seismo-relay/docs/offset_investigation.md

The "offset" fault — investigation journal

A running record of the offset hardware fault on Instantel Series III seismographs: a geophone channel whose trace sits displaced from zero rather than centred on it.

This is a journal, not a spec. Findings are dated, dead ends are kept with the reason they died, and every number says where it came from. When something here is superseded, strike it and say why rather than deleting it — the point is that a future session can tell what was actually established from what was merely believed at the time.

Companion material:

• scratch/offset_scan.py — the detector
• scratch/verify_against_ascii.py — decoder verification harness
• docs/instantel_protocol_reference.md — wire protocol, incl. the unimplemented SUB 0x0E this investigation now wants

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TL;DR (current state, 2026-08-28)

• It is real device data, not a decode bug. Settled early and confirmed against Blastware's own ASCII exports.
• Base rate: 5–6 of 45 units (11–13%) across the full DL2 archive, 2018–2026. This confirms the earlier 2-of-21 (9.5%) estimate from the much smaller Terra-View DB — survivorship bias from deleted events had not concealed a wave of cases.
• The fault is bimodal, not a drift continuum. A unit is either clean or grossly off. Loosening the amplitude threshold 11× adds no new units.
• The unit's own sensor check cannot see it. 102 offset events, zero sensor-check failures. Do not try to use it as a screen.
• Cause is still unsettled. Instantel's autozero fixes the minority of cases; the rest are hardware. We cannot yet tell which is which remotely.
• Best open lead: SUB 0x0E (channel sensor data, 8 channels × 10 bytes, unimplemented) may carry the very numbers Instantel says to check against 2027–2069. Untested.

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1. What the fault looks like

A healthy geophone trace is centred on zero. An offset channel is parked away from zero, so the channel mean approaches its own peak. In Blastware the signature is "parallel lines above or below the zero line" (Instantel's own wording).

Consequences observed in the field:

• The unit can self-trigger on its own offset when the displacement exceeds the geo trigger level, producing streams of junk events with no ground motion. Instantel has a separate FAQ for this symptom (13-0-22, "Unit triggers continuously without activity").
• Recorded PPV for that channel is meaningless while the fault persists.

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2. The detector

Implemented in scratch/offset_scan.py. Operates on raw BW binaries only — no DB, no sidecars.

for each series-3 waveform binary:
    decode -> per-channel ADC counts
    dominant axis = channel with the largest |peak|
    flag when   |mean| / peak  >  0.70
          and   |mean|         >= 0.90 x the unit's geo trigger level
episodes = per-serial runs of flagged events, split on a >12 h gap

Why each term:

term	purpose
|mean|/peak > 0.7	the discriminator. A DC-parked trace has mean ≈ peak.
|mean| >= 0.9 × trigger	amplitude floor — suppresses quiet traces where mean and peak are both tiny and the ratio is meaningless.
dominant axis only	the fault is per-channel; scoring all three dilutes it.
12 h episode gap	separates deployments/visits rather than counting events.

Trigger level comes from a paired _ASCII.TXT when one exists, else the per-serial median learned from that unit's ASCII files, else 0.2 in/s.

Known limitation. Event traces contain real ground motion, so this can only see offsets large enough to dominate the trace. A mild offset on a real blast is invisible. Instantel's A/D-mode check (§5) is the only thing that sees the mild end. Our base rate is therefore a gross-offset rate.

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3. Archive results (2026-08-28)

Source: DL2 event export, 6,577 unique series-3 waveforms, 45 units. See dl2-archive for the Sent/ mirror trap.

283 suspect events, 15 episodes, 6 of 45 units (13.3%). Excluding BE11007 (§4, likely not an offset at all): 5 of 45 = 11.1%.

