Hi, my name is Puleng Moshele
and I'm an industrial hygiene student at the University of Minnesota.
This video is an illustration of how to use a DustTrak particle counter.
I'm using DustTrak DRX Model 8533.
It is a real-time instrument used to measure aerosol
contaminants such as dust, fumes, mold, and mists.
It can be used in many industrial and occupational hygiene settings.
In this illustration, I'm measuring particles generated from pouring of cat litter.
First, I place the instrument in close proximity to the particles of interest.
This is called particle detectable range.
Turn on the instrument and press start.
Doing this prompts the instrument to automatically run on survey mode.
Survey mode runs for about 10-60 seconds,
but there is no real recording of the data.
It is important not to skip this step because it helps warm up the instrument.
Also, it can help clean up residue left over from previous measurements.
Once survey mode is completed,
press stop to start taking measurements.
We will be changing the run mode
for this particular sampling.
For our run mode, we will be using manual mode
so that we can input our preferred settings.
In this illustration I will be sampling for ten minutes.
Five minutes for taking sample background measurements,
and five minutes to take measurements upon pouring of the cat litter.
As you can see on the screen, there is a test length,
log interval, and a time constant.
Test length is the total time that you will be using for sampling,
log interval is the time between adjacent sample measurements,
and time constant is the time across which the data will be averaged.
Once those are done, you can
hit start to start taking the measurements.
One of the benefits of using
a DustTrak is that it provides real-time aerosol mass readings
while also separating data into different mass concentration fractions.
As you can see on the top right corner of the instrument,
it is showing mass fractions for
PM1.0, PM2.5, the respirable fraction, and PM10,
and as the instrument runs,
these different concentrations are also displayed on the monitor.
I will be running my baseline again for five minutes.
So, the instrument will be running, and for the sake of time
I will be fast-forwarding and showing you
measurements just before
I pour the cat litter.
I am now nearing my five minute mark
for which I will start pouring the cat litter.
As you can see at baseline, the concentrations are fairly constant,
and that will start changing once I pour the cat litter.
Wait five minutes, we pour the cat litter into the bucket
and dust is being generated from this action.
As dust is being generated, the instrument is picking and measuring dust particles
and recording the data on our monitor,
and like I said, the mass concentration
is going to be constantly changing as the different particles
are being generated. You can see our total mass concentration
is changing in our different mass fractions.
So, for the sake of time, I am going to jump on to the eight minute mark to see what is happening.
We are at eight minutes, and
the total mass concentration is all still changing,
but it's likely lower now that the particles being generated
are not as much now that we're done with the action of pouring the cat litter,
and I will jump to the end of the ten minute mark.
I am now nearing my ten minute mark.
The instrument, because I set it up so, will automatically stop
That means all my measurements have been taken,
and now I will go ahead and just
graph the data to see if it is what I expected.
I started taking measurements at around 14:48.
The monitor here displays the data backwards.
So, on my right is at 14:48, and as you can see at five minutes,
then we have that fluctuation happening,
and this is when I started pouring the cat litter
and we have the fluctuation of measurements being taken,
and now that has been done, it is what I actually expected.
I'll go ahead, turn off the instrument, and my data is automatically saved.
Now I'll be downloading the data from the instrument into my computer.
To do this, I need the TSI software.
It's already installed on my computer, so I will go ahead and open it.
The instrument is also connected to the computer at this point.
Then, I'll go ahead and click
.
What is happening right now is that the instrument is
communicating with the software, and the software is extracting the data.
So, the data has been extracted,
and I'll go ahead and select the data that I want.
It is displayed by date. I know the date and time of which I did this,
so I will just select that particular file and receive it.
It says it is 600 samples, which sounds about right because
I recorded for ten minutes at each second.
So, this is what I actually expect.
Once this is done, I will go ahead and close.
I also want to visualize my data, so I will go and select a .
The data report displays all my data as it is.
It shows the date, the time,
the different mass concentrations, and all the different time points.
Within the software, you can also graph your data.
There is a short cut for this and you can also find it on a tab next to .
I am going to rename my graph,
select the data that I want to graph,
and here is how the graphs look.
So, each mass concentration fraction is displayed
using a different color.
So, there's graphs for PM1, PM2.5, respirable fraction, PM10,
and total mass fraction.
Once I'm done visualizing my data, I would also like to
export this data as a CSV file.
This is so I can import it into different software to analyze it.
So, I'm going to go ahead, , , select my test data, and
then I will save it. In this case, I'm saving it on my desktop, and I'm naming it.
This is important because to analyze the data
one may choose to use different software such as SAS, R, or SQL,
and when you have a CSV file, that becomes easier.
So, I'm going ahead and exporting this data,
and once this is done, I can now exit the software.
Now, I will be importing my data into an Excel spreadsheet.
And to do this I will open up Excel,
, , .
Then, I will click the data that I want.
It is a text file, so I will open it up and import it.
Then, import wizard will open up.
One of the things that I like doing is selecting where to input the data from.
This is because when the data is being downloaded from the software
it has some information that you may not necessarily need for Excel.
So, I went ahead, and I scrolled down,
and I know that I want to just import the data from line 27
and ignore everything else.
So, that is what I am going to do. The wizard will prompt me for next steps.
So, I want a comma separated file, and this is what I have now,
and that's what I'll open.
So, the data is now being displayed on Excel.
I have the date, the time, and the different mass concentration fractions.
I also just like scrolling down.
I know that I have 600 time points,
and so that's what I am going to do to make sure I have all my data points.
The main reason why we download data into Excel
is really for different graphing purposes.
So, I'm just going to go ahead and just show a simple XY scatter plot that you can show from this data.
So, I went ahead and I highlighted the data that I wanted,
and I selected an XY scatter plot,
and this is how Excel automatically generates the data.
But, it doesn't look how I want it to look. So, I'm going to ahead and
change the scale to log scale, which is what I did,
and so this is how the data looks on log scale. As you can see,
the different mass fractions are also color coded in different graphs.
We can't really see PM1.0,
but we can clearly see the other different fractions.
Once you have your chart and your graph on Excel,
you can now go ahead and edit it as you wish.
You can change your chart title, your axis labels.
You can also go ahead and maybe delete one of the
mass concentration fractions if you just want to visualize one.
So, there are different options to do once the data is on Excel,
and that is how you export your data into an Excel spreadsheet.