Frequently Asked Questions

The pH sensor will be shipped dry but was pre-conditioned in seawater (generally from Pacific Ocean waters near Hawaii). While conditioning and evaluating the pH sensor, only expose it filtered, sterilized natural seawater. Do not use seawater CRMs (Certified Reference Material), synthetic seawater, deionized water, NaCl Solutions, or tap water.

Before pre-deployment testing, you will need to fill the plumbing around the pH sensor with natural seawater. The pH sensor needs time to acclimate to the ionic concentration of region specific waters. Once wet, the time to recondition the sensor so that it will report within its accuracy specification depends on several factors, including the ionic composition of the seawater used and the amount of time the pH sensor was stored dry. This time can range from several hours to up to three days.

When the seawater bridge between Counter Electrode and ISFET is broken for longer than 10 seconds, it will be necessary to re-condition the sensor. The sensor does not require recalibration after being re-conditioned.

To prepare the sensor for deployment, it is recommended that several days prior to deployment, the isolated battery is connected via the float interface and the pH sensor is stored in water that is similar to the deployment site. The sensor should be stored dry to avoid bio-fouling of the ISFET and the battery may be removed during storage. Seawater creates a half cell bridge between the Counter Electrode and ISFET, and power to that circuit is provided by the isolated 9V cell. Without seawater, the battery is unnecessary and may be disconnected.

Seabird does not manufacture seacables for scientific winch systems and does not specify or endorse any specific cable material. The entire cable assembly must meet the following criteria: A single or multi-core armored cable up to 10,000 meters (32,800 feet) long; an inner core resistance of up to 350 ohms.

The pH sensor will be shipped dry but was pre-conditioned in seawater (generally from Pacific Ocean waters near Hawaii). While conditioning and evaluating the pH sensor, only expose it filtered, sterilized natural seawater. Do not use seawater CRMs (Certified Reference Material), synthetic seawater, deionized water, NaCl Solutions, or tap water.

Before pre-deployment testing, you will need to fill the plumbing around the pH sensor with natural seawater. The pH sensor needs time to acclimate to the ionic concentration of region specific waters. Once wet, the time to recondition the sensor so that it will report within its accuracy specification depends on several factors, including the ionic composition of the seawater used and the amount of time the pH sensor was stored dry. This time can range from several hours to up to three days.

When the seawater bridge between Counter Electrode and ISFET is broken for longer than 10 seconds, it will be necessary to re-condition the sensor. The sensor does not require recalibration after being re-conditioned.

To prepare the sensor for deployment, it is recommended that several days prior to deployment, the isolated battery is connected via the float interface and the pH sensor is stored in water that is similar to the deployment site. The sensor should be stored dry to avoid bio-fouling of the ISFET and the battery may be removed during storage. Seawater creates a half cell bridge between the Counter Electrode and ISFET, and power to that circuit is provided by the isolated 9V cell. Without seawater, the battery is unnecessary and may be disconnected.

The nominal control voltage for the relay is 12 VDC. However, between 5 – 30 VDC will work, applied to pin 4 relative to the ground pin 2 on the Deep SUNA V2. The voltage can be applied to the relay any time after external power is applied to the instrument for a recommended 100 milliseconds. Unless the relay is already switched on, there should be a very quiet (but audible) click when the relay connects power to the SUNA V2 electronics, and the instrument should enter its boot up cycle.

The purpose of the relay is to keep external power applied to the SUNA with very low quiescent current draw, so the typical use case involves the SUNA constantly powered. If the application includes the ability to switch power to the SUNA effectively then the relay feature isn’t necessary. Regardless of how power cycling to the SUNA is controlled, there should be a power-off period of at least 30 seconds between power-on cycles to ensure that the capacitors that prevent a hard shutdown are allowed to completely discharge and allow the SUNA to boot up properly during the next power-on cycle.

No.  The Navis does not have charge monitoring capabilities.  Typically information of that nature takes a coulomb counter chip, but the overhead with managing the data and powering such a chip is not a current Navis capability and is not expected to be added in the future.

The JT4 bulkhead connector has two options a three pin connector and a four pin connector. If JT4 is a three pin connector, this indicates a standard connector configuration. If JT4 is a four pin connector, that means that the 9plus is configured for 9600 or 19200 serial data and has the uplink feature equipped. Keep in mind that the 11 deck unit must also match the SBE9plus configuration for the serial uplink feature, otherwise it will not communicate properly with the SBE9plus.

There are several considerations when determining whether the deck box and CTD underwater unit will be compatible.

