proto PPM-MarkII ready to run at sea

That looks terrific! Nice work. Do you really need to go all that way to test it?

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  This is not me : but a client who proposed to test it there.
However, it is true that it is far away from civilization.
Willy
The cable is already paired with a thick fishing line (that one used to fish sharks) and the towing force is applied to it rather than to the shielded cable.
They will attach a number of small buoys on the cable to avoid it to drop at the bottom of the sea when the boat stops or turns.
The nose of the fish has been filled with a lead weight to keep it down.
The fish is attached to a buoy through a cable whose length is set according to the depth they want to survey.

Willy

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Note that the 'only' tests to be made there were about the water-tight sensor as the control box and its firmware have already been thoroughly tested in various test sites, much noisier that at sea.
Thus, most of the tests at Mauritius were concerned with the hydro-dynamic behaviour of the towing fish and the rehearsal of the manual operations needed for the actual surveys.

The control box and its connectors are IP68-grade but only when the connectors ARE connected and securely tighted. However, all the connectors will need to be equipped with water-tight caps to protect the circuits from the salted moisture while not being connected (before the actual surveys).

The small plastic fisherman's boat of the above picture will be completed with a small cockpit at its front to put the laptop and hide its screen from the sun light.

The rear of the boat will also be equipped with an horizontal bar going over the engine and used to attach the towing line (and its paired cable).

The tests sessions of this period were not as numerous as they expected as there were a number of unexpected incidents and delays (the boat was not available before the second week, the mechanical assembly of the fish had to be terminated on the spot, the mother board of the laptop broke down about immediately and the screen of a laptop we got on loan also broke down,...).
There were still a few successful tests of the fully assembled system both on shore and at sea (two meters deep) but no real GPS-controlled survey.

The next test trip to Mauritius is expected to be around February 2010.

Willy

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		Quote:			Posted by willy bayot
	Note that the 'only' tests to be made there were about the water-tight sensor as the control box and its firmware have already been thoroughly tested in various test sites, much noisier that at sea. Thus, most of the tests at Mauritius were concerned with the hydro-dynamic behaviour of the towing fish and the rehearsal of the manual operations needed for the actual surveys. The control box and its connectors are IP68-grade but only when the connectors ARE connected and securely tighted. However, all the connectors will need to be equipped with water-tight caps to protect the circuits from the salted moisture while not being connected (before the actual surveys). The small plastic fisherman's boat of the above picture will be completed with a small cockpit at its front to put the laptop and hide its screen from the sun light. The rear of the boat will also be equipped with an horizontal bar going over the engine and used to attach the towing line (and its paired cable). The tests sessions of this period were not as numerous as they expected as there were a number of unexpected incidents and delays (the boat was not available before the second week, the mechanical assembly of the fish had to be terminated on the spot, the mother board of the laptop broke down about immediately and the screen of a laptop we got on loan also broke down,...). There were still a few successful tests of the fully assembled system both on shore and at sea (two meters deep) but no real GPS-controlled survey. The next test trip to Mauritius is expected to be around February 2010. Willy

Good Note !!!!!!!

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		Quote:			Posted by xavier
	Any how the weather is a dam site better in Mauritius than in Belgium I hate the weather in Belgium it really sucks much nicer here in S.A so tell me how did you get into this particular project are you doing it for a customer? Or do you plan to use it your self? Sorry for being so inquisitive but I have a similar project it dose not look at all like your fish as mine is more like a submersible with cam and lighting  did the drawings but don?t have the funds to build it right now. Best regards Xavier

Just look at this link:

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This is a project that I started back in 2005 and my current partner Jim Koehler joined soon after that.
We started this project as an intellectual challenge but it soon became a serious practical project with various generations of real working prototypes having progressively improved designs.
This ended up to a production version that we named PPM-MarkII, designed and built to make underground surveys and now already sold to various places in Europe just through word of mouth.
The latest production version, PPM-MarkIII has still been improved. It is the base on which we have started this marine project for a particular client who is ready to make the guinea-pig for us. To do that, we just needed to package the sensor coils inside a pressure container, extend the connecting cable and build a fish with nose and fins around the pressure container.

Willy



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