DMM for Windows FAQ

DMM for Windows has been replaced by DigiPro2.
The basic version of DigiPro2 is free to use, just as DMM was.

Question: Why did you replace DMM?

Answer: DMM was written in Microsoft VB6. Microsoft discontinued support for VB6 development tools some time ago, making bug fixes and further development nearly impossible. In addition, Microsoft warned that Windows 7 would not support for the VB6 runtime. In fact, they relented and included some minimal VB6 runtime support in Win7, but it is certain that DMM will stop running in some future update of Windows.

For that reason, we developed DigiPro2 to replace both DMM and the original DigiPro. Development took over a year, but it is written in C# and is guaranteed to run on future updates of Windows. We encourage everyone to migrate to DigiPro2 sooner rather than later.

Question: DMM won’t communicate with my DataMate II. Can you help?

Answer: Please take a look at the DataMate Communications FAQ.

Question: I have a survey listed under the wrong site and installation name. How can I move it to the correct site and installation.

Answer: DMM for Windows makes this easy. Here’s how:

1. Select the misplaced survey.
2. Click Edit Add to pop up the edit window.
3. Choose the correct installation from the drop down list at the top of the edit window, and click OK. This makes a copy of the survey and places it under the correct installation.
4. Finally, clean up the database. The original survey – the one you copied – is still there. Select it and click the delete button to remove it from the database.

After you do this, check the installation information stored in your Digitilt DataMate. Is it correct?

Question: I have several projects. I want to have a few inclinometer installations from each project listed in my DataMate. I also want the DataMate to have have one previous survey for each installation. How do I set this up?

Answer: Make a composite setup database. Here’s how:

To send installations and datasets (surveys) to the DataMate, you make a “setup” database. To make a setup database, simply save your project database as a setup database. DMM makes a copy of the database and then strips out any data, so all that remains is installation information. To add a previous survey to the setup database, view your project database and setup database side by side (Use the Ctrl-T Tile command) and click-drag-and-drop the needed surveys from the project database to the setup database. Just drop the survey anywhere in the white window. It will find its own way home. Now you can close the project database, but keep your setup database open.

Now, open another project database and tile it side by side with your setup database. You’ll be doing click-drag-and-drop operations again. Click-drag-and-drop surveys that you want in the DataMate. The surveys will bring installation information automatically. (Watch out: if you drag an installation, the installation will bring along all of its surveys. So drag a survey, not an installation).

Repeat this for any other installations that you need. Keep in mind that the DataMate has a 40 installation limit and limited space for datasets (surveys).

When the setup database holds the installations and surveys that you need, send the setup to the DataMate. This will cause the DataMate to delete everything that is in its memory and replace it with the contents of the setup database. So be sure that you have retrieved anything that you want from the DataMate before you send the setup.

Question: I want to delete an installation (or two) from the DataMate, but not everything in memory. How can I do that?

Answer: You can’t do exactly that, but here is a workaround that provides the same result.

1. Choose “DataMate -> Retrieval All.”
2. DMM retrieves data and displays a temporary database (“Data retrieved from DataMate”).
3. Delete any unwanted data from the temporary database.
4. Choose “DataMate ->Send Setup” to transfer the edited database to the DataMate.
5. You’ll see a warning. Click OK to continue.
6. Now the DataMate contains the edited database.

Question: I can’t transfer data from the DataMate to the PC. When I drag the surveys, everything looks right, but when I check the database, the data isn’t there. What’s going on?

Answer: Do it this way: CLICK, then drag and drop. First click on the survey to select it. You’ll see the color change. After the survey is selected, you can drag and drop it. Give it a try: CLICK, drag, and drop. It works.

Question: We’ll be adding lengths of casing to our inclinometer. How do we handle this in DMM?

Answer: There are two things to consider: (1) Depth control, and (2) building a composite initial survey.

Depth Control
Slope Indicator’s accuracy specifications assume that the probe can be positioned repeatably within 0.25 inch (6 mm) for each depth in your survey. To achieve this positioning accuracy, you carefully align the depth markers on the control cable with a consistent reference, such as the top of the casing or the cleats on the pulley assembly.

When you add casing, you must establish a new reference. The new reference should be consistent with your original reference, so that the probe will be placed at the same locations in the casing as before. Suppose your initial reading depths were 70, 68, 66 … feet, and then you add four feet of casing. Now the corresponding depths, as measured from the top with your control cable, are 74, 72, 70… feet. However, if you add 5 feet of casing, instead of four, the corresponding depths are 75, 73, 71, etc. This is a problem because the cable has 2-foot graduations. Thus, you should change your top reference, so that you can use cable depths of 75, 72, 50…

Composite Initial Survey
Displacements are calculated by subtracting the initial readings from current readings. Suppose your initial survey has data from 70 feet to 2 feet (35 readings). You may have recorded several surveys using these depths. Then you add casing, so your current survey runs from 74 feet to 2 feet (37 readings). Displacement calculations will fail at the top two depths because you have no initial readings for those depths. The solution is to build a composite initial survey that contains the initial readings of any new casing. Here is how we would build a composite initial survey for our example.

1. Our entail survey has 35 depths (70 feet to 2 feet).

2. Our current survey has 37 depths (74 feet to 2 feet). The two additional readings are at 2 and 4 feet. Select that survey, right click, and choose print from the pop-up menu. You’ll need the values from the top two depths in step 5.

