...
Expedition 384 began with a ~5 day transit from Kristiansand, Norway to the first site U1554 (REYK-6A). Due to the shallow water depth in the North Sea the bathy was not run until the ship passed through the Fair Isle channel into the Atlantic. The transit also took the ship almost entirely within EEZ boundaries of various countries which caused us not to be able to tow the magnetometer. Upon approaching the first site when the bathy was ramped up to obtain an accurate PDR it was apparent that it was not functioning correctly. Much troubleshooting was conducted throughout the expedition and can be found in more detail below. As of now now the bathy is able to be used to obtain depths when needed, but is not in full working order. The next site U1555 (REYK-13A) was a very short distance away, just far enough to lift up the thrusters for the transit. Upon the end of drilling operations the magnetometer was able to be towed for a short period before entering EEZ waters for the remainder of the transit back to Kristiandsand. Navigational data was collected during the entirety of the expedition and a summary of the ships movements is shown below.
Instrumentation
Navigation
...
- 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.
Syqwest Hardware / Sonar Dome Troubleshooting
- Chirp coming from the amplifier unit in UW sounds as loud as usual and scales with the power setting properly.
- Cables from the unit in UW to junction box in Fwd Thyrig room tested for continuity and passed. Megger test was also completed and passed on each cable.
- When testing the cables from the junction box down to the transducers the tests failed indicating that there was an issue and possible short. The values for these tests as conducted by the SIEM ETs can be found below. As shown the 12KHz cable tested better than the 3.5KHz cable.
- These cables were tested again after opening up the floor and top hatch. Tests were conducted from the dry side of the O'brien connections up to the junction box with the same poor results.
- LPA-10kV A Power Module was removed, cleaned, and re-seated with no improvement. The spare module was also cleaned and tested with seemingly no difference. The original module we have been using was replaced back into the unit.
- The cover of the lower unit was removed to inspect the internals. Everything was clean and dust free.
- In the upper unit, the 'brains' of the Bathy, boards A00107 S/N 6209 and A00108 S/N 6210 were taken out, cleaned and inspected for any damage.
A00107 and A00108 Board Testing
- The spare boards S/N 5921 and S/N 5920 were installed on AUG 28th by Randy without notifying anyone. Upon installation when the software was turned on it would immediately show 'Sensor State Unknown'.
- The original boards we had been using all expedition were re-installed SEP 1st and the software began working as normal again. This caused some confusion as it was unknown to anyone that the spare boards had been installed in the first place. When trying to trouble shoot the new 'Sensor State Unknown' issue I thought I was installing the spare boards when I was really putting the originals working boards back in.
- It was a real team effort working on the instrument with lots of help from everyone on board and many on shore as well.
...
- is unclear whether the 5920/5921 boards are not functional or if they simply need a firmware upgrade/downgrade in order to work with our system. The process for updating firmware on the boards is described in the Underway section of the EXP. 350 tech report found here. This email from Russel at SyQwest was also helpful in determining how the boards were originally set up. The files needed can be found on the WF2 computer and have been copied to _IODP OFFICIAL\UW\UW User Guides and Info\2 Bathy\SyQwest\Bathy2010\Util\Netburner to be backed up.
- September 2nd: The not working 5920/5921 set of boards was reinstalled with the same NetBurner card that has been in use with the working 6209/6210 boards. We followed the instructions on how to update the firmware using the NetBurner with autoupdate.exe and the IP address of 192.168.199.111 which is used to connect to the NetBurner board. A 'Process Complete' message was recieved but when the bathy software was opened we were still stuck with 'Sensor Status Unknown'. The same process was completed with the spare NetBurner board with the same result.
- An email and support ticket have been sent to SyQwest to see if we can get any help making the 5920/5921 set of boards work with our software. The working 6209/6210 set of boards has been replaced back in the unit with the original NetBurner boards and has been tested and both communicates with the software and pings.
Next Steps for Bathy2010
We have not been able to determine if the high power problem is in the cabling/connector below the Obrien hatch or in the deck unit. There was some conversations with Jurie Kotze Sr. about the problems he'd seen in the past with the high voltage output on the acquisition boards, see EXP 349 tech report. He thinks the problem could be there but troubleshooting will need to be done while the sonar is pinging at high power and the boards measured. With approval from the captain and vessel manager, the hatch to the dome will need to be opened and the cables checked further down. This process was started with the Captain and Chief Engineer but was not completed before crew change.
Magnetometer
- Cable was taken from underway and spooled back onto the winch.
- 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 opened it up and identified the problem.
- One short deployment was conducted during the transit back to Kristiansand. No issues running the instrument and collecting data besides the depth displaying as 0.
...