Ping1D DISASSEMBLY Guide

[BlncK (Devin Hunsberger)]

I was hoping that maybe someone on the forums has a guide, or knows of a proper way to disassemble a Ping1D. My robotics team is going to RoboSub 2024, and I literally found a Ping1D sitting in a random bin by itself with the USB cable but no BLUART board. I’ve been messing with it by just soldering a USB adapter to it’s leads and by plugging it into both an Elegoo Mega 2560 and Arduino Nano but to no avail. PingViewer similarly doesn’t recognize it and device manager labels it as an unknown USB device. At this point I plan to just disassemble and check for possible damage.

[tony-white]

Hi @BlncK -
I would guess the reason it was in the bin is it had failed previously - older Ping Sonar units relied on potted transducers and penetrators, which were much more prone to failure than the current Ping2 which uses no potting.

That said, to open the device, hold it firmly, and turn the blue ring in a counterclockwise direction:

[EliotBR (Eliot)]

Hi @BlncK, welcome to the forum

Sorry to hear you’re having issues getting one of our devices working.

@BlncK

PingViewer similarly doesn’t recognize it and device manager labels it as an unknown USB device. At this point I plan to just disassemble and check for possible damage.

There are some device recovery steps (including disassembly instructions) in the Ping Viewer docs

If there’s water or obvious corrosion inside then it’s unlikely to be recoverable.

[BlncK (Devin Hunsberger)]

Update: Was able to open finally. Just required a-lot more force than what I was perviously comfortable with applying to it. There’s 0 clear damage and the Green LED is blinking I guess it’s the sensor itself not the pcb then.