commands ..................................................... 61
8.2 Responsedetails .................................................. 63
8.2.1 Readingrequest .............................................. 63
8.2.2 Unaveragedreadingrequest........................................ 63
8.2.3 Linearreadingrequest........................................... 64
8.2.4 Inlinelinearreadingrequest........................................ 65
8.2.5 Unitinformation .............................................. 66
8.3 Calibrationcommands............................................... 67
8.3.1 Calibration information request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
8.3.2 Lightcalibrationcommand ........................................ 67
8.3.3 Darkcalibrationcommand ........................................ 68
8.3.4 Disarmcalibrationcommand ....................................... 68
8.3.5 Manually set light calibration offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
8.3.6 Manually set light calibration temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
8.3.7 Manually set dark calibration time period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
8.3.8 Manually set dark calibration temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
8.4 SnowLEDaccessory................................................ 71
8.5 Dataloggercommands ............................................... 72
8.5.1 FLASHIDreport ............................................. 72
8.5.2 Loggingpointerreport........................................... 72
8.5.3 Loggingcapacityreport .......................................... 73
8.5.4 EraseentireFLASHmemory ....................................... 73
8.5.5 Logonerecord ............................................... 73
8.5.6 Returnoneloggedrecord ......................................... 73
8.5.7 RetrieveallBinary............................................. 76
8.5.8 Getinternalvoltage ............................................ 78
4Unihedron SQM-LU-DL-V Operator’s Manual - 20211013

8.5.9 GetEEPROMstatusregister1...................................... 78
8.5.10 Set and read logging trigger mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
8.5.11 Logging Interval setting response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
8.5.12 Logging interval reporting period setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
8.5.13 Set and read logging Real Time Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
8.5.14 GetRealTimeClockversion ....................................... 81
8.5.15 Putdataloggingunittosleep ....................................... 81
8.5.16 Gatheralarm0datafromRTC...................................... 81
8.5.17 Mutualaccess................................................ 81
8.6 Vectorcommands.................................................. 83
8.6.1 Magneticreadings ............................................. 83
8.6.2 Accelerationreadings ........................................... 83
8.6.3 Acceleration calibration values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
8.6.4 Magneticcalibrationvalues ........................................ 84
8.6.5 Vibration .................................................. 85
8.6.6 Vibrationthreshold ............................................ 85
8.7 Continuousreportingcommands ......................................... 86
8.8 Setting Interval reporting parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
8.8.1 Interval reporting period setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
8.8.2 Threshold setting for interval reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
8.8.3 Intervalsettingresponse.......................................... 89
8.9 Simulationcommands ............................................... 90
9 Installation ........................................................ 92
9.1 Mechanicalinstallation............................................... 92
9.1.1 Coverselection ............................................... 92
9.1.2 Covercalibration.............................................. 92
9.1.3 Covermaintenance............................................. 93
10 Default settings ..................................................... 94
11 Firmware upgrade .................................................... 95
11.1Details........................................................ 95
12 Calibration ........................................................ 96
12.1Recalibration .................................................... 96
12.2Lightcalibration .................................................. 96
12.3Darkcalibration .................................................. 96
12.4Confirmation .................................................... 96
12.5AltitudeandAzimuthcalibration......................................... 97
13 Troubleshooting ..................................................... 98
14 Glossary .......................................................... 103
15 Bibliography ....................................................... 105
5

