BoxCar Pro 4.3 Release Notes
Contents
A. BoxCar Pro 4.3 Upgrade Software
License Agreement Note
If you are upgrading to
BoxCar Pro 4.3 from BoxCar Pro 4.0 or higher, the following paragraph replaces
Paragraph 2 in the Software License Agreement distributed with BoxCar Pro and
printed in the User's Guide.
2. Grant of license.
You are granted the right to use the Software Patch to upgrade every legally
licensed copy of BoxCar Pro 4.0 or higher that you own. After upgrading your
software to BoxCar Pro 4.2, all other applicable statements of this license
agreement shall apply to the upgraded version, for example: the statements of
ownership, of support, of liability, and the restrictions in section 3 shall
apply.
To install BoxCar Pro
4.3, insert the CD in the drive. The installation program will automatically
start. Follow the instructions on the screen.
If the installation
does not automatically start:
1. Navigate to the CD
drive from My Computer or Explorer.
2. Right-click the CD drive and select open.
3. Double-click the
BoxCar Pro 4.3 setup.exe and follow the instructions on the screen.
****IMPORTANT NOTE****
The installation
program requires that your version of Windows is running the correct,
compatible version of certain system files. If you encounter the following
error when you install BoxCar Pro, you will need to update your operating
system with a patch available from Microsoft:
Error Number: 0x80070725
Description: Incompatible Version of the RPC
Stub
Setup will now terminate.
This error is caused by
a system file (a DLL file) that is incompatible with the version of Windows
installed on your computer. For example, if you have Windows XP installed, then
the computer should have DLL files designed for Windows XP installed instead of
DLL files designed for Windows 98.
If the above error
occurs during installation, download the mcrepair.exe patch from this address:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/msninvestor/Patch/1.0/WIN98/EN-US/mcrepair.EXE
Internet Explorer 4.0
or higher must be installed on your computer to run this patch. When you run
the patch, it will ask you whether you want to overwrite newer files. Make sure
you click YES for each file (do not select NO or NO TO ALL).
BoxCar Pro 4.3
introduces support for the HOBO LCD Temp/RH, HOBO Water Temp Pro, and HOBO
Weather Station data loggers, which allows you to:
* Launch and readout
these new loggers, including the option to continue logging while offloading
data
* Check the status on
the loggers while the loggers are recording data
* View offloaded data
in plots
Use the general Launch,
Get Status, and Readout commands available from the toolbar or Logger menu to
work with the HOBO Weather Station. To launch, read out, and check the status
on the HOBO LCD Temp/RH and HOBO Water Temp Pro loggers, click the Logger menu
and then select the logger name to access a submenu with the commands for that
logger. See the BoxCar Pro User's Guide or the online help for details on using
these loggers.
1. The high and low
temperature alert lines displayed in plots for the HOBO LCD logger are slightly
higher than the actual alerts entered at launch. The alert temperature in the
plot is typically 0.7 to 0.9 degrees higher than the actual high and low alert values
used during the launch. To adjust the lines on the plot to match the original
values that you entered, double-click the temperature series on the plot. In
the Series Properties dialog under Alarm Lines, enter the correct alert values
in the Min Line and Max Line fields.
2. When using the
Export to Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet command, numbers may be exported as text.
To change the format, right-click the cells you wish to change, select Format
Cell(s), and then select a new format for the numbers.
In addition, the
date/time format is not recognized when using the Chart Wizard. To adjust the
date/time so that you can automatically generate a chart, delete the
".0" at the end of the time. Assuming the date/time column is column
A, select the J2 cell, type "=LEFT(A:A,
LEN(A:A)-2)" and press Enter. This drops the last two characters from the
date/time string. Select the entire J column from J2 down to the last data
point and select "Fill Down" from the "Edit" menu. This
creates a column of date/times without the decimals. Select this column again
and choose "Cells" from the "Format" menu. From the Custom
menu, select "m/d/yyyy h:mm." Copy the columns with data points and
paste them starting in the L column. Select columns J through the last column
with data and use the Chart Wizard to create the plot.
An alternative approach
is to use the Export to Microsoft Excel Text command. Open the text file in
Excel, choose "Fixed width" and click "Next." Place column
breaks right before the decimal points and right after the squares. In the last
window, leave the first and third columns in General format and do not import
the middle column. To replace the # signs with the date/times, format the cells
to "m/d/yyyy h:mm."
