Solar & Grow Lamp Analysis – StellarPro Quick Start
- Turn on the computer. Open the StellarNet software by double clicking on the desktop icon StellarPro
to open the application.
- When you first open the software, you should see a screen similar to the one below:
- Select Radiometer
in the application navigation bar on the left-hand side for the solar application.
- Turn on your Grow Light or point your CR2 towards the sun initially to see its raw signal in SCOPE graph. For solar applications try to make sure you do this initial setup when the sun is at its brightest and there are no clouds.
- Set the integration time so that your spectrum is not saturated but as close to 65,000 counts as possible. Enter the desired time in the integration time input box, then click on the “Int Time (ms)” button next to the input textbox to apply the entered time. This is also the point at which you should adjust the number of scans to average (more scans averaged will increase accuracy, but will take more time for each reading). You can also add smoothing controls at this time in the Device Settings block. A smooth value set to 3 and averaging set to 5 often gives nice results.
- In the first picture below, the spectrum is correctly optimized to be just below the saturation limit (65,536 counts).
- In the second picture below, the spectrum have a flat line on the top, indicating the need to reduce the integration time.
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- Now, cover or turn off your grow light or cover your CR2’s active surface. Left click on the Dark Reference button in the toolbar at the top right of the screen. You will see your baseline drop to zero.
- In the Watts Graph, you will see the Grow Lamp/Solar spectral curve. In this page, you will also see power output, colorimetric values, the Solar Monitor, and the Solar Match & UV monitoring results.
| Warning: If your system saturates at all integration times or you need to reduce your exposure time <15ms to get a signal, then you must use a CR2-Aperture (CR2-AP) or inline neutral density filter to reduce light intensity to your system’s detector. There are other possible solutions as well. Please contact a StellarNet technical sales associate to choose which solution is best for your application. For Radiometric applications it is recommended to use exposure times >15ms. |
Tags: Application, Software
