Licor LI-7000 IRGA in UBC-Biomet designed temperature controlled housing (TCH).
Our group’s experience in running multiple sites and our technical expertise were very important in the first stages of the Fluxnet Canada Research network. There was a need for many technical solutions (closed path EC designs, automated chamber systems, CO2 concentration profile measurements), so we found ourselves redesigning our already existing systems and reproducing them for the other groups that needed them.
TCHs ready to ship.
Previous to our participation in Fluxnet Canada, the designs of the systems that we created stopped in what would otherwise be the prototyping stage. Budgetary and time constraints meant that every time a piece of equipment was made, whether it was a datalogger box with its wiring or a fully automated chamber system, the work stopped when the system became functional. Before we began deploying long-term flux sites, the need for a system to be serviceable for many years rarely was an issue. Most of the projects were over after only a few months. Designing systems that could be easily manufactured and replicated, therefore going beyond the prototyping phase, was also not very important because we rarely made more than one system at a time.
The Fluxnet-Canada project was our opportunity to learn how to design EC and chamber systems to be serviceable for many years. We settled on instrument designs that did their job well, could be easily maintained, and were simple to manufacture in our labs. Over a period of less than two years we redesigned and produced over 20 enclosures (TCH) for LI-6262/7000 instruments in addition to 6 automated chamber systems.
Automated chamber system being tested at UBC.
Automated chamber.