(1) In most cases (with the exception being (2), below), instruments with the “-plus” designation are compatible with each other, but the “-plus” variants are not compatible with the variants that do not have “-plus” in their model number (i.e., an SBE9plus CTD must be used with an SBE11plus, and cannot be used with an older SBE11 deck unit).

(2) If you have an SBE9/11plus system with the serial uplink feature installed, then both the deck box and the CTD must have the same hardware configuration from the factory (either enabled or disabled). Otherwise, no telemetry will be received from the CTD by the deck box.

(3) For older instruments that do not have “-plus” in their model number, you need a matching pair of SBE9 and SBE11. There was no standard configuration, and different CTDs and deck units could have telemetry word/rate differences (4/24, 8/24, 12/24, etc.) and power differences (standard low power or high power). You would need to consult the original documentation that shipped with the instruments or send them to Sea-bird service for a repair evaluation to determine compatibility.

We pressure test each Sea-Bird instrument to the smaller of:

• The housing depth rating, or
• (if pressure sensor installed) The maximum rating of the pressure sensor

Note: Sea-Bird does not pressure test auxiliary sensors supplied by Third Party Manufacturers that are to be integrated with Sea-Bird instruments.

Your entire system is assembled and tested prior to leaving our facility, with software configured to your specific setup. All Sea-Bird manufactured instruments/sensors are calibrated in-house. Sensors from third party manufacturers are calibrated by their manufacturers prior to integration with the CTD system.

There are a number of classes of products that are excluded from the EU requirement for CE certification; underwater sensors and equipment are among the types of products that do not require CE certification. However, Sea-Bird decided to obtain CE certification to ease concerns of customers in the EU.

In 2009 Sea-Bird obtained CE certification for almost all of our instruments; we have CE labels on these instruments and provide the required documentation. There is a CE label on the manual front cover for each certified instrument; see our Model List page to download the manual for a specific instrument to check for the CE label.

Sea-Bird instruments do not have ISO certification. ISO certification does not certify that a manufacturer is producing a high quality product; it merely certifies that a company has a quality control plan that complies with the quality control models adopted by the ISO organization. This does not mean that other quality control systems are inferior. Sea-Bird has intentionally not become ISO-certified, because the ISO quality control model interferes with our own and would make it much harder, slower, and more expensive to remain at the leading edge of oceanographic instrument technology and serve the best interests of ocean scientists.

A zinc anode attracts corrosion and prevents aluminum from corroding until all the zinc is eaten up. Sea-Bird uses zinc anodes on an instrument if it has an aluminum housing and/or end cap. Instruments with titanium or plastic housings and end caps (for example, SBE 37 MicroCAT) do not require an anode.

Check the anode(s) periodically to verify that it is securely fastened and has not been eaten away.

The pH sensor will be shipped dry but was pre-conditioned in seawater (generally from Pacific Ocean waters near Hawaii). While conditioning and evaluating the pH sensor, only expose it filtered, sterilized natural seawater. Do not use seawater CRMs (Certified Reference Material), synthetic seawater, deionized water, NaCl Solutions, or tap water.

Before pre-deployment testing, you will need to fill the plumbing around the pH sensor with natural seawater. The pH sensor needs time to acclimate to the ionic concentration of region specific waters. Once wet, the time to recondition the sensor so that it will report within its accuracy specification depends on several factors, including the ionic composition of the seawater used and the amount of time the pH sensor was stored dry. This time can range from several hours to up to three days.

When the seawater bridge between Counter Electrode and ISFET is broken for longer than 10 seconds, it will be necessary to re-condition the sensor. The sensor does not require recalibration after being re-conditioned.

To prepare the sensor for deployment, it is recommended that several days prior to deployment, the isolated battery is connected via the float interface and the pH sensor is stored in water that is similar to the deployment site. The sensor should be stored dry to avoid bio-fouling of the ISFET and the battery may be removed during storage. Seawater creates a half cell bridge between the Counter Electrode and ISFET, and power to that circuit is provided by the isolated 9V cell. Without seawater, the battery is unnecessary and may be disconnected.

The nominal control voltage for the relay is 12 VDC. However, between 5 – 30 VDC will work, applied to pin 4 relative to the ground pin 2 on the Deep SUNA V2. The voltage can be applied to the relay any time after external power is applied to the instrument for a recommended 100 milliseconds. Unless the relay is already switched on, there should be a very quiet (but audible) click when the relay connects power to the SUNA V2 electronics, and the instrument should enter its boot up cycle.

