Space Age Electronics Depth Sounder

[dolabriform]

Hi all

I don't suppose anybody has a circuit diagram for one of these?

As they look so good I'd like to find a way to fake the transducer replies, possibly using an arduino, so that it works and shows depths when it's up on the wall at home.

This is presuming the one I have works!

Thanks

David

 

[prv]

I don't know this brand, but in a google image search it looks very similar to the more common Seafarer sounder. Technical information for that might be more available, and if all you need to do is emulate the transducer then it might be close enough?

In fact, NASA used to sell a whirly sounder until surprisingly recently, and they're reputed to be quite helpful with engineering detail. Maybe your project will tickle the interest of someone there who used to work on these things, and elicit some advice on exactly what your emulator box will need to do?

Pete

 

[Ian_Edwards]

I found this on the wooden boat forum from 2017, it may be of interest.

I used to work for Columbian Hydrosonics in Freeport NY back in 1969 - 1972 or so when they built the similar AquaProbes.

As long as the motor is still alive and the transducer still works, it shouldn't be very hard to repair if it is in need. The AquaProbes had CW rotating DC motor that turned an arm with a neon bulb on one end and a magnet on the other.

When the magnet goes past a coil a 200kHz pulse goes to the transducer and a return pulse is amplified and displayed by the neon bulb which rotates so the display pulse matches the depth (time for pulse to make a round trip transducer to bottom and back).

The pulse seems to be generated by a magnet moving past a coil, generating a pulse at 200kHz.
This probably means that systems needs a transducer to make a tuned circuit to get 200kHz, without the transducer you'll still get a pulse of some sort.
So, in principle if that pulse is attenuated and cleaned up, by say a resistive divider (reduce the voltage) followed by a comparator, to produce a pulse, then the pulse could be used to start a timer, the output of the time would then trigger a pulse generator running at 200kHz, and the resultant pulse feedback the echo sounder.
This shouldn't be too hard to do with relatively simple discrete components, but you'd need an Oscilloscope to see what the output signal looks like, and a pulse generator to simulate the returned signal. Before you could design a circuit.