Threshold sensitivity — the bimodality result

Re-scoring the same corpus at a range of amplitude floors, with two ratio cut-offs (1 A/D count = 0.005 in/s, see §5):

|offset| floor	m/p > 0.7	m/p > 0.9
5 cts (0.025 in/s) — Instantel's own	333 ev / 6 units	279 ev / 5 units
10 cts (0.050)	294 / 6	274 / 5
20 cts (0.100)	250 / 5	244 / 4
40 cts (0.200)	209 / 5	203 / 4
80 cts (0.400)	152 / 4	148 / 2
160 cts (0.800)	144 / 2	141 / 1

Relaxing the floor by 11× (0.27 → 0.025 in/s) adds ~14% more events and no new units. There is no population of mild offsets hiding below our threshold in event data. Either a unit is clean or it is grossly off.

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4. Per-unit case files

Ordered by severity. m/p medians are on the offending channel.

BE13117 — one violent day, never again

145 / 454 events (32%), 1 episode, 2023-05-04, 6.8 h. Offset climbed 0.393 → 1.875 in/s within the episode. m/p median 0.996 — the trace is almost pure DC. No recurrence in the rest of its 454 events. No ASCII files in the archive, so no calibration history.

BE18438 — recurring, months apart

87 / 293 (30%), 2 episodes: 2025-11-15 (1.2 h, n=12, 0.279 → 0.369) and 2026-02-25 (28.8 h, n=75, 0.183 → 0.366). m/p median 0.967. Clean across all 196 events preceding its 2025-08-12 calibration.

BE9558 — six years apart

38 / 196 (19%), 4 episodes: 2020-02-11 (6.3 h, n=33, but only 0.068 → 0.086 — very mild), then 2026-04-14, 2026-04-29, 2026-05-04 (0.28–0.45). m/p median 0.919. Calibrated 2026-06-26; 0/7 events flagged after, but n=7 is far too small to call it fixed.

BE12599 — the live case ⚠

6 / 77 (8%), 6 single-event episodes, one per day at exactly 05:00, 2026-08-17 → 2026-08-23. Offset rose 0.383 → 0.565 then fell back to 0.345. m/p ≈ 0.965, geo trigger 0.3 in/s — the offset exceeds the trigger level, so the unit is triggering on its own fault. Last calibrated 2025-08-12.

This is the most recent and the most useful: a currently-faulting unit is the natural experiment for the re-zero-vs-repair question (§7).

BE11529 — marginal

4 / 99 (4%), 1 episode 2025-07-08, 0.4 h, offsets only 0.051 → 0.058 in/s. m/p median 0.959, so DC-dominated, but the magnitude is near the noise of this method. Treat as unconfirmed.

BE11007 — probably NOT an offset

3 / 70 (4%), 1 episode 2022-01-17, offsets 5.500 → 6.904 in/s — by far the largest. But m/p is only 0.719–0.738 against ≥0.9 for every other unit, and the peaks are 7.6–9.4 in/s on a 10 in/s range. That reads as a large real blast with asymmetric ground motion, not a parked trace. Excluded from the headline base rate.

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5. Instantel's own procedure and thresholds

From two Instantel technical-support FAQs supplied 2026-08-28 (answers 13-0-21 "How to determine offsets" and 12-0-10 "Removing offsets on an Instantel Series III monitor"; created 2008/2007, last updated 2009-03-06).

Identifying (13-0-21)

1. Create or use an event with the manual minimum trigger set for the connected geophone and microphone — i.e. an event that recorded no real data.
2. Save it and open in Blastware.
3. An offset shows as parallel lines above or below the zero line.
4. Put the unit in A/D mode — on Series III, press and hold OPTION, then press START MONITOR.
5. Display counts higher than 5, with no vibration or overpressure present, indicate an offset.

Removing — the autozero (12-0-10)

1. Be in a quiet area with low vibration.
2. Power on the Blastmate III / Minimate Plus.
3. Connect the geophone and microphone — LINEAR mic only. ⚠ Do not connect an "A" weight microphone, regardless of what the monitor displays.
4. Press Test.
5. Wait for the Sensor Check results to appear.
6. Press OPTION and START MONITOR simultaneously.
7. Performing Autozero appears; press Enter.
8. Confirm the sensors are properly connected; press Enter.
9. Wait for the autozero to complete.
10. Press Enter twice → Main Menu, Ready To Monitor, offset corrected.

