ATLAS North America Proprietary
Sea Scan ARC Scout MKII Operations Manual
1 of 1
Page: 58
Issue: 1.2.4
SCTM2-OPS
Operations Manual
power. If the automatic management fails to keep the temperature stable and the temperature rises above
50
o
C the Scout MkII will raise a warning flag. If the temperature rises to 60
o
C or beyond the system will
raise an alarm and shutdown data collection until the temperature lowers and the system is reset. For
more information on the warnings and flags please see Temperature Management under the Automatic
Management section.
10.2
Transducer Temperature
The transducers included with the Scout MkII Side Scan Sonar system are made of a Piezo ceramic material
whose properties vary with temperature. The hotter a transducer is the higher its capacitance resulting in
higher power consumption. All specifications for power consumption were recorded with the transducers
at room temperature. Allowing the transducers to sit in direct sunlight will result in increased transducer
temperature and therefore power consumption. The act of transmitting also results in increased transducer
temperature. While the Scout MkII does not have the ability to sense the temperature of the transducers it
does monitor the current consumption of the system when collecting data. The system actively adjusts
transmit parameters to mitigate increasing temperature. In the event the transducers are heated
externally, by the sun for example, the management system will reduce the transmit power until it reaches
10% upon which the transmit power cannot be reduced any further. This ensures that there is no heating
due to the transmit pulse. If the temperature continues to rise due to external influences the transducers
may be damaged. If the transducers are damaged, their performance will be reduced or they may even
cease to function.
11
Troubleshooting
Several common occurrences happen causing invalid or corrupted sonar data. The following explains how
to troubleshoot and correct them
Test Equipment:
1. Digital Multimeter
2. Oscilloscope
3. Hydrophone
4. Sea Scan Survey version 5.0 or greater
5. Ethernet Cable
6. Capacitance Meter
a. Bk Precision 810B or Equivalent
Note: Connection of the transducer to the Capacitance meter is shown below.