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12 volt ultrasonic inverter (electrofishing device) needs deadmans switch install

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richardmclean

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I have this 12 volt electrofishing device 150 amp 16,800 watts it has foot control on/off - no input jack only + - terminals front and back will it break the current hooked to these, or do I need internal jack install if so, where to go with it thanks hate being a dummy lol
 
What breaks current an open switch on +/- term?
 
not sure that's my problem foot control has two wires, there is + and - terminals front and back, I was not sure if that would break current hooked to the outside terminals
 
There appears to be no remote kill switch, so contact Mfg or distributor for advice. ( Although that is an oxymoron)

I cannot give a suggestion that if not implemented correctly results in a hazard.

Perhaps the safety kill switch would blow the fuse by shorting out the electrodes, but I guess they had no guaranteed reliable solution so none was offered. ( Insurance risk to them) This way it is user's risk leaving them clear of liability.

The electrodes are capable of 150A or 800V , I understand but optimal power is when the settings for V and impedance of the water matches the fish between the gap.
 
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Doesn't the pedal act as a "deadman's switch"?

Thought such as "remote kill" and light curtains. or a simple string that gets pulled out of a clip. The make commercial products for this. The idea would be if someone tripped of fell overboard, the pin hopefully would pull out.
 
it will if wired correctly, but there is no input jack on machine or plug on foot control , It just has terminals front and back + - I could not see how that would break current, no response from manufacture people, thought about taking it to electronics repair shop, for a looksy inside ya know,
 
I think there will be safety issues with any kill switch. If the switch opens or closes to disarm and the pedal is left on and the switch fails, it is a safety risk.

If the only concern is man overboard while pedal is on, then a spring and flimsy mechanical latch that goes with the operator overboard would be immune to electrical contact corrosion failures .
Although one could easily fashion a closed contract with gold plating to shunt the foot pedal, there it needs to be tested to ensure it works often.

There was a problem that almost blew up a US aircraft carrier many decades ago. The problem was traced down to multiple failures from safety shorting pins for bomb squids to saving time , an SRV missle on board hit a plane , cascade explosions, to lack of training for fire brigade fighting oil fires with water and more cascading events with water filling one side it almost tipped over..

Any safety solution can add safety but the more you add, the bigger the risk for failures if untested and failure is not redundant but due to weakest link in series but ok if parallel. But parallel in this case must be done so it does not damage the pedal controller electronics. One cannot rely on a simple relay when HV and high current is involved as the arc can bridge the contacts.

So again, it may be possible to enable a low voltage signal or ground a contact, but no way to guarantee it works while the pedal is ON unless tested daily due to corrosion .. 100% of the time.,, 99% is not good enough.

e.g. man leaves pedal on but disarmed with plug out and while working around the boat happens to generate ESD from neoprene hip waders on a carpet and the ESD reaches the open switch and arcs, the follow-on current could activate the Anode to 800V or whatever.
 
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I was thinking of a pull swich such as this the stuff labeled under promotonal. **broken link removed**

But I feel that there is a miscommunication issue either,1) I don't know how to hook it up or 2) I need a deadman's type of switch. The operator falling in the water is one thing but there is also the possibility of someone else a non operator falling in the water. One would also hope that an emergency off is also easily accessible to anybody.
 
k.i.s.s.
I think the only off is the foot pedal or control panel
thats the issue. no evidence of an add-on interface

and IMHO unlikely to find one.
 
Where are you even allowed to fish with one of these? Why not just use the old dynamite stick to fish with? Real sportsmen. :)
 
I was part of a University Seismic team in a summer of '61 that had a license to use a pallet load of C4 in an lake flooded old mine shaft near Flin Flon, Manitscoldhere (MB) , an old gold mining town I once lived in as a wee tadpole picking up RCMP radio signals on our TV since there was no TV signals in 1961. But I was 9 and knew how to tune in the sideband being close to the broadcast, when I got bored staring at random dots on the screen, trying desperately to find a pattern, until it came, I heard, I saw. or was it verdi vici veni.

What fish inhabited one of these 100k+ lakes in Manitoba rose from the dead shortly after the surface rose 6".

Meanwhile I was stopping all traffic 250 miles North between two small mining towns. Except there was none.

