Satellite buoy teardown Satlink ELB3010

A look at a buoy designed for remotely reporting the presence of fish via the Inmarsat satellite network

[@Mythricia1988]

Omg, 40 minute video from both Mike and Dave, I know what I'm doing this morning... Not a damn thing, stuck watching KZbin!

[@randacnam7321]

Not nothing, as these videos contain entire semesters of EE and related material. Real edifikation is quite a damn thing if you asked me.

[@Mythricia1988]

Can't disagree with that.

[@gryzman]

the team who designed that case must be watching this and just grinning :D

[@DanFrederiksen]

Yeah it seemed a bit overdone :)

[@tbbw]

Tamper proofing by glue/silicon... most sain ppl will go "uuh... screw this".

[@eternalblue2119]

Wheres my 'ammer?

[@bairfamilyfarm1336]

tbbw tamper proof? What tamper proof?

[@tbbw]

kd9bwi enuff glue to make someone go "aw fsck this".

[@90SecondsofAviation]

It has started... People are going to send Mike things to teardown, just like Dave... Great success Mike, I just LOVE to see this channel grow.

[@DatBlueHusky]

make a solar garden light from hell!!

[@kellyiopa937]

I have found 2 of these and I think your idea is a good idea, how do I turn that into a garden light. thanks

[@Ed.R]

I've just got one off the beach today, can think of better things to power than a garden light. Been struggling for hours this afternoon to get it open, now I see the only option is the saw.

[@robfenwitch7403]

I've taken to wearing safety specs when watching Mike's videos...

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

is the unit ultrasonically welded together, might be QPSK or QAM, I would have dunked that transducer in ACETONE for a week and came back to it to see what is inside.

[@TheEPROM9]

Once again highly entertaining. Quite the challenge to crack open, reminds me of a phone I dismantled years ago due to the disassemble challenge. Could make some really cool BEAM robots and solar engines with those solar panels.

[@RODALCO2007]

Brilliant video, I love your application of all the different tools to open up the device. 6:00 the moment of truth ! or not yet. 7:24 That capacitor is a whopper ! Interesting and quality build. That discharge test in amazing, lot of current. Did not expect that to glow a bolt red hot.

[@ujungkulontv_]

I found it in the sea

[@zaprodk]

That's what i call a proper, complete teardown! - Thanks for showing the internals of one of these. It sure was hard to get apart!

[@redtails]

Sweet stuff, I hope you really make that garden light. Lead acid cell and a 0.5W led or something like that

[@christopherleubner6633]

6 of those boost caps will atart most cars and trucks. Rigged my truck to start in very cold weather with these. The trick is to have the cap feed the starter cable as close as possible.

[@UberAlphaSirus]

Mike, always a pleasure.

[@robertcalkjr.8325]

Poor fish, they just can't get a break...

[@electrodacus]

I need to get 8 of those 3000F capacitors for my Solar BMS now I use a much smaller 220F hybrid ultra-capacitors. Yes is simple to know the energy remaining in capacitors extremely simple to implement for me compared to Lithium where I need a much more complex energy counter. I want to use those 8x 3000F about 24Wh ultracaps for a solar powered vehicle that will clean the snow in the winter on my property or cut the grass in the summer. I think they will perform better than batteries in this application average energy can be delivered directly from solar PV panels but when for sort duration more power is required those capacitors can easily deliver even 1000W for a minute with no problem. The first supercapacitors that I have seen was around 1996 when I got a few 3.3F 5V super capacitors (internally was probably two 2.5V in series) at a local electronic store where a friend of mine worked. I was extremely shocked that something like that existed and I was sure it was a printing error :)

[@SantaClaw]

The Kongsberg group is a large Norwegian company, and they do just about everything, even weapons development and manufacture.

[@BurnabyAlex]

The SIMRAD logo indicates that it's made in Port Coquitlam BC. Kongsberg bought Simrad.

[@megabytephreak]

I recognized that capacitor in there as soon as you opened it. All I could think was "Mike got his hands on a BoostCap, this should be entertaining!".

[@Pieh0]

2:48 Superman opens up a satellite bouy!

