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- Winfrog navigation program was used running on the WinFrog1 PC to collect and distribute instrument data with no issues.
- JRData Server was used to plot waypoints and the ship's track onto Google Earth with no issues.
- Site Fix was used to collect data of the ships position over each hole during drilling/coring operations. Reports for the Ops Superintendent were printed from site fix to record the location of each hole.
- Troubleshooting of the mysterious Trimble connection issue continued. For most of the expedition only the forward trimble was consistently connected to Winfrog. With that trimble and the gyro we were able to record accurate nav data.
- When looking at the Trimble unit settings in a web browser using the IP address of the problem unit I noticed at one point that the I/O port configuration setting had gotten reset. These were changed to match the working unit but was ultimately not the fix to the issue. A small bit about checking the unit settings was added to the WF user guide.
- Later on when asking Mike Cannon about the ability to install new firmware onto the Trimble unit it was noticed that some of the values in the Network→Ethernet Configuration menu of the unit were not set correctly. This is something that must have gone overlooked and was a great catch. At first it seemed like the connection was still being dropped. After resetting it a few times it became stable for the last week of the expedition. I will wait for further testing to say whether this was the fix to the issue but will keep fingers crossed that the problem has gone away.
Bathymetry
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- No issues recording data or communicating with WinFrog.
- Run with no issues at power levels below -6 dB. When output power levels are increased to -6 or 0 dB the signal becomes extremely faint and erratic or lost altogether.
- Much testing and troubleshooting was conducted on the bathy hardware, and the cables going from UW to the Fwd Thyrig room junction box and onto sonar dome.
- SyQwest was most unhelpful during all attempts to communicate with them and obtain any guidance for troubleshooting. Their response was for us to either send all of the hardware, cabling, and transducers in to their facility for testing or to buy a whole new system.
- It was a real team effort working on the instrument with lots of help from everyone on board and many on shore as well.
Syqwest Hardware / Sonar Dome Troubleshooting
Magnetometer
- Cable was taken from underway and spooled back onto the winch.
- Level wind motor was not replaced. The screw shaft was stuck at the limit of its inboard travel. We were able to free it by removing the chain from the gears and manually turning the screw shaft gear with a large wrench. After this it worked as normal.
- One small issue was the control of the level wind movement by the cable using the magnet on top. It would not follow the cable properly and more times than not the person using the manual button box controls would have to fight against it in order to spool the cable up cleanly. The quick solution to this was to lock the bars and magnet in place using the limit screws on either side of the bars above the level wind. This seemed like a good idea I had at the time but in reality it is very difficult to lock the control into true neutral. At least it does not fight to control it as much now, and can easily be undone if needed.
- One short deployment was conducted during the transit back to Kristiansand. No new issues running the instrument. The depth is still not being recorded properly but it was decided that we did not have the expertise on board to fix the internal electronics even if we could open it up and identify the problem.