MIDAS ECM – Electromagnetic Current Meter
The MIDAS ECM is a highly versatile point current meter, designed with durability and ease of deployment in mind.
Valeport’s latest electronics architecture allows multiple additional sensors, and a variety of communications options, making it one of the few multiparameter current meters that allows real time operations over several thousand metres of cable, as well autonomous deployments. A choice of titanium or acetal housing gives depth rating up to 5000m.
Sensors
| Sensor | Type | Range | Accuracy | Resolution |
| Current | Valeport EM | 0 – 5m/s | +/-1% reading | 0.001m/s |
| Direction | Fluxgate | 0 – 360° | +/-<1° | 0.001° |
| Pressure | Piezo-Resistiv e | Up to 500Bar | +/-0.01% | 0.001% |
| Temperature | PRT | -5 – +35°C | +/-0.005°C | 0.002°C |
| Conductiv ity | Inductive Cell | 0 – 80mS/cm | +/-0.01mS/cm | 0.002mS/cm |
| Turbidity | Seapoint STM | 0 – 2000FTU | +/-2% | 0.001% |
| Data Acquisition | |
| Continuous : | Regular output from all sensors at 1, 2, 4 or 8Hz. |
| Burst : | Regular sampling pattern, where instrument takes a number of readings, then sleeps for a defined time. |
| Conditional : | Instrument sleeps until a selected parameter reaches a set v alue. |
| Delay : | Instrument sleeps until predefined start time |
Communications
The instrument will operate autonomously, with setup and data extraction performed by direct communications with PC before and after deployment. It also operates in real time, with a choice of communication protocols for a v ariety of cable lengths, all fitted as standard and selected by pin choice on the output connector :
| Standard | |
| RS232 | Up to 200m cable, direct to serial port via USB adapter |
| RS485 | Up to 1000m cable, addressable half duplex comms |
| Optional FSK 2 wire power & comms up to 6000m cable (cable dependent) |
|
| Baud Rate : | 2400 – 115200 (FSK fixed at 19200, USB 460800) |
| Protocol : | 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, No parity, No flow control |
Memory
The MIDAS ECM is fitted with 16Mb solid-state non-v olatile FLASH memory. Total capacity depends on sampling mode; continuous & burst modes hav e a single time stamp at the start of the file, trip mode (profiling) stores a time stamp with each reading. Asingle line of current data uses 10bytes, with each additional parameter taking 2bytes and
a time stamp uses 7 bytes. The examples are for an instrument measuring speed, direction and CTD.
| Continuous : | >520,000 data points |
| Profile : | >360,000 data points (>15 profiles to 5000m). |
| Electrical | |
| Internal : | 8x D cells, 1.5V alkaline or 3.6V lithium |
| External : | 9 – 30V DC |
| Power : | 1.7W (sampling), <1mW (sleeping) |
| Battery Life : | >100 hours operation (alkaline) |
| >250 hours operation (lithium) | |
| Connector : | SubConn MCBH10F |
| Physical | |
| Materials : | Titanium or Acetal housing, polyurethane sensor components, stainless steel (316) cage |
| Depth Rating : | 5000m (titanium), 500m (acetal) |
| Instrument Size : | 150mmØ x 700mm long |
| Cage Size : | 210mm Ø x 732mm long |
| Weight : (in cage) | 20kg – Titanium 12kg – Acetal |
| Shipping : | 130 x 37 x 32cm, 38kg – Titanium 130 x 37 x 32cm, 34kg – Acetal |
Software
System is supplied with DataLog Express Windows based PC software, for instrument setup, data extraction and display.
DataLog Express is license free.
| Ordering | |
| 0808007 | MIDAS ECM Current Meter (Titanium) |
| 0808008 | MIDAS ECM Current Meter (Acetal) |
measuring speed and direction the system is supplied with :
- Deployment cage.
- SubConn switch plug.
- 3m communications lead.
- USB adapter.
- DataLog x2 software, Manual, tool kit and transit case.
| Options | |
| 04000565 | Pressure sensor (specify range) |
| 0400012 | PRT Temperature sensor |
| 0400011 | Conductiv ity sensor |
| 0400021 | Turbidity sensor |
| 0400002 | 16 Mbyte memory upgrade (max 64 Mbyte) |
| 0400EA5 | FSK modem adapter |
| TB0400FSK | Probe board set required for FSK operation |
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