The go/no-go number — 2027 to 2069

When you perform an Autozero on any Series III unit, the lists of numbers in the X1 and X8 gains should all be between 2027 and 2069. If not, repeat the Autozero. If the numbers are extremely out of the specified range, then the unit should be sent in for repair.

If this process does not remove the offset problem, return the unit and sensors to Instantel for repair.

This is the documented explanation for the field experience (Brian's dad, 2026-08-28) that a re-zero works maybe 10% of the time — the autozero only recovers units whose zero reference is still near-correct.

Scale derivation (inference, well-supported — not proven)

2048 is 12-bit midscale. Our codec's geo full scale is 32000 internal counts = 10 in/s, with 1 decoder unit = 16 counts = exactly 0.005 in/s (geo-full-scale-is-32000-counts). ±2000 A/D counts about 2048 therefore maps to ±10 in/s at 0.005 in/s per A/D count. That makes:

• Instantel's ">5 counts" threshold ≈ 0.025 in/s
• the 2027–2069 window = ±21 counts = ±0.105 in/s of tolerated zero error

Consistent and mutually corroborating, but we have not confirmed the A/D-count scale directly from a device reading.

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6. Ruled out — keep these dead

Condensation / humidity — DEAD (2026-08-25)

Proposed, then killed by its own controls: BE18438 stayed flat across a 10-hour overnight gap, and only 2 of 21 units showed the fault while 19 sat in the same weather. The apparent "diurnal cycle" was an artifact of binning by hour-of-day across two days. See waveform-dc-offset-is-real-device-data.

Clipping as a false-positive source — RULED OUT (2026-08-28)

A rail-hitting trace would fake an offset (mean → peak). It isn't happening: median suspect peak is only 10% of full scale, p90 is 18.6%. Only BE11007's 3 events exceed 50% FS, and none reach 98%.

The sensor check as a predictor — DOES NOT WORK (2026-08-28)

Tested on 102 offset events across 4 units:

unit	state	n	failed	median ratio	median freq
BE11529	offset	4	0	3.90	7.6
BE11529	clean	14	0	3.80	7.5
BE12599	offset	6	0	4.00	7.4
BE12599	clean	13	0	4.00	7.6
BE18438	offset	87	0	3.70	7.6
BE18438	clean	25	0	3.80	7.5
BE9558	offset	5	0	3.90	7.8
BE9558	clean	44	0	3.80	7.5

Zero failures on either side and indistinguishable ratios/frequencies. The swing test measures geophone frequency response and damping — it never examines DC zero. A grossly offset unit passes its own self-check. This is why the fault goes unnoticed until somebody looks at waveforms.

"Offsets develop N months after calibration" — CONFOUNDED, NOT A FINDING

Tempting, and it looked strong:

unit	suspect before latest cal	after
BE18438	0 / 196	87 / 97
BE12599	0 / 62	6 / 15
BE11529	0 / 82	4 / 17
BE9558	38 / 189	0 / 7

But bucketing suspects by months-since-calibration gives one unit per bucket: 0–3mo={BE11529}, 3–6 & 6–9mo={BE18438}, 9–12mo={BE9558}, 12–15mo={BE12599}. The apparent "51% failure rate at 6–9 months" is entirely BE18438's single February 2026 episode. Five units with roughly one episode each cannot support a population trend. Do not re-derive this.

Also note: all affected units are calibrated on a ~12–13 month cadence, so "sent to Instantel" is the routine annual schedule, not evidence of a fault-driven return.

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7. Open questions

Q1 — Is it a latched bad zero or analog degradation?

The question that decides everything. A latched zero is correctable (possibly over the wire); degradation means a repair. Instantel's 2027–2069 rule implies both populations exist, with the split roughly 10/90 in the field.