List of Figures
List of Figures
1.1 Handheldbatterypack............................................... 12
1.2 LiveAltitude/Azimuthview............................................ 13
1.3 Vectorco-processorcutawayview......................................... 13
2.1 Mpsasinterpretivescale .............................................. 14
2.2 MpsasvsNELM .................................................. 17
3.1 SQM-LU-DL-VBlockdiagram .......................................... 19
4.1 Frontandbackofofunit ............................................. 21
5.1 Wiredconnection.................................................. 22
5.2 Batteryconnection................................................. 22
5.3 Currentprofile ................................................... 23
5.4 Diagnostic LED timing diagram for SQM-LU-DL-V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.1 Splashscreen .................................................... 28
7.2 Filemenu ...................................................... 29
7.3 FileOpendialog .................................................. 30
7.4 Viewmenu ..................................................... 30
7.5 View:Log ..................................................... 31
7.6 View:Directories .................................................. 31
7.7 Dataloggingheader ................................................ 32
7.8 SetLocationdialog................................................. 33
7.9 Plotterwindow ................................................... 34
7.10Tool:oldlogtodat ................................................ 36
7.11Tool:dattoMooncsv .............................................. 36
7.12Tool:Commterminal............................................... 37
7.13Tool:.datto.kml ................................................. 37
7.14 Tool : .dat to .kml GoogleEarth result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
7.15Tool:.dattimecorrection............................................. 38
7.16 Tool : .dat local time reconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
7.17Helpmenu...................................................... 39
7.18Help:About .................................................... 40
7.19Founddevice(single)................................................ 40
7.20Founddevice(multiple) .............................................. 40
7.21USBconnectiondetails............................................... 41
7.22Ethernetconnectiondetails ............................................ 41
7.23RS232connectiondetails.............................................. 41
7.24Informationtab................................................... 41
7.25LogContinuouslyscreen.............................................. 42
7.26LogContinuouslyTriggertab........................................... 42
7.27LogContinuouslyThreshold............................................ 43
7.28 Log Continuously Pre-audio alert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
7.29 Log Continuously Alarm for darkness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
7.30LogContinuouslyTransfertab .......................................... 44
7.31LogContinuouslyAnnotationtab......................................... 44
7.32LogContinuouslyGPStab ............................................ 45
7.33Calibrationtab(initial) .............................................. 48
6Unihedron SQM-LU-DL-V Operator’s Manual - 20211013

7.34Calibrationtab(populated)............................................ 48
7.35Reportintervaltab................................................. 49
7.36Firmwaretab .................................................... 50
7.37Firmwareselection ................................................. 50
7.38Configurationtab.................................................. 51
7.39Lightcalibrationconfirmation........................................... 51
7.40Darkcalibrationconfirmation........................................... 51
7.41Sensorarrangement ................................................ 52
7.42Dataloggingtab .................................................. 52
7.43RealTimeClocksettingdialog .......................................... 53
7.44Storagenavigation ................................................. 53
7.45DLRetrievedialogwindow ............................................ 54
7.46DLErasedialogwindow.............................................. 55
7.47Dataloggingpageforvectormodel ........................................ 56
7.48Contourplotof336readings ........................................... 57
7.49Fig:Simulationtab ................................................. 58
7.50Accessoriestab ................................................... 59
9.1 Housing ....................................................... 92
9.2 Examplecovercalibration............................................. 93
List of Tables
2.1 Apparent Magnitudes of Known Celestial Objects adapted from [2] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.2 Storage navigation button descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
7.3 simin.csvfielddescription ............................................. 58
7.4 Log continuous command line parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
7.5 Select device command line parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
7.6 Select device command line parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
8.1 Summaryofstandardcommands ......................................... 61
8.2 Summaryofdataloggercommands ........................................ 62
8.3 Summaryofvectorcommands........................................... 62
8.4 Readingrequestresponse ............................................. 63
8.5 Unaveraged reading request response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
8.6 Linearreadingrequestresponse.......................................... 64
8.7 Inline linear reading request response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
8.8 Unitinformationrequestresponse ........................................ 66
8.9 Calibration information request response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
8.10Lightcalibrationresponse ............................................. 67
8.11Darkcalibrationresponse ............................................. 68
8.12Disarmcalibrationresponse............................................ 68
8.13 Response for manual setting of light calibration offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
8.14 Response for manually setting of light calibration temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
8.15 Response of manually setting dark calibration time period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
8.16 Response for manually setting of dark calibration temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
7