The purpose of the relay is to keep external power applied to the SUNA with very low quiescent current draw, so the typical use case involves the SUNA constantly powered. If the application includes the ability to switch power to the SUNA effectively then the relay feature isn’t necessary. Regardless of how power cycling to the SUNA is controlled, there should be a power-off period of at least 30 seconds between power-on cycles to ensure that the capacitors that prevent a hard shutdown are allowed to completely discharge and allow the SUNA to boot up properly during the next power-on cycle.

The pH sensor will be shipped dry but was pre-conditioned in seawater (generally from Pacific Ocean waters near Hawaii). While conditioning and evaluating the pH sensor, only expose it filtered, sterilized natural seawater. Do not use seawater CRMs (Certified Reference Material), synthetic seawater, deionized water, NaCl Solutions, or tap water.

Before pre-deployment testing, you will need to fill the plumbing around the pH sensor with natural seawater. The pH sensor needs time to acclimate to the ionic concentration of region specific waters. Once wet, the time to recondition the sensor so that it will report within its accuracy specification depends on several factors, including the ionic composition of the seawater used and the amount of time the pH sensor was stored dry. This time can range from several hours to up to three days.

When the seawater bridge between Counter Electrode and ISFET is broken for longer than 10 seconds, it will be necessary to re-condition the sensor. The sensor does not require recalibration after being re-conditioned.

To prepare the sensor for deployment, it is recommended that several days prior to deployment, the isolated battery is connected via the float interface and the pH sensor is stored in water that is similar to the deployment site. The sensor should be stored dry to avoid bio-fouling of the ISFET and the battery may be removed during storage. Seawater creates a half cell bridge between the Counter Electrode and ISFET, and power to that circuit is provided by the isolated 9V cell. Without seawater, the battery is unnecessary and may be disconnected.

Seabird does not manufacture seacables for scientific winch systems and does not specify or endorse any specific cable material. The entire cable assembly must meet the following criteria: A single or multi-core armored cable up to 10,000 meters (32,800 feet) long; an inner core resistance of up to 350 ohms.

The pH sensor will be shipped dry but was pre-conditioned in seawater (generally from Pacific Ocean waters near Hawaii). While conditioning and evaluating the pH sensor, only expose it filtered, sterilized natural seawater. Do not use seawater CRMs (Certified Reference Material), synthetic seawater, deionized water, NaCl Solutions, or tap water.

Before pre-deployment testing, you will need to fill the plumbing around the pH sensor with natural seawater. The pH sensor needs time to acclimate to the ionic concentration of region specific waters. Once wet, the time to recondition the sensor so that it will report within its accuracy specification depends on several factors, including the ionic composition of the seawater used and the amount of time the pH sensor was stored dry. This time can range from several hours to up to three days.

When the seawater bridge between Counter Electrode and ISFET is broken for longer than 10 seconds, it will be necessary to re-condition the sensor. The sensor does not require recalibration after being re-conditioned.

To prepare the sensor for deployment, it is recommended that several days prior to deployment, the isolated battery is connected via the float interface and the pH sensor is stored in water that is similar to the deployment site. The sensor should be stored dry to avoid bio-fouling of the ISFET and the battery may be removed during storage. Seawater creates a half cell bridge between the Counter Electrode and ISFET, and power to that circuit is provided by the isolated 9V cell. Without seawater, the battery is unnecessary and may be disconnected.

The nominal control voltage for the relay is 12 VDC. However, between 5 – 30 VDC will work, applied to pin 4 relative to the ground pin 2 on the Deep SUNA V2. The voltage can be applied to the relay any time after external power is applied to the instrument for a recommended 100 milliseconds. Unless the relay is already switched on, there should be a very quiet (but audible) click when the relay connects power to the SUNA V2 electronics, and the instrument should enter its boot up cycle.

The purpose of the relay is to keep external power applied to the SUNA with very low quiescent current draw, so the typical use case involves the SUNA constantly powered. If the application includes the ability to switch power to the SUNA effectively then the relay feature isn’t necessary. Regardless of how power cycling to the SUNA is controlled, there should be a power-off period of at least 30 seconds between power-on cycles to ensure that the capacitors that prevent a hard shutdown are allowed to completely discharge and allow the SUNA to boot up properly during the next power-on cycle.

No.  The Navis does not have charge monitoring capabilities.  Typically information of that nature takes a coulomb counter chip, but the overhead with managing the data and powering such a chip is not a current Navis capability and is not expected to be added in the future.