Methods and marking devices with mechanisms for indicating and/or detecting marking material color

摘要

Methods and marking devices for indicating and/or detecting a color of marking material used in performance of a marking operation to mark the presence or absence of an underground facility are described. Information about the color of the marking material may optionally be logged or stored by a marking device and/or transmitted to an external device.

主权项

1. A hand-held marking device to mark a presence or an absence of an underground facility in a dig area, comprising:
a hand-held housing to dispense a marking material onto ground for marking the presence or the absence of the underground facility in the dig area; a marking dispenser holder affixed to the hand-held housing to hold a marking dispenser; a presence sensor in the marking dispenser holder to detect a presence of the marking dispenser within the marking dispenser holder; an actuator to cause dispensing of the marking material from the marking dispenser onto the ground to mark the presence or the absence of the underground facility in the dig area; a multiple-position marking material selector to provide marking material information in response to user selection, wherein the marking material information comprises paint color information; a local memory to store the marking material information from the marking material selector; and a processing device communicatively coupled to the presence sensor, the multiple-position marking material selector, and the local memory, wherein the processing device is configured to control logging of the marking material information provided by the multiple-position marking material selector in the local memory when the presence of the marking dispenser is detected by the presence sensor.