Home › Forums › ROV › ROV Technical Discussions › Subsea cable detection
- This topic has 30 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 11 months ago by Alex Richards.
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May 24, 2007 at 7:00 am #763KakaParticipant
Hi fellow rovers
Besides using TSS 340, 350, 440. Does anyone know any better equipment to detect buried subsea FO cable?
Thanks
May 24, 2007 at 7:18 am #12110Rons_ROV_LinksParticipantThere’s Smartrak and Ultra system from Innovatum, but I’ve never used any of their systems.
May 24, 2007 at 9:07 am #12111Paul BondParticipantI used the Smartrak on my last job. It is small and lightweight – we fitted it to a Seaeye Lynx. The system seemed to work well – although Innovatum’s t-shirts are poo 😆
May 25, 2007 at 6:09 am #12112KakaParticipantThanks for the help. We are using the TSS440 which i learnt is a new system. To a certain extend it works but it is picking up lots of signal so not sure it is detecting the cable or metalic debris.
May 25, 2007 at 6:42 am #12113trueredParticipantthe 440 is a particularly sensitive system and needs carefull initial setup a bit more than the 340 does. never used it for cable although we did manage to detect 13" pipe at over 2mtrs.
beware. the cable penetrators for the coils are very sensitive (more so than the 340) to moisture and will give spurious readings. if you are in the med or somewhere warm a manual seawater comp is better than the pre-sets
May 25, 2007 at 8:08 am #12114rovnumptyParticipantKaka.
Have you followed the updated TSS procedures for mounting the 440?
Supposedly, you have to earth bond every member on the sub first.
Then enure the 440 is mounted at least 1.25 metres from the sub.
And finally, ensure the whole thing is rigid – no raise/lower rams etc.
Had a survey rep insist we do all this a couple of years ago. The first two are a load of bull – get out of jail free cards for TSS when results don’t match the 440’s supposed capabilities( the old ‘it’s your sub, not our equipment’ argument).
However, we did see a marked improvement when we fixed the coil array rigidly to the sub and then cross braced them. Seems the 440 is that sensitive after a background comp, that any movement in the coils then registers the sub as a target as it has been compensated at a differnent position.
All in all, a pain in the a**e compared to the old 340. and not really that much better in practical terms.
I’m waiting with bated breath for someone from TSS to take the hump now.
May 25, 2007 at 4:32 pm #12115Andy ShiersParticipantAfter sales was never their strongest point 😀
May 25, 2007 at 4:51 pm #12116trueredParticipantif your using the 440, deifinetly go for the training course even if your not using one do it anyway, not so much for the technical aspect but more for the operational as there is a lot of things to watch for as previously mentioned. If not the training course, there is always the manual 😈
regs the after sales service, personnally never had a problem they are always on hand to answer questions. 😯
May 25, 2007 at 8:37 pm #12117Andy ShiersParticipant😀
June 30, 2007 at 4:12 am #12118poloParticipantHi there.
Experienced numerous problems with 340/440 in South African waters, pipeline survey. We could not calibrate the system and extensive checks by both myself and the ET proved the system to be functioning normally. The PARTY CHIEF (his grand holiness) summoned me to the bridge for a large portion of bollocking,Whilst this was going on I looked at the chart table—-and guess what we were in a region known as a Magnetic Anomoly where the amount of nickel or iron in the seabed throws out conflicting feilds.
It is in this situation impossible to do a reliable survey .
POLOAugust 10, 2007 at 5:29 am #12119liddelljohnParticipantSame thing happens onshore , i used to do telecomms surveys and installations for microwave transmission , we sometimes had line of sight but transmission of radio beam was crap due to magnetic anomalies which the planners had not taken into account as they did their planning from A/c offices in Montreal or Harlow using satellite maps.
wasted millions $ on useless equipment and relocation of towere over the years.
jerry
August 10, 2007 at 7:04 am #12120SpearROVParticipantThey also have a problem working in hot countries and the power supplies crapping out
August 10, 2007 at 8:08 am #12121SavanteParticipantusing a 350 at the moment – vague as a chocolate walking stick.
Also if we thrust as we survey we pick up signal from the motors over the the tone generated by the cable – really annoying using tone freqs<30Hz as these are right in our rotor frequency range for staying stable at slacktides? Vehicle is really rather small so we can’t just increase our separation from the triads as the thing wants to "COWP OWER".
August 10, 2007 at 10:11 am #12122SpearROVParticipantWhy not use a bigger ROV 😕
August 10, 2007 at 10:16 am #12123Andy ShiersParticipantOr 😀
Employ some large Toads that have worked out on steroids 😀
Pay them in insects ( a little bit less than the going rate in dollars at the momento ) 😀 -
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