8.17LEDaccessorycommandsummary........................................ 71
8.18LEDaccessoryresponsesummary......................................... 71
8.19 Response of requesting the FLASH chip ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
8.20 Response of requesting the data logging pointer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
8.21 Response of requesting the data logging capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
8.22 Response of requesting to log one record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
8.23 Request to return one logged record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
8.24 Response to return one logged record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
8.25 Response to Binary Retrieve command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
8.26BinaryRetrieverecordcontent .......................................... 76
8.27 Response of requesting internal voltage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
8.28 Response of requesting EEPROM Status regoster 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
8.29 Request to set the logging trigger mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
8.30 Response of setting or getting the log trigger mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
8.31 Response of viewing or setting logging interval reporting parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
8.32SettingtheRTC .................................................. 80
8.33 Response of getting the RTC values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
8.34 Response of getting the RTC version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
8.35 Response of getting the RTC “Alarm 0” value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
8.36 Response of setting or getting the mutual access mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
8.37 Response of requesting the vector module magnetic values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
8.38 Response of requesting the vector module accelerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
8.39 Response of getting or setting the acceleration calibration values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
8.40 Response of getting or setting the magnetic calibration values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
8.41Summaryofstandardcommands ......................................... 86
8.42 Continuous reporting command summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
8.43 Response of all continuous reporting requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
8.44Intervalreport ................................................... 88
8.45 Response of viewing or setting interval reporting parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
8.46 Response of request for internal simulation values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
8.47Requestsimulation(S....x)............................................. 90
8.48 Response of setting simulation values (S...x) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
13.1Readingseemtoobright.............................................. 98
13.2Readingis0.00mpsas................................................ 98
13.3CannotFindUDMsoftware............................................ 98
13.4Drivernotfound .................................................. 98
13.5 USB device not found, or more than one device on the same COM port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
13.6USBserialnumbergarbled ............................................ 99
13.7LEDdoesnotlightup............................................... 99
13.8Recordingstops................................................... 99
13.9 Meter cannot be found on battery or by PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
13.10UDM improperly lists devices under Windows OS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
13.11Meter cannot be found by Windows operating system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
13.12Cannotgetareading................................................ 101
13.13Darkroom-bag readings incorrect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
14.1Glossaryofterms.................................................. 103
8

List of Equations
List of Equations
2.1 MPSAS to cd/m2.................................................. 16
2.2 NELMtoMPSAS ................................................. 17
2.3 MPSAStoNELM ................................................. 17
8.1 RawTemperaturetodegC............................................. 90
8.2 degCtoRawTemperature............................................. 90
Unihedron SQM-LU-DL-V Operator’s Manual - 20211013 9

1 Introduction
Thank you for purchasing the SQM-LU-DL-V. You will soon be on your way to collecting scientific data.
The SQM series of products have been used in the following applications:
•Quantitatively comparing the sky brightness at different astronomical observing sites.
•Documenting the evolution of light pollution.
•Setting planetarium dome illumination to mimic the skies that people are likely to experience elsewhere in the city.
•Monitoring sky brightness through the night, night-to-night, and year-to-year for astronomical observation records.
•Determining which nights show the greatest promise for finding the ’faintest fuzzies’.
•Calibrating the effect of sky brightness on qualitative measures such as the Bortle Scale or NELM.
•Investigating how sky brightness correlates with the solar cycle and month-to-month sunspot activity.
•Helping to provide local ground truth for future sky brightness prediction with the Clear Sky Clock.
•Helping CCD users make a correlation between the SQM reading and when the background reaches some ADC
level.
•Assisting Sea Turtle researchers in studying the amounts of light in areas where turtle hatchlings are affected by
artificial lights.
•Researching bird-song synchronization with dawn.
•Researching twilight brightness changes with the addition of external Neutral Density filters. Unihedron offers
adapters to attach such filters onto the meter.
•The SQM-LU-DL-V has the same features as the SQM-LU with the addition of data logging and vector measurement
capabilities.
The SQM-LU-DL-V appears identical to the SQM-LU-DL from the outside, the only identification is the paper label
on the bottom of the unit, and the version identification from UDM.
1.1 QuickStart
1.1.1 Setting up the instrument
1. Connect the SQM-LU-DL-V meter to the computer with the supplied USB cable. Wait for any device drivers to
automatically load (if required). You may have to visit www.FTDIchip.com to get the latest VCP drivers if they
do not get installed automatically.
2. Ensure that your computer date and time is up-to-date.
3. Install and launch UDM (Unihedron Device Manager software supplied on the CD from your File Manager).
4. Click the “Find” button to find attached devices, then click on the SQM-LU-DL-V that you connected.
5. Click ”Data Logging” tab to go to the setup page.
6. Click the “Set” button in the “Device Clock” area on that page to synchronize the SQM-LU-DL-V internal time
with your computer time and date.
7. Set the repetition time for the readings in the “Trigger” section on the left side of the window. A good rate is “every
5 minutes”.
8. Keep the SQM-LU-DL-V connected to the computer for a couple of hours to charge up the internal Supercap; this
allows it to keep the time and date clock running while you are moving from your computer to the measurement
site. A fully charged meter will keep the clock running for a few days unpowered.
10