3. Select the initial survey and click the Edit/Add button. The edit dialog pops up.

4. Renumber the existing depths, adding 4 feet to each depth. For example, change 2 to 6, 4 to 8, 6 to 10…and so on.

5. When you get to the bottom, you’ll see a blank line. Enter a depth of 2 and the readings for that depth (from the current survey – the one you printed). Then enter a depth of 4 and the readings for that depth. When you click OK, DMM resorts the data in depth order, so that the two lines of readings that you entered are at the top.

6. You’re done. There is no need to adjust the other surveys. Now you can graph the data in DigiPro. DigiPro always plots each survey from the same bottom depth. The new bottom depth is 74 feet, so all the surveys will be plotted from 74 feet. However, plots with only 35 readings will end at 6 feet, while the plot of the current survey will end at 2 feet. DigiPro will automatically change labels to elevations, if you find that more convenient. (Note that DMM always stores data in depths rather than elevations).

Question: Is it possible to delete datasets from the Datamate using DMM for Windows?

Answer: Yes. When you send a “setup” database to the DataMate, it erases all installations (site and installation) and all datasets in the datamate. Then it restores the installations.

You can make a setup database from your project database with “save as”. The save as setup command, strips datasets, leaving only installations. You can also add other installations from other databases to the setup database, if necessary.

Question: When I try to communicate with the DataMate, DMM for Windows displays an error message, such as “unable to open port” or “error opening port”. What’s wrong?

Answer: This is a hardware problem and is answered on the DataMate Q&A page.

Question: Error 13 Type Mismatch. When I try to retrieve data from the DataMate, I get an error message: something about Runtime error 13: type mismatch. Are there any solutions?

Answer: Please download the latest version of DMM. That will probably fix the problem.

Question: Error 3051 apears when I try to open a database. What’s wrong?

Answer: Check to see if the file is marked “Read-Only.” Using Windows Explorer, select the database, then click the right mouse button and choose Properties. You can find file attributes at the bottom of the properties dialog. Remove the checkmark from Read Only. You may have to click the box more than once. Now DMM and DigiPro can open the database.

Question: My surveys are incorrectly marked “English” but I have a metric system (or my surveys are incorrectly marked “metric” but I have an English system). What’s going on?

Answer: There are two ways this can happen. (1) You are accidentally telling the DataMate that you have a metric (or English) system, or (2) the installation information in the DataMate is incorrect.

Case 1: When you start a survey using the DataMate, you choose an installation and then you must step through the installation parameters by pressing the Enter key. If you press the down arrow by mistake, you’ll change the value of that parameter. For example, if you press the down arrow at the Units prompt, you’ll change the value from English to metric or vice versa. It seems logical that you could press the down arrow to scroll through the readings, but you can’t. Always press the Enter key to step through the parameters.

Case 2: You should check that installation information in the DataMate is correct. Switch on the DataMate. Choose Read to display the Read menu. Then choose Installations. Scroll through the list of installations and choose the one that is causing problems. Then step through the installation parameters until you see Units. Set this to English or metric, depending on the type of probe that you have. Press Enter to see the next parameter, Ins Constant. Set this to 20000 for English probes or 25000 to metric probes. Also, check your DMM database to see that probe type and instrument constant are set properly for that installation.

Fixing Incorrectly Recorded Data: If you recorded an English probe with a metric setting in the DataMate, or you recorded a metric probe with an English setting in the DataMate, your data values are not correct. There are three solutions.

1. In DMM, edit each value in the affected survey.

2. In DMM, edit the

Apply a sensitivity correction in DigiPro.

3. Change the Probe Constant for that You can edit each value in the survey and keep , you can or you can change the instrument constant for each affected survey so that computed deviations and displacements will be correct. Here are instructions:

1. Open the project database, choose the appropriate installation.
2. Choose the appropriate survey and click the Edit Add button.
3. Change the value in the “probe constant” field as follows:

Question: Most of my surveys are marked Full Set = “T.” But sometimes I see a survey that is marked “Full Set = F.” What is wrong?

Answer: The full set flag tells DigiPro how to process the data. A T value indicates a normal two-pass survey, in which each depth has a 0 reading and a 180 reading). The software then combines the two readings and divides by 2. An F value tells the software that there is only a 0 reading and therefore no combining or dividing takes place. If you end your normal two-pass survey by choosing “Done,” the flag is set to T. However, if you end your survey by pressing Esc, the flag is set to False, even though all the data are present.

Question: I’m trying to import GTilt files, but DMM shows an error message – something about a field cannot have a zero value.

Answer: Your G-Tilt file may be missing a sensor (probe) serial number.

G-Tilt marks the start of every survey with a *. Count six lines down from the *. You should see a serial number or at least some sort of text. Go through each of your G-Tilt files. Look for the * and count six lines down. Enter the sensor serial number in that 6th line (or just type 12345). Look for additional *s in the file and check that the sixth line after each one has a serial number. You can put any text tha fIf you have multiple surveys in the file, you’ll have to make multiple entries.

*                         —- marks the start of a survey
070685             —- survey date
1327                 —- time hhmm
1400                 —- not used by DMM
Top of clamp   —- not used by DMM
31.2                  —- not used by DMM
12345               —- sensor serial number. line must not be empty