BE12599 is the natural experiment — faulting as of 2026-08-23. Read its values, run the autozero, read them again.

Q2 — Can we read the autozero numbers over the wire? (best lead)

Instantel says to check "the lists of numbers in the X1 and X8 gains" — 4 sensors × 2 gains = 8 channels. The protocol reference already documents an unimplemented command with exactly that shape:

SUB 0x0E  ->  RSP 0xF1     "channel sensor data"
  2-step read; channel selector in params[6:8] = 0x0000..0x0007
  data length 0x0A (10 bytes) per channel

Blastware's Unit Channel Test sequence: POLL×N → 0x15 → 0x01 → 0x08 → 0x01 → 0x0E×8 → 0x98×2 → 0x0E×8 — note the second 0x0E pass carries live ADC readings.

Hypothesis (untested): 0x0E returns the numbers Instantel wants compared against 2027–2069. If true, SFM could diagnose an offset remotely and predict whether a re-zero will succeed — converting a 10%/90% shipping gamble into a decision made before packing a box.

How to test. bridges/ach_mitm.py is a generic TCP proxy:

python bridges/ach_mitm.py --bw-host <MODEM_IP> --bw-port 9034 --listen-port 9999

Point Blastware at the proxy and run Unit Channel Test. ⚠ In this topology the output filenames are reversed — the tool labels the connecting side "unit", so raw_s3_*.bin holds Blastware's bytes and raw_bw_*.bin the unit's.

Capture priority: (1) BE12599 while faulting, (2) a known-good unit as control, (3) before/after an autozero on the same unit. Eight 10-byte payloads with an expected value near 2048 is a very constrained puzzle.

Q3 — What is the mild-offset rate?

Unmeasurable from event files (§2). Only the A/D-mode check sees it. Would need a fleet sweep in A/D mode, or Q2 to succeed.

Q4 — Does an offset recur on the same unit after service?

BE9558 shows episodes in 2020 and 2026; BE18438 twice in four months. Suggestive of recurrence, but service records aren't in the data — only calibration dates.

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8. Data and tooling

what	where
detector	scratch/offset_scan.py
current results	/home/serversdown/dl2-archive/offset_archive.csv
earlier candidate list (Terra-View DB, 274 events)	scratch/offset_candidates.csv
archive working copy	/home/serversdown/dl2-archive/files/
archive source	NAS DeathStar 10.0.0.2, /volume1/Uploads/TMI/DL2-Event-backup-8-25-26/Event/autocall home/

⚠ The DL2 export keeps a byte-identical Sent/ mirror of its root. 13,077 waveform paths are 6,577 distinct files. Always dedupe by basename — this doubled two reported figures before it was caught.

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9. Chronology

date	event
2026-08-25	Reported as a waveform decode bug — traces with a DC offset. Investigation shows the offset is real device data; the decoder is correct.
2026-08-25	Brian relays his dad's description: a known hardware fault called an "offset"; usually sent to Instantel.
2026-08-25	First detection pass over the Terra-View DB: 2 of 21 units, 274 events, 11 months. Flagged as vulnerable to survivorship bias — flooded events were routinely deleted.
2026-08-25	Condensation hypothesis proposed, then killed by its own controls.
2026-08-25	Parked pending the multi-year archive.
2026-08-28	DL2 archive pulled (33 GB, 546k files; 6.6 GB working set).
2026-08-28	Archive scan: 6 of 45 units, 283 events, 15 episodes. Prior base rate confirmed, not overturned.
2026-08-28	Clipping ruled out; m/p established as the discriminator; BE11007 reclassified as probably a real blast.
2026-08-28	Calibration-timing correlation attempted and rejected as confounded.
2026-08-28	Instantel FAQs supplied: autozero procedure, the 2027–2069 window, the >5 counts threshold. Explains the ~10% re-zero success rate.
2026-08-28	Bimodality established; sensor check proven blind to offsets; SUB 0x0E identified as the best open lead.