Never pull the cable from the sensor and avoid any tension between the cable and sensor
during handling, set up and operation.
Pay attention to connections to data logger. Wrong connections will provide wrong read-
ings.
4. Installation
4.1 Required tools
A pair of scissors, a pair of edgeless tweezers, cable strips.
4.2 Choosing the measuring position
Depending on the specific research question, the sensor can be installed onto a fully sun
exposed needles (to record temperature extremes) or onto several, differently exposed
positions within the plant (to record variability and mean leaf temperature within the plant,
a number of sensors is necessary).
4.3 Mounting
1. First, use the rubber band to fix and pull relief the sensor cable at the plant.
2. The zigzag-formed thermocouple chain of the sensor has two functional sides. One
side, which has to be installed on the needles (slings, measuring needle surface tem-
perature) and the other side which has to be just in air contact (measuring air tempera-
ture). Single needles have to be inserted into the slings between thermocouple wire
and O-ring and tightened carefully via moving the respective O-ring.
3. Before attaching the sensor to the needles, carefully open the slings by gently sliding
the O-rings some millimeters towards the air-side of the thermoelement chain.
4. Progressively insert single needles in each of the 10 slings and tighten the sling
around the needle, by gently pushing the O-ring towards the needle.
5. Please ensure good thermal contact between each thermoelement sling (solder joints)
and its respective needle (otherwise measurement results will be affected). Gaining
some practice in advance to the real installation may be helpful, to achieve this satis-
factorily without damaging the needles.
6. After tightening all needle slings, gently bend the air-sided thermoelement contacts
away from surrounding needles.
7. Place the thermistor in the same position as the air side of the thermocouple chain.
8. Please ensure that there is NO thermal contact between none of the air-sided thermo-
element contacts (solder joints) and surrounding needles (otherwise measurement re-
sults will be affected).
Please note: In case you need further assistance for installation, please do not hesitate to
contact us. Additionally to this short description we will provide you a detailed video doc-
umentation of the mounting procedure.
5. Wiring and Logger Configuration
The LAT-B1 sensor is compatible with a range of available data loggers. However note
that suitable loggers have to provide the possibility to measure positive and negative elec-
tric currents within a range of ± 10 mV, at a measurement resolution of at least 10 bits.