Here's to the Troubleshooters!

This week has been a pretty tough one for me.  Like many researcher who study animals in the ocean, I use a lot of technology.  Technology is very important for a lot of ocean research - humans are not adapted to live underwater, and technology allows us to sea the ocean in ways our puny physiology would never allow. 

The problem with technology is that it usually involves electricity, and the problem with electricity is that it does not play well with salt water.  This means if you use any kind of wired technology to do you underwater research, you've got to make sure they never get anywhere NEAR each other.

We keep salt water from getting anywhere near our electricity by separating them with a barrier of plastic or rubber.  Unfortunately, sometimes this barrier gets broken, and salt water comes through the break like Orcs through a hole in the walls of Gondor.

When things go wrong with research equipment, it can derail an entire research project.  Ocean researchers can spend from thousands to millions of dollars to get to a location to do their research, and if the equipment fails when they get there, everything is wasted.  Case in point: the $125 million mars rover satellite that failed in 1999 due to a math mistake in the thruster software.

Fortunately, my equipment isn't 35 million light years away.  Last Monday, on my way to Kauai, my hydrophone cable hit something in the water which sliced a tiny little hole in the cable.  The hole was smaller than the tip of my pinky nail, but since the break occurred quite early in the trip, I didn't discover it until we got to Kauai and it had been dragging through the water for about 14 hours.  This gave the water quite enough time to work its way up into the hydrophone and most of the cable.  Since my research project depends on collecting data at regular intervals, I needed to get this fixed FAST.

One of the largest benefits (as well as the greatest challenges) of working at my research lab is that we don't have some of the resources that bigger mainland labs do.  For example, the Scripps whale lab employs several engineers, who can design and make electrical recording equipment.  We don't have engineers who make our equipment - we make it ourselves (my advisor has a PhD in electrical engineering, so he gives direction).  This can be very frustrating at times.  For students like me, who have a degree in Biology, there is a steep learning curve to understanding electronics.

Climbing the electronics learning curve.

Anyway, I spent the week fixing my hydrophone and hydrophone cable.  So the blog post this week is a time-lapse video of me doing that. 'Cuz sometimes you just gotta BRING IT, and there's not as much time for the fun stuff (e.g. blogging).

But here's the thing that I think is really important, and which is the reason that I decided to make this video.  Without the technical, hands on, practical, getting sh*t done, there would be nothing to blog about.  This type of work is the very makeup of most science, but it doesn't really get the recognition it deserves.  It's hard work (you may notice I get progressively tireder looking throughout the week), and I just want to give it some props.

Here's to you, equipment-fixers and the trouble-shooters.  Blessings be upon you and many thanks!

(BEAR is my jokey-term for my equipment.  I use a modified Ecological Acoustic Recorder 

(EAR), which I tow off a Barge.  I guess I could call it a Towed EAR (TEAR) or a Mobile 

EAR (MEAR), but for some reason I think that it's hilarious that you can add one letter to 

Ear and get Bear.  So I'm calling it a Bear (for now).  Hopefully Steven Colbert doesn't hear 

about this, or I'll be put on Notice.

Here's a breakdown of what happens in the video:

Monday


Hydrophone Breaks, but I'm on the tug, so I don't know until...


Tuesday


I download my data, and find... nothing after the first 20 minutes.  I check the hydrophone cable and find a break.  I fly back from Kauai to Oahu to start fixing things


Wednesday


Use a hacksaw to cut into the epoxy of the hydrophone and try to expose the wires, cutting my hand in the process.  I start soaking the epoxy in acetone, which will dissolve it if it's in there long enough (acetone dissolves plastic, which is why you buy it in a metal container!)


Thursday


Give a talk about my research at our department symposium, then run around town buying things I need to fix my equipment (cable, aquarium sealant, zip-ties, etc).  Remove cable from the tow-rope.


Friday


Attach new cable onto the tow rope, then go help out at the symposium banquet (where I got a flat tire).


Saturday


Attach plug to end of cable.  Dremmel into the hydrophone epoxy to get to the wires inside it.  Test the hydrophone and pre-amp (still working).  Do a happy dance.  Attach new wires to the hydrophone.  Attach the cable to the hydrophone. Set up a mold and pour epoxy around the hydrophone and cable.


Sunday


Pour a second mold because my mold is tiny.


Monday


Remove hydrophone from mold, clean up and sand.  Re-test (it still works!).  Take hydrophone to car and drive to tug boat to try again (I'm leaving in an hour). 
Tuesday
Update: 3/20/2012 at 8:56 am. Just got to Kauai, downloaded the data, and my fix worked! Woohoooo!



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