We need a much lower power single beam echosounder for much shorter distances (< 3m). Is it possible to drive a Ping2 with a lower voltage to achieve this? Is there any possibility of paying for a semi-custom modification for lower power and shorter distances? (accuracy is not a big deal, we can get by with relative distances).
Hi @SnowMelt, welcome to the forum 
As some general commentary, our Ping devices have only a single power input, which is used for both energising the transducer and powering the control chip. If the supply voltage is too low then the chip will not work, so it’s not possible to arbitrarily lower it to try to reduce power usage - I wouldn’t recommend supplying power outside the voltage range specified in the technical details.
If your concern is total energy usage rather than peak power then reducing the ping rate and scan length will both help with that.
Many things are possible, but I don’t expect that’s something we could offer very readily. Beyond the settings that are already available, power usage is predominantly a hardware concern, and a circuit design modification would need to either be done as a batch of PCBs or would need someone to swap components on and add fly-wires to an existing Ping Sonar.
That kind of conversation doesn’t make much sense on the forums, so if you’re interested in an actual answer as to what (if any) kind of customisation we could feasibly do, and how much it would cost, I’d recommend contacting our sales email (sales@bluerobotics.com).