[@elboa8]

I was waiting for a shot of a nuclear explosion at about 5 minutes in. Very funny. Great, as always Mike. Thanks Eric

[@AliMirjamali]

Something fishy. Expecting news of beached ships at UK shores in few weeks. lol Seriously talking, if IATA had made a similar device mandatory for international flights, they could have easily found MH370 remains.

[@nurxg]

No chance that sat radio would work deep underwater.

[@AliMirjamali]

xion101 Of course! This beauty floats. I am talking about a similar beacon that automatically detaches from the airplane upon sinking in water.

[@AliMirjamali]

UBARRET No. Blackbox flight recorders sink like a dead rock & they do not even have a satellite modem. Watch Mike's other old video of flight recorder tear-down for detailed information.

[@phonescreamer]

UBARRET Check out Mike's video on the black box. They typically contain some sort or locator beacon, but that's about it. Their primary design function is to survive a land impact; they aren't much use in water unless you can dig them up.

[@DrTune]

LOL at the gentle scraping at the silicone seal with a screwdriver @ 2:20 .. then an edit.. then it's No More Mr Nice Guy. Really enjoying your vids, always something interesting.. thanks!

[@murrij]

What's interesting to me is how clearly labeled the UART, JTAG, etc. are labeled. What a great tear down!

[@Kaluriel]

Isn't this how The Andromeda Strain started? Love a good teardown

[@Lumpio2]

So, how much out of 10 would you give this for serviceability?

[@azyfloof]

Probably the reason you don't see these on iFixit :P

[@goose300183]

hehe you got a bit "photonicinduction" with that big cap! I like it!

[@unlokia]

Oh buoy...

[@MongrelShark]

Wow. I wish I couls hack saw that fast! What did you have for breakfast? Can you make it say there are fish in london, and have it send location data for a fishmarket?

[@jmelair]

OSHA would be so proud of you

[@Max_Marz]

Damn mike, that bench is looking pretty gnarly. I love it though. My desk is the same way.

[@Edu_RJR]

4:00 we're in like flynn!

[@oOMonkeyMagicOo]

sounduser Generally refers to Errol Flynn, a famous old-time Aussie actor who had a way with the ladies. I have also heard it said as "In Like Errol" but this never really caught the zeitgeist.

[@sosimple]

sounduser it is (I believe) a reference to the Tron movie.

[@unlokia]

sounduser Flynnt Eastwood, also known Fred Flynntstone ;-)

[@smling11]

Have boycotted commenting on youtube since they forced an ID requirement. Seeing you put in so much efforts to crack the buoy apart, and disecting every bit that you can, I say: Mike you are the man.

[@technodaz]

Oh Mike you're uploading on dave Joneses time zone ...so much for just about to hit the sack, this is far too interesting not to watch straight away! Thanks can't wait to see what guts are in this !

[@oriole8789]

Just really wish you'd used gloves when cutting unknown objects with a bandsaw or an angle grinder Mike haha. Only takes 1 accident to forever mess up your hands or eyes when doing that... be safe please! :) Fantastic vid otherwise, just super interesting in every way...

[@mikeselectricstuff]

IMO gloves would be less safe - risk of getting caught up & dragging into blade, & poorer control, feel & grip.

[@oriole8789]

mikeselectricstuff Ended up doing some research on this to get some industry consensus and indeed rubber or tight fitting kevlar seem to be preferred for these types of jobs, which don't offer any real protection other than from sharp bits and hot projectile metal and plastic, plus giving you tighter grip on the part.. no gloves being fine too. So I stand corrected. :) Still a bit uncomfortable to watch though haha

[@dtiydr]

Dam that cap got some punch.

[@Psi105]

I have 9 of the previous model of those maxwell boostcap. (2600F 2.5V). Connecting 9 in series and some cable too two metal rods was crazy fun. It would shower sparks about 60cm when rubbing the rods together. Currently i have 6 of them installed in my car instead of a car battery.

[@JanicekTrnecka]

Ben Wilson whats the leakage current?

[@Psi105]

Not much. Ones i tested self discharge from 2.5V to ~2.1V over a month but it slows down a lot after that. I've had a couple sitting on my shelf and they were 1.9v after 6 months. And i think 1.7v after a year. It's drawing small amouts of power that runs them flat. Like car alarms. They work well in my car because its old and the current draw is practicality zero with key out. Just a ~mA for the ecu memory backup.

