Humminbird Side Imaging Forums
Other Interest => DIY - Side Scan Sonar and towfish => Topic started by: sonarbear on April 26, 2016, 04:52:57 PM
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Hello,
as there is quite some knowledge about transducers here, I was wondering whether somebody has some material on how to drive them, i.e. the Tx/Rx-circuitry. I have been fiddeling around with sonar for quite some time now, but I haven't really found a good driving circuit yet. I was considering to stop using transformers and was thinking about a directly driven piezo pulser, as it's used in medical ultrasound. That would give ca. 400 W p.p. power.
If anybody has information to share, I'd be very glad!
Best,
Mike
ps: I'm aware of this circuit and have been playing around with it:
http://mini-sonar.narod.ru/index/0-5 (http://mini-sonar.narod.ru/index/0-5)
Problem I was facing is just that I can't seem to get enough current into the primary for any power over 100 W in the scondary circuit. Might be a transformer issue... Also, there is excessive ringing. Does anybody know whether the commercial units are actively dampened like medical ultrasound units?
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I would be interested as well on this. I have been playing around with idea of building towfish from bastardised HB sidescan transducer and making it keep constant distance from the bottom with pair of servo controlled elevators. Don't necessarily see point building transducer from scratch but there is also this project: http://www.mbtelectronics.com/side-scan-sonar.php (http://www.mbtelectronics.com/side-scan-sonar.php)
i haven't gone over that project in great depth but it seems to hold relevant information how to drive transducer. I wonder if HB or Lowrance transducers are just pure analog devices and pins are directly connected to corresponding sensors?