The TOTAL trailer was built using a dual-axle 20-ft car hauler. The low profile design of a car hauler trailer allows for a low center of gravity as well as providing a reasonable height above ground for the instrumentation. Within the aluminum-covered shell of the TOTAL trailer are all of the power and computational needs of the trailer. Twenty-four marine-grade batteries can power the instruments for at least 24 hours (depending what is running and if heating elements are turned on). The trailer can also run on direct power plug-in for multi-day or even multi-week data collection.
Available Gauges and Instruments/Equipment
The design of the TOTAL trailer allows for flexibility with instrumentation that can be installed on it as well as their placement on the trailer. Five 20-ft slotted strut channels are placed on the top of the trailer where the mounts for the instruments can be bolted to, allow for various arrangement of instruments based on the scientific objectives and the instruments needed for those specific data collections.
The following gauges and instrumentation/equipment is available for use with the TOTAL trailer:
- NovaLynx 260-2500E-12 Heated Tipping Bucket Rain Gauge (with Alter shield)
- OTT Pluvio2 S 400 mm Heated Weighing Gauge (with Alter shield)
- CoCoRaHS Cylinder Rain Gauge
- OTT Parsival2 Disdrometer
- Vaisala FD70 Forward Scatter Sensor
- Luft WS100 Radar Precipitation Senosr
- Pond Engineering K63 Hotplate Total Precipitation Gauge
- Mobile Mesonet Rack (Temperature, Humidity, Pressure, Wind; permanently fixed to front of trailer)
- EFM-100C RS485 Boltek Electric Field Mill (deployable up to 100-ft away from the trailer)
- Infrasonic Detector
- AllSkyCams ALLSKY7 360-Degree Camera
- GoPro MAX 6K Camera