Products > Test Equipment
General Eastern Optica (Chilled Mirror Hygrometer)
Jerry Garsia:
"Did you set the BIOS "IDE Configuration" to "AHCI"? Did you try swapping parts between the units to make a single working Optica?"
This step was a key. Optica resurrected after all manipulations. Thank you. Text "jumping to ...." still remains at every switching on, but later optica's software starts.
Another optica with GPU troubles waits for new motherboard
Guido_P:
Hi Anders, you suggestion abut BIOS configuration solved my OPTICA start-up problem.
Thank you very much!
Guido
ew2097:
Hey just figured I'd chime in with some potentially useful bits about these Optica units after having to troubleshoot a bunch at work over the last week.
- In every one of the units we have with a 4x40 LCD display, I have only seen this industrial microATX board from BCMcom:
https://www.bcmcom.com/admin/manual/RX815ELTmanual.pdf
- I've only started to get into the VGA models, but I've already seen them with two different boards thus far.
On a model with build date on march 2015 (last 4 digits of serial number is month and year), it has an Intel Atom mini-ITX board built by MSI:
https://www.bcmcom.com/admin/manual/MX525D_DC%20Users_Manual_V1.1.pdf
On a model with build date of November 2011, it uses the same RX815ELT microATX board as the 4x40 display models
- This is one of the latest iterations of the manual:
https://www.transcat.com/media/pdf/optica_usersmanual_revg_english.pdf
- The 4x40 models can still utilize a VGA display, you just have to plug one into the vga cable that's inside the chassis connected to the board's VGA port.
- If your 4x40 model doesn't make forward progress at boot (ie: black bar for rows 2 and 4 on the display), connect a vga monitor and see what it says during POST. I found that our units would sit on POST with an error message after the CMOS battery had died, and it would also sometimes be waiting for floppy (drive A) activity. Installing anew battery for the BIOS and disabling the floppy peripheral allowed the machine to boot properly, and once it gets into windows, the PCI card will activate the built-in display.
- Due to the transient nature of flash storage, I would advise making a clone/image of the boot drive just to have as backup.
- If your model has PS/2 ports for keyboard, you may have to cut back some of the rubber on the plug of your keyboard as the ports are moderately recessed in the chassis.
- The first unit I found with the mini-ITX board has the "Jumping to 0x00224CB0" issue... when the CMOS battery died, the bios reset the SATA mode to "IDE." I installed a fresh battery and changed it back to AHCI. Thanks to Anders and Jerry, I can confirm that although I still get the "jumping to..." error, the machine does indeed continue booting and the Optica software loads shortly afterward.
- the absolute ONLY other place I found any talk online regarding the Jumping error message was on a random dude's personal blog;
http://gopinaths.gitlab.io/post/running_usbport_tests_wince_cetk_cepc/
I'm sure the same page came up for everyone else who has also searched this error, but basically it sounds like it's more of an issue with the deployment of the windows image itself. If you mash F8 during windows' boot on the Optica, you can get into the command prompt and fish around a bit; you'll see some of the same components that that blog mentions. I haven't dug any deeper than that, and I may not bother now that i know the unit will just continue booting past the error message after I switched SATA to AHCI mode.
I don't know if any of this adds to the discussion or not, but hopefully it helps someone out there.
Anders Petersson:
Thanks ew2097. This matches my experience too.
Nowadays Optica is sold by Panametrics, a branch of Baker Hughes. Panametrics issued a manual in April 2022, but it's exactly the same "Rev G" as in December 2015, only branded with the Panametrics logo. So it's safe to say this is the latest.
I have backed up the flash drive from one of my units. The elusive 'remote control' software mentioned in the manual is stored there. I could decompile the Java code and now it should be easy to recreate the undocumented API for changing Optica settings. I want to add this to my PC program since navigating the built-in interface of Optica is such a pain. And the settings don't stick for me anyway.
dcmxx:
I also got a GE Optica from ebay for the same purposes (getting a RH/DP reference meter)
My unit also had the same problem. As i recall i also changed the resolution in the bios before the unit could boot correctly.
I also got a SIM-12H probe with the matching cable, that came from another unit.
Right now i'm trying to test the accuracy of the unit, but their measurements doesn't agrees with another chilled mirror meter (a Edgetech Dewprime II)
none of the meters are formally calibrated but the temperature meassurement of the probe in the Edgetech was adjusted against a calibrated sprt.
I'm looking if someone knows how to access the calibration parameters of the GE Optica.
There's a hidden menu accessed pushing the lower blue button and the number two on the main screen. This shows another screen with a password field and some comment fields, but i haven't progessed any further
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