Nathan Scheider using the Mesa 2 Rugged Tablet and Envision Gas Analyzer
The workday for Carl Berthiaume starts when he warms up his Envision Gas Analyzer System for fieldwork that will send him riding on an ATV from gas well to gas well in frigid air that seems to call Quebec, Canada home.
Berthiaume, the chief field operator of biogas extraction for Waste Connections of Canada, first connects the Archer 2 Rugged Handheld to the analyzer through Bluetooth ® . Next, he checks the calibration on the analyzer. His team of five then throw on safety gear and heads into the field where they maintain around 600 wells and drains on four landfill fields.
The Envision Gas Analyzer System is from Elkins Earthworks, an industry-leading design and manufacturing company. Elkins Earthworks specializes in portable landfill gas analysis equipment, including the Envision Gas Analyzer System that features two parts. The first part is the Envision Gas Analyzer that measures the pressure, temperature, and flow of landfill gas and details the concentration of CH4, CO2, and O2 to a hundredth of a percentage point. The second part consists of one of two rugged handhelds from Juniper Systems – the compact Archer 2 or the Mesa 2 Rugged Tablet, a 7-inch rugged tablet that runs Windows 10 or Android.
“The whole setup is better,” Berthiaume says about the Envision Gas Analyzer System. “The analyzer is more precise. The screen on the Archer 2 is a lot brighter than other handhelds, allowing us to see in the sun, and the built-in barcode scanner is enormously helpful to collect well data.”
Berthiaume, a 15-year veteran of biogas extraction, is not alone in his assessment of the system.
“It’s the holy grail for landfill,” says Nathan Schneider, the operations manager at Advanced Disposal. Schneider, however, opts for a different handheld: the Mesa 2 Rugged Tablet. The system works well because Elkins Earthworks designed it for people like Schneider.
Elkins Earthworks designed the Envision Gas Analyzer System from the ground up with industry knowledge that comes directly from technicians in the field. That is why the user-friendly system allows technicians to adjust a wellhead parameter in the field from a rugged handheld.
“The Mesa 2 is the perfect fit for the analyzer: it’s durable, it’s rugged, and it’s built for landfill use,” Schneider says. “And the analyzer is the perfect landfill gas monitor too if there ever was one.”
The Mesa 2 and Archer 2 are both waterproof, dustproof, and shockproof and feature daylight-readable displays and all-day battery capacity.
“We love it for landfill gas because, by nature, it can be very smelly,” Schneider says. “The separate devices mean that the tablet can come into the office and the monitor can stay outside. Plus because the tablet is so rugged, you can easily and safely wipe it down whenever you need.”
Schneider says he often brings the Mesa 2 into the office because it has become his de-facto computer.
In the field, GPS on the Mesa 2 navigates him to a well where the analyzer quickly takes measurements – like liquid levels – and beams the data through Bluetooth straight into an Excel spreadsheet. Once Schneider is in the office again, the data transfers through Wi-Fi to the company’s management system and the same Wi-Fi connection beams back data to the system if it needs a software update or customer service assistance.
Schneider uses the system five or six days a week on a 104-acre Wisconsin landfill where his team throws on shoulder straps and ventures into the field to make around 350 monthly readings. Schneider was the first manager at Advanced Disposal to integrate the Envision Gas Analyzer System with the Mesa 2 into day-to-day operations, but the system has since spread to the majority of the company’s Midwest operations.
“It’s basically a computer for the elements,” Schneider says about the Mesa 2. “The whole system works seamlessly and it’s a perfect size – that’s why we fell in love with it from the get-go.”
For more information about the Envision Gas Analyzer System, contact Elkins Earthworks here.