geeky attitude
Another essential point of the work before departure: electricity.
Yes, this year most of our sampling protocols require a pre-analysis which is done from the computer. In addition, most of our on-board devices need to be recharged regularly. Suddenly, Christophe, the buoy gyroplastician, electronics and security engineer and router of the expedition, finds us at Etel with many USB sockets and 220 sockets. We pull the cables, we almost burn all the sockets because we were wrong of wire... In short, with several tests and a series of swear words destined for the USB sockets, everything is ready.
The chart table is now equipped with 6 very powerful USB sockets and a 220V converter which will allow us to keep all the scientific devices ready for use at sea !
The 2018 team
Nice USB sockets are good, but you also need to have energy on board. This is why we have acquired a magnificent small wind turbine which will be very useful to us at sea. Its 300 Watts in addition to the solar panel will allow us to recharge all our devices without problem and will ensure us relative energy autonomy at sea.
Folded in 5 in the least accessible corners of the boat, we worked to iron the various electrical cables properly so that they could not be torn out inadvertently. We soldered some lugs which had an annoying tendency to disconnect (Marine passed its tin soldering patent on this occasion!).
Finally, we anticipated on-board computing. Each has her own computer and, to share our data, do without USB keys, it's not optimal.
So we set up a small disk server that provides us with shared storage space. It is a very small computer with very low consumption (raspberry Pi) and a good little all-terrain drive. Thanks to this little gem, our data will be saved and accessible to all crew members. Simple and practical, what. A bit of a do-it-yourself look, but a very effective solution ! 😉