To maximize the lifespan of your scanner, please follow the instructions below to prepare the scanner for use:
A fully charged battery will slowly blink a green light while connected on the charger as briefly shown in this video
Your scanner is delivered in a cardboard box. The box includes:
1. Scanner case
2. Accessories
The Scanner is a Near infra-Red (NIR) measuring device. Proper care of the sensor head is needed to ensure a good performance of the device. Therefore, the bottom needs to be kept clean at all times by using the brush and a towel. The glass surface of the handheld scanner needs to be cleaned using wet wipes (EtOH). This is to prevent re-analyzing remaining raw materials of the previous sample. The EC probes, temperature probe and glass window need to be kept clean between every scan of your sample. Preferably between scans of the same sample as well. A clean scanner produces the most reliable results.
First clean the probes and the glass window with the black brush (delivered with the scanner). As shown in the picture below.
If needed (for example when scanning a wet or dirty sample) clean the bottom of the scanner and the glass with a paper towel or moist cotton towel. Be careful not to scratch the surface of the window, scratches can influence the reliability of the scan. When the scratches on the glass are too severe then the scans will be rejected and a replacement of the glass window is needed.
The calibration cap is used to maintain a high performance of the scanner. The white side (no 7a) of the cap needs to be kept clean (white). The yellow side (no 7b) needs to be kept clean and dry. It is not possible to clean the yellow side of the cap. Moisture will damage the yellow surface. If the calibration cap is not properly maintained then a replacement of the cap might be necessary. Therefore it is important to keep the scanner clean before it is placed on the calibration cap
How to clean the calibration cap:
When the white is not completely white anymore or the fibers of the yellow set loose, then the calibration cap will not be accepted by the program anymore. A replacement of the cap is needed. A new calibration cap can be ordered via AgroCares support.
Charge your scanner as follows:
The green battery light of the scanner will start blinking brightly and frequently when charging. If the green battery light gives just a small blink once in a while then the scanner is on the stand-by mode. A fully charged scanner will automatically go to stand-by.
Please note that the scanner also uses power in the stand-by mode. It can last on a full battery for two weeks. After that it needs to be charged again. A full battery can finish at least 20 orders. When working efficiently it can finish up to 35 orders on a full battery.
Intermediate charging is possible while scanning and processing orders, this will increase the number of orders you can finish before the battery is empty. Use of battery power while scanning is larger than the additional power that is achieved when scanning and charging simultaneously. This means that the scanner still gets empty when the scanner is used and charged in the meantime.
The battery of the scanner does not need to be emptied fully before charging. Frequent charging does not decrease the batteries lifetime.
If the scanner doesn’t start charging when connected to the power, then reset the scanner. You can do this by holding the magnet of the charger briefly against the ‘Reset’ button on the scanner, as shown in the picture. You will hear a soft click. After resetting, please connect your scanner again to the power.
Your scanner is delivered in a carton box. The carton box includes a:
Metal Case
Accessories box
The inside of the scanner includes a battery circuit board, NIR (near infra-red) light source and a LED light source. The outer part of the scanner consists of metal, plastic and inside some rubber protection. The image below gives an overview of the outside specifications of the scanner and calibration cap.
The scanner needs to be charged for 11 hours on a one ampere power socket. It can be connected with an android smartphone via Bluetooth. The Bluetooth connection makes it possible to send scans from the scanner to the database. Uploading files to the database uses about 100kb and retrieving the results from the database takes 100 to 200 kb depending on the size of a complete report.
On the Scanner handle are 3 lights located that indicate the status.
This video shows the difference of the battery light when the scanner is charging or when it is in stand-by mode.
After the start up sequence, the scanner is ready for the Bluetooth connection with the smart phone. (For an instruction on how to connect the phone and scanner, click here). The battery light is now on continuously, the Bluetooth light starts blinking and the scan button is off. This video shows the sequence.
When the scanner is connected to the phone and inside the app the scan menu has been started the scanner is ready to start the scanning process. The scanner can only start the scanning process when all the lights are continuously on. Click on the following article to see how to perform a scan with the Scanner.
When you start up the scanner is performs a internal system check. This starts when the scan button has been pressed for >3 seconds. It starts with a beeping sound and blinking simultaneously of the scan and battery light. This video shows the sequence.
The next video shows how the light sequence looks when you turn off your Scanner device. When the scan button is pressed for more than 3 seconds the scanner will shut down. The scanner will make a beeping sound and the battery light starts flashing red and the scan light green.
A reset is needed when the scanner is unresponsive even after trying to reconnect the scanner to the phone using the Bluetooth button in the app.
That reconnect is needed when the SCAN button light does not illuminate.
A soft reset is done by holding the SCAN button until a beep is heard (~10 seconds) and the lights switch off. Then the scanner can be turned on again by pressing and holding the SCAN button.
A hard reset is done by taking the charging cable and touching the magnetic switch on the side of the scanner housing with the charging plug (see picture below). The switch is a small black dot marked ‘reset’.
Note that AgroCares advises not to perform a hard reset unless absolutely necessary.
Also, when you switch from an iOS application to an Android application or vice versa, a hard reset is necessary.