[@JanicekTrnecka]

Thanks, that s what I needed to know. Car consumption can be measured and somewhat mitigated (of course erasing ECUs adaptation data wont be wise ). But most of my cars are ..how to say it..only semiconductors are diode blocks in alternator, so if you pull the key, it really draws nothing. And the problem with Pb accu slowly leaking and even aging just sitting there....

[@Psi105]

A car with supercaps behaves A little different to a pb batt. 1) It cranks over much faser the instant you turn the key. Due to the starter motor getting ~3-4 extra volts because the ESR is so low compared to a pb. 2) if you let the cells discharge to like 9v it can still start the car no prob but the alternator instantly tries to charge it back up a little too fast. Due to the caps different voltage vs capacity relationship the alternator tries to put max current into it them at idle which can stall the engine unless you give it a little gas for a couple of seconds. 3) you kinda do want to either fit an automatic cutoff at 9v or carry something with you to recharge the caps should you leave the lights on for 2min and run them dead.

[@RyanBlace]

I wish there was a way of giving 100 thumbs up.

[@redtails]

7:16 XD you always get stuff that's so incredibly difficult to take apart from a mechanical point of view

[@againstalloddstherussiansg3206]

Experiments with superCap is COOL! Thanks! :o)

[@davet11]

Fascinating... I'll think about this thing every time I walk past a can of tuna.... who would have thought! Wondered what the implications are on fish stock of this technology. Also got me thinking what other stuff the various options are capable of surreptitiously detecting .... too much engineering and dsp for just fish methinks ;-) Thanks mike.

[@palmadelmar4meetings223]

Telling commercial fisherman exactly when, where and how much fish are in a location means the total capture of that school. Note they said it was for purse seine fisheries. That means that you 1) get the message (with time, location, and estimated fish density and perhaps depth, the latter permitting probably fish species) 2) steam out to the location 3) deploy your several km long purse seine and catch almost EVERY fish. 4) Repeat That's why fish stocks are crashing and there will soon be no fish left in the ocean. Technology makes us too efficient and greed means we are out of control.

[@MrTurboturbine]

That is cool as hell

[@1710000huh]

super interesting channel, thank you!

[@NekitaNet]

The solar garden light idea is a nice one! :-D

[@ElectronicMarine]

maybe it does not trasmit becouse it has no fix on sat yet, there are different sat configurations and trasponder messages, I had problems on sat reciving position with somme sistems... also it might be that the sonar does not send a valid signal... the lenght of the cable you use it migh be influent on the trasmission...

[@digitaldunk3879]

I found one of these in 2013 !!! exactly the same on Muriwai Beach, North Island New Zealand. Managed to take it apart without power tools but it took a while to hack out the rubber seal. it has been sitting in my garden and transmitting for a few years. I think it only transmits around dawn and dusk when it sends its fish finder info. great video !! i was wondering if there was anything i could do with it but seems mostly welding. I may take it on a road trip to lake taupo in the middle of the north island. if they are still getting data they will wonder how the hell it got there !!!!

[@JennyferMourot]

Hi, So the comment is a bit old and hope your account is still active after 7 years. I am a research assistant at the Pacific Community in Nouméa, and I am working on reporting of abandonned/lost buoys like these in the Pacific. I am very interested about what you have said because fishing grounds are mostly located around the equatorial region and New Zealand is very far in the south, so it would be nice to quantify the extent of this problem there. They are attached to a raft made of bamboos/yellow floats called "Fish aggregating devices" used by the purse seine fishery, but sometimes they are cut off of this structure due to a high competition among fishers. If you still have the buoy, would you agree to share some informations ? If yes, we are looking for the buoy unique identification number (written on the top at the center like in the video at 2:08), as well as any painted marks on the top case, if it was attached to a bamboo raft or netting, if it was found on a beach or drifting, and if you found similar ones since 2013 ? It would be great ! :) Thanks !

[@Cruisey]

If you enjoyed the supercap shenanigans, type 'Photonicinduction' into the search bar...

