Building the Ultrasonic Antifouling Kit from Jaycar

[Norman_E]

Over 15000 views!

It may not be a record, but this must be one of the most popular threads ever on this forum.

My boat is in the Eastern Med (Marmaris, Turkey) and I have just installed two units, and will launch on 11th April. As for noise, all I hear is a very quiet click, about once a second (guessed not measured), so It is possible that the time between clicks represents the rest period between pulses of ultrasound.

Because of the water temperature this can be a fairly heavy fouling area, so my installation should be a good test.

 

[robind]

ultrasonic transducer!

I appreciate that I should not start another thread for that which is already progressing but, please accept my apology and if possible answer my questioin anyway! Has anybody sourced the transducer head for the DIY version of the untrasound antifould device talked about in the previous untrasound antifoul post! Thanks in anticipation
Rob

 

[Norman_E]

I appreciate that I should not start another thread for that which is already progressing but, please accept my apology and if possible answer my questioin anyway! Has anybody sourced the transducer head for the DIY version of the untrasound antifould device talked about in the previous untrasound antifoul post! Thanks in anticipation
Rob

Rob, Look on the previous page of this thread. IAN13 appears to have sourced them, and I suggest you PM him for the supplier.

 

[Silent Lady]

Yes

Managed to get two in the end. The young lady at the other end wanted to sell me 100 to start with at £25 each. She then realised that they have a £500 minimum order + VAT. So I said that it was a project we were working on and if it worked we would need a considerable number. She then suggested 4 at £35 each and we agreed on 2 at £35 + Vat and I got them collected as they charge £30 + Vat postage and packing.

You can buy them from a company in Switzerland but when you get to the yes I want them at 30 euro each they then tell you its 70 euro to send them.

Rest of the bits were obtained easily Farnell / Maplins with a few bits from the boxes at work

The logic boards came from Australia.

Propose to fit both in a 10m boat.

.

In reply to the post regarding the delay. There is a delay between the oscillations but its not very long. The unit sends out a sequence of different wave forms between 19 khz and 41 khz they are not random but predefined in blocks of 14 and there are 4 sequences. If you altered the Assembler Code you could make the delay longer and so use less Amp/Hours over a period.

I have a 2 amp fuse in mine and its humming away merrily to itself.

 

[Silent Lady]

It may not be a record, but this must be one of the most popular threads ever on this forum.

My boat is in the Eastern Med (Marmaris, Turkey) and I have just installed two units, and will launch on 11th April. As for noise, all I hear is a very quiet click, about once a second (guessed not measured), so It is possible that the time between clicks represents the rest period between pulses of ultrasound.

Because of the water temperature this can be a fairly heavy fouling area, so my installation should be a good test.

Sorry Norman, Mine does the same but with a scope on it you can see it being sent lots of other waveforms. It works by sending differing frequencies over and over again. So you hear some of the clicks but not others.

 

[Norman_E]

Well done, putting a scope on it. The only way I can tell if mine are on is to look at the LED and then put an ear to the transducer.

 

[bobjr]

Nice thread, I love it
Good job

 

[trisailing1]

Hi Norm, and all others. Good effort on this by all of you.
Ive have one off these fitted to my boat and i hope ive done something wrong as the barnies are still coming. After 3 weeks ive noticed no differance,. Tested the unit on a bench and got all the signals its spose to have and it also has a slight tick to it as mentioned by others.

I might try and take some of the bottom of the transducer to get it closer to the hull, (yes it is about 1mm from the bottom filled with the black goo). and smeared grease on the bottom:

I hope yours work as it might help me with mine.
Cheers

 

[Norman_E]

Did you fit yours with the boat in the water? I think you will find that if the boat already has a layer of algae on it, and barnacles feeding, then it will take some time to see any effect. If you install it on a clean and dry hull, preferably with a new coat of antifouling on it, then the effect should be to stop new algae attaching, thus cutting off the food supply that barnacles need. As I understand it the device has no effect on barnacles, just on the stuff they feed on.

If you can do so, I suggest that you go somewhere where you can dry out and give the hull a scrub, then see how it goes from there.

 

[bendyone]

I fitted a system ( ready made and more expensive) to my boat with a dirty bottom took 4 months to kill off the growth. Scrubbed off and relaunched without any further af and all is working well.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

I would be carefull about trying to sand or whatever the face of the transducer or potting compound (black goo) I think the real issue is to get a good seal between the transducer / potting compound and the hull free of voids etc. Whist it is perfectly possible to do this with the silicone grease I felt it was a bit hit and miss which is why I potted mine in situ ie fixed directly to the hull with the epoxy. admittedly I cannot ever move them but there is little choice on my boat anyway and I think they are positioned in the right place and the interface is as good as it can get.

 

[Talbot]

I fitted a system ( ready made and more expensive) to my boat with a dirty bottom took 4 months to kill off the growth. Scrubbed off and relaunched without any further af and all is working well.

Which one did you fit?

 

[trisailing1]

did this prior to fitting, cleaned the bottom but not dry while still floating removed all signs of scum.
Ill try dryin it on the beach.
j

 

[trisailing1]

The boat is 15m i know ill need two of these but you would think one would give me some signs that it works or not?

 

[Norman_E]

If you just fit one unit which you should place near to the stern, I would expect that you would see a difference in fouling between bow and stern, though it might not be immediate. One of the posts above indicates that a commercial system took four months to kill off growth.

 

[snooks]

Here's a short video of Pixie after 8 months in the water with Ultrasonic Antifouling Ultra 10.

The only place she really has fouling was on the rudder, but this is somewhat acoustically isolated from the hull. But as you can see it all came off easily.

 

[nigelmercier]

Has anybody sourced the transducer head for the DIY version of the untrasound antifould device talked about in the previous untrasound antifoul post!

I've bought a few of the transducers from the manufacturer in China, waiting for them to arrive. I've also ordered a couple of kits to play with, I will probably sell them on eBay as ready-built units.

 

[nigelmercier]

You can get all these without paying for the articles, just click one of the photos in the article and you get the whole gallery of the circuit boards. Similarly for the article on the encapsulation of the transducer.

The PIC code is also on a seperate download page from the articles.

This PDF of the articles may be of interest, the password is

- please do not cross-post this to other forums.

Although I've ordered a couple of kits, I plan to redesign the whole thing as a dual unit. To save me inventing the wheel, has anyone done a PCB layout for the original?

 

[Norman_E]

Snooks. It looked to me as if there were no barnacles. Did you get barnacle growth on the boat before you fitted the ultrasonic unit?

 

[snooks]

Snooks. It looked to me as if there were no barnacles. Did you get barnacle growth on the boat before you fitted the ultrasonic unit?

I've just added a gallery of images

In 2009 I used Blakes Tiger Xtra, and thought it did quite well - No barnacles except a few on the prop
In 2010 I used Hemple Tiger Xtra and Untrasonic Antifoul and the results were a lot better - as you can see - No Barnacles

In 2011 I'm using 2010's application of antifoul and Ultrasonic Antifoul