We have another product from our friends at Cerulean Sonar joining the Reef today. The Surveyor 240-16 is an affordable multibeam echosounder that turns the BlueBoat into a seafloor mapping machine. Watch the product video below for some visual stimulation while you learn more about it.
When purchased from the Reef, the Surveyor comes with a mounting bracket and all the cables and hardware needed for installation on the BlueBoat. You’ll also need an Ethernet Switch onboard the BlueBoat if you don’t have one already. Check out the integration guide for all the details.
And for those of you who may have purchased a Surveyor directly from Cerulean, we have just the bracket and integration hardware available separately as well.
That’s great to hear !
I wonder if you have feedback on how much the mounting bracket actually protects the surveyor.
I recently bought the surveyor myself and have 3d printed this bracket, which I presume is the same as the one you are selling ?
The surveyor sits extremely close to the bottom of the hull. Have you had issues with rocks, sand etc. damaging the surveyor when launching it or retrieving it ?
It seems like the only way to really protect it properly with this mounting bracket would be to have a hard cover that slots on the bracket. A cover that gets removed once the boat is safely in the water and put back while the boat is still floating just before retrieving it.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on that !
I wonder if this would also overcome some issues with the Ping echosounder in shallow environments giving false depth readings? That’s been a hurdle we’re having trouble overcoming!
Hi @renanm -
The printable bracket you link is very similar, but not exactly the same as what is available for purchase. Besides the injection molding vs. 3D printing, the dimensions are also a little different in places - nothing that should make a functional difference.
I prefer mounting the unit on the inside, rather than the outside face of the hull, to ensure it is properly oriented and having a minimum affect on asymmetric drag.
It is true that running aground on a rocky beach could scratch the epoxy face of the transducers - I’ve had no issues with this running it onto sand, and when recovery on rocks I typically grab the unit before it has a chance to scrape. I’m notoriously rough on equipment, but after a year of using the unit at least a couple times a month I’ve not had any damage occur! To me therefore, a cover isn’t necessary and would be one more thing to forget / complicate things…
@Vincent -
Yes, this is a far more capable sonar for bathymetric mapping than a Ping. It is still possible to have false depth readings occur, mainly in conditions where bubbles are around the sonar. Generally it is easy to filter this data out, just like with Ping data as detailed in this guide. Your results with this would probably be improved, depending on just how shallow you’re talking! A minimum range is not specified, but I’ve had ok results at 1 to 2m…closer than that could pose an issue, and sort of eliminates any coverage rate advantages the sonar provides!
@Vincent are you using the full echo gram? The OEM algorithm does ok in normal conditions but can get stuck on multiples for shallow condition’s (especially bubbles). I’ve found that logging the full echo gram and post processing through either my own algorithm or human tracing has been more successful.