3. If you insert a
series from one plot onto another and use the crosshair tool, the plot legend
for the inserted series sometimes displays an incorrect value. This happens
when the data points on the time axes do not line up for the series. Normally,
the legend displays an ellipses (...) on the legend
for the data points that aren't lining up. But the first time you click the
crosshair on a plot where the time axes do not line up, the legend displays the
first data point value rather than the ellipses. All subsequent clicks of the
crosshair show accurate values or ellipses as appropriate.
4. The HOBO Weather
Station will not log data when more than 15 sensors/data channels are in use or
the total length of the smart sensor portion of the sensor cables is more than 100
meters (325 ft) (see the HOBO Weather Station User's Guide and Smart Sensor
manuals for more details). BoxCar Pro cannot communicate with a logger that has
exceeded these limitations, and may crash during an attempt to read out the
logger. Remove the excess sensors, and remove and reinsert the batteries to
re-establish communication.
5. View Details does
not report the delayed start date selected for HOBO LCD Temp/RH, HOBO Water
Temp Pro, and HOBO Weather Station datafiles. View
Details also reports logging intervals for these three loggers in total seconds
rather than HH:MM:SS format.
6. The Save Settings in
Logger for Later Launch feature available in the HOBO Weather Station Launch
screen does not save delayed start dates.
7. Generally, if a period
of daylight savings time begins or ends between the current date and time and
the date and time you specify for a delayed start, enter the time you want the
logger to start as if there were no change in daylight savings time. For
example, if you are setting up the logger on the Friday before daylight savings
time ends and you want the logger to begin recording at
The BoxCar Pro absolute
humidity calculation for the temperature/RH smart sensor is only valid at one
atmosphere. The temperature/RH smart sensor can be used with the HOBO Weather
Station and the external probe model of the HOBO LCD Temp/RH logger.
USER GUIDE IN PDF
FORMAT
The BoxCar Pro 4.3
User's Guide is also available on the CD in an Adobe Acrobat PDF format (the
file is called BCP 4.3 user guide.pdf). To view this
file, Adobe Acrobat Reader must be installed on your computer. The latest
version of Acrobat Reader as of August 2002 is also included on the CD. To
install Acrobat Reader:
1. Navigate to the CD
drive from My Computer or Explorer.
2. Right-click the CD drive and select open.
3. Double-click
ar505enu.exe and follow any instructions on the screen.
Note: Some versions of
the Windows operating system are designed to automatically start the
installation program on software CDs any time you double-click the CD drive
from My Computer or Windows Explorer when the CD is in the drive. If you find
that the BoxCar Pro installation is automatically starting when you want to view
the contents of the CD only, RIGHT-click the CD drive and select Open instead
of double-clicking it.
UNSUPPORTED UTILITIES
The following two datafile manipulation utilities are included on the BoxCar Pro
4.3 CD as unsupported utilities. These utilities correct two specific types of
errors occasionally generated by H07 and H08 loggers, and save data that would
otherwise be lost. To install these utilities, start the BoxCar Pro
installation, and choose the Custom installation instead of Typical when
prompted to select the Setup Type. You'll then have the option to install
several specific files, including H07FileCvt.exe and H08FileCvt.exe.
H07ValCvt Utility
-----------------
The H07ValCvt utility
is used to change the "Event Value" parameter in a HOBO Event H07) datafile.
Example: A researcher
has two rain buckets and wants to measure inches of rainfall in each bucket
with two event loggers. One rain bucket tips at one inch, and the other tips at
two inches. He launches one event logger with an event value of "1"
and the other with an event value of "2", but then mixes the loggers
up and puts them on the wrong buckets. The logger with the event value of
"1" was triggered every two inches (making the graph show HALF the
actual rainfall) and the other with the event value of "2" was
triggered every one inch (making the graph show TWICE the actual rainfall).
This utility can be
used to swap the "event" values in the datafiles
to make each datafile display the proper amount of
rainfall.
Utility H08FileCvt
------------------
The H08FileCvt utility
is used to change the "Selected Sensor" in H08 datafiles
from loggers with external sensor ports.
Example: A scientist
launches an H08 with a temperature sensor attached, but mistakenly had
"Voltage" selected as the sensor type. This utility opens the saved datafile, and changes the "Selected Sensor" from
"Voltage" to "Temperature" so that her data can be
interpreted properly.
This utility prevents
collected data from being lost because of incorrect sensor selection on launch.
Copyright
2002, Onset Computer Corporation.