Diver buddy pinger

[RayJayJr]

I only gave the example of the echosounder to show what can be achieved. If they can sell it for that price the real cost is much lower.
I wouldn't use it as a basis for such a project.
A quick search on the internet for piezo ultrasonic transducers turned up a variety of products from very cheap to very expensive according to the type of encapsulation, precision and frequency range.

I would certainly not expect to spend much over 100USD on electronics. The real trick with such a project is to get the right balance between analog and digital processing.

Fair enough. Are you a hobbyist or an engineer?

 

[miketsp]

Fair enough. Are you a hobbyist or an engineer?

Both.

 

[RayJayJr]

The real trick with such a project is to get the right balance between analog and digital processing.

Having only limited experience, but the luck of having someone who knows their stuff, I'll ask you this question...

What do you mean when you say the right balance? Isn't the method processing just a different way of handling the signal? Obviously it plays a bigger role than this otherwise you would not have mentioned it.

I fundamentally understand the difference between analog and digital though.

 

[miketsp]

Having only limited experience, but the luck of having someone who knows their stuff, I'll ask you this question...

What do you mean when you say the right balance? Isn't the method processing just a different way of handling the signal? Obviously it plays a bigger role than this otherwise you would not have mentioned it.

I fundamentally understand the difference between analog and digital though.

OK, one example of a trade off. The direction finding will probably involve the need for 3 or more US sensors and then you have to process this. A cheap analog (few US$) front end doing phase comparisons is one way to produce a sine & cosine angle generation. Doing this digitally with the sensors connected directly to the microcontroller could require significant number crunching and a fast processor (with higher power consumption) to get a similar resolution.

Similarly the modulation technique you choose for information transmission will have a significant impact on the cost. Given the availability of low power codec chips you may wish to digitalise the voice channel instead of using an analog modulation.
You could operate with variable pinging rate according to the information rate in use (silence suppression techniques). When only direction finding is in use the use of a slow ping rate would drop power consumption and as data rate increases the ping rate & power consumption would go up.

All these avenues would have to be explored in the initial design study.

 

[colm]

This similar contraption is on the market:

http://www.scubuzz.com/

 

[miketsp]

This similar contraption is on the market:

http://www.scubuzz.com/

Very limited; no direction finding, no ranging, no data or voice transmission.

The only advantage over the pebble I carry in my BC pocket to bang my tank is the selective calling.

But my pebble transmits Morse Code and has a better MTBF.

 

[RayJayJr]

Very limited; no direction finding, no ranging, no data or voice transmission.

The only advantage over the pebble I carry in my BC pocket to bang my tank is the selective calling.

But my pebble transmits Morse Code and has a better MTBF.

Not to mention - I think that site is somewhere between BS, and post-production. All they have is a rendering of the unit. I imagine they dont even have investors yet, likely because their design sucks.

Thats more than can be said for myself though, because I dont even have a rendering of what said pinger would look like, so maybe I should shut my mouth. lol.


That being said, I might take a trip down to the patent office on monday and do some exploratory work.

 

[mikerault]

Don't forget who started this...I might even have some dollars to invest...

Mike

 

[ams511]

I am ignorant as to the techinical issues behind such a device so I will let the more knowledgeable inviduals discuss the feasability issues.

However I am knowlegable about business and think such a device would have very limited appeal for the average recreational diver. I think the primary market for this device should be technical and scientfic divers.

For a rec diver adhearing to the no-deco limits the normal procedure of look for a minute and then surface is adequate and costs nothing. However, deco divers cannot do this without risking decompression sickness. So this would indeed be valuable for them. Another use may be for safety divers. The safety diver gets the signal and knows where and how deep the diver is. So he knows where to go and what mix to bring the troubled diver. This could be invaluable for the diver in trouble. Another use could be to find the anchor/upline. If you place a beacon on the line then the diver should be able to find it even if moderately narced and in poor visability.

Once you penetrate this market then you could bring out a lower cost version for rec divers. Maybe something that signals if the divers are too far apart.

 

[ArcticDiver]

Mike, the idea of a Buddy Finder isn't that attractive to me. My experience is that most divers, not all, will get split from their "buddy" no matter the visibility or circumstances. Adding another piece of technology isn't going to help.

But, if you produced a reasonably priced Beacon that would interest me. Then in low viz, instead of keeping my eyes on my compass I could just place the Beacon; occasionally verify my heading back to it and go have fun. Or, when I find that one really interesting place among all the similar looking coral I could mark it, go find other folks and then come back smartly.

Emphasis here on reasonably priced. It should cost no more than a Nano, or similar.