Just before daily blastoff time, a mining bus came full speed towards me standing in the middle of the pavement, only to play chicken with me wearing a stupid looking white hardhat and big Red Stop sign.

As you all know by now, that driver did stop!. And I lived to tell about this recording incident. After he blurted out what the .. was I doing here, I calmly said, we're just blasting ahead.

Do you mind waiting?

Oh of course not.

Not a peep was heard nor a shake except for the feet of a walking deer and running brook a 100 yds away from the nearest geophone that pegged the needle. I could even peg the needle if it was on the pavement and I did knee flexes on the other side. But the boys in the truck doing galvo and mag recording duty today captured all 16 channels in succession and later uploaded tapes analyzed by seismology students found Uranium deposits from the reflections as deep as 30 Miles x 250 miles long for about 5 minutes and maybe a few deer hooves.

Then, I motioned the bus driver to pass, as he scratched his head and I looked as if everything went ok.

A lot of floating fish in that pond after recording every day for a week. But my favorite recording near Kenora , Ontario ( in between fishing) when we took for cover after dropping a dozen sticks of geo-gel (by our licensed boss) was a massive tree trunk that came out of the mineshaft with some water and went clear past us overhead.
Johnny Unitus said. go long and it did.

But this is the first time I've heard of a fishing gadget that uses lots of Joules for fishing. I always though it was better to fish for jewels like Sharks decorated with all sorts of jewelery and hooks 2 hrs past the San Franciso Bridge. I least that's what I did once. A long day but the Yellowtail and Cod was worth it.
 
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we are commercial fish farm, planning on using it to grade fish for processing and managing ponds, there is no on/off on control panel if connected to 12 volt and both cathode and anode is in water it is hot ! the model in the manual shows female plug in for foot control and the one we received does not have it. only the foot control with two wires. I have requested from supplier about connecting the thing with no response, I swear the world today lol
 
This **broken link removed** one is kinda funny.: 16,800 W must be the model number. Then it says 2000 W. 12 * 150 A is indeen 200 with an 80% efficiency, so 2000 W could be right.

To put it into perspective 16800/120 V is 140 A or about 1/2 the typical power of a service panel in the home. Yep, I used 120.

Marketing.
 
we are commercial fish farm, planning on using it to grade fish for processing and managing ponds, there is no on/off on control panel if connected to 12 volt and both cathode and anode is in water it is hot ! the model in the manual shows female plug in for foot control and the one we received does not have it. only the foot control with two wires. I have requested from supplier about connecting the thing with no response, I swear the world today lol

- cheapest solution is a safety pin on leash to relay to unpower system and hopefully it has rapid discharge inside otherwise it needs to be modified. Use the Normall open contacts NO and drive the negative coil to boat frame ground if used to activate. An LED + 470R could be added across switch with reverse diode. protection in parallel with LED for bonus marks.

Better solution is measure resistance of footcontroller disconnected between all pins and both polarities. for off and on levels and then measure voltage using straight pins thru insulation with clips to DVM and then tell us or ..... MOD it for either open circuit or 0V as required.

Most likely shorting the 2 wires will work, but tell us results in case Murphy's Law Strikes again. $10 DMM is all you need.
 
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I agree with sfety devices. We had a excess flow valve fail making it appear the H2 tank was empty. To change a cylinder The lines and regulator have to be evacuated (vacuum). The lines that were rated for 1600 psi when the operator briefly opened the valve to check tightness. Explosion|

An analysis afterwards resulted in a number of modifications. The valve was changed to an orifice.

Other changes such as:
1. dedicated purge tanks located in the same cabinet.
2. Vacuum (should see vacuum 100% of the time, except fault) lines upgraded to withstand cylinder pressure.
2. Cylinder pressure air shutoff valves changed to air pilot to get 120 VAC out of gas cabinet. A side effect would be a fire could sever air to cylinder valve.

Gases were Hydrides. Anything from poison at very low levels to spontaneously conbust in air.

Good part. My system worked and shut it down. Bad part was H2 alarm was in the box.

I thinkair velocity sensors that broke set off alarm. It wasn't included in the design. The uninstalled H2 sensor was.

There was no evidence of fire, just explosion.
 
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