[@kerrytrantham6197]

Meh photonic is cool, I do love the shit he fries, but his friend lost his leg in a motorbike crash, and that shit he did for him to get a new prosthetic was AMAZING IMO! He is a great man for that, he raised an assload of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$to help his ninja ash! I'm a grown ass man, but that got me to drop a tear. You don't find GOOD people like that!

[@XOIIOXOIIO]

Holy crap, as soon as I saw that thing I was jealous, I'd probably never see something like that in person let alone get a chance to tear into it. This is going to be a good video, I love random unique bits of very specific, but somewhat obscure tech. I think I'm still most jealous of either your x ray machine or the firefighter thermal camera.

[@XOIIOXOIIO]

Oh man that supercapacitor, holy crap that thing is purely pornographic.

[@mohamedabdulakrim5052]

i Have two of them local fishermen grab it on daily basis its very common here in east african coast and you can buy as little as few bucks

[@DanFrederiksen]

I would probably never use lead batteries but it is true that most lithium seems to dislike being charged at freezing temperatures. Otherwise good lifepo batteries can do thousands of cycles which can be 10+ years. And deliver plenty of power in a small package. Good video, Mike. Maybe could have edited down the cutting part at the end :)

[@MrDubje]

That capacitor would make a nice spotwelder indeed. Perhaps for assembling batterypacks with lithium-ion cells and the like, it is far better than soldering together (and thus heating up the cells), if you ask me.

[@sysmatt]

wow, your teardowns never disappoint!

[@Desmaad]

Did you HAVE to sacrifice a screwdriver?

[@R.Daneel]

Take away: don't use the "tongue test" to see if Supercaps are charged.

[@dash8brj]

That capacitor is evil! oodles of current to play with - completely demolished that screwdriver tip. :)

[@Vatea97]

Hi, Thank you for your video. Not gonna lie, i have found one of these on an illegal drifting vessel, used by foreign countries to pull fish out of my country's fishing exclusive area. How would you "hack" the echo-sounder feature from this cardboard? Is it possible to reconfigure the iSat modem in order to use it for my own? PS : i kinda am aware that's pretty close to stealing

[@weeardguy]

I first didn't really sense how big that supercap was, until you held it in your hands ;)

[@jam99]

Another big advantage of super cap vs rechargeable battery is international shipping. Shipping batteries, particularly lithium, is getting trickier (i.e. more admin and freight restriction) and more expensive as time goes on. Organisations buying this sort of kit will not want the hassle of freight restrictions when shipping and deploying internationally so 'no battery' is a good selling point. Also e.g. WEEE hassle with batts. Manufacturers making relatively small batches would much rather make a batch of devices with supercaps in compared to rechargeables because of shelf life, charging and storage issues, where internal space in the product allows. Also, should the worst happen with something like this product, seawater and batteries are not a good combination (which is one of the reasons for the shipping restrictions in the first place).

[@Stabby666]

iFixit score: 0/10

[@matthewghali2987]

Hi Mike! Love watching your tear down videos, and it would be a shame if you weren't able to produce them after the loss of a finger or two, or perhaps an eyeball. (Purely selfish self-motivations here, of course) Please be careful around the power tools & get yourself a nice pair of gloves and eye protection! And have a great 2018 👍👍👍

[@yowzagrimace2995]

So you might wonder: what the hell, why is there no name of the company that put this out in the ocean, prominently displayed somewhere? The answer is that these are semi-legal. They are thrown into international waters. (So they just slap a faceless serial number on there.) There are somewhere in the tens of thousands of them in existance. They are mainly used for tuna fishing off the north-western side of Africa. (One main consumer of tuna is Japan for their sashimi.) It seems they even tag the tuna itself too, so they can track the entire herd and make fishing them even easier. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop-up_satellite_archival_tag

[@mdesm2005]

Mike, you never grunt in exasperation. This looks like one of the more frustrating tear down challenge you've put on youtube. Do you edit out the cursing?

[@jam99]

Mike is too cool to get annoyed. It's just a challenge, man!

[@henrikjensen3278]

A bit scary what this buoy can do. I tested that capacitor as a regular battery (See lygte-info.dk), but did never try to short it. It is impressive how much current it can deliver. Thanks for a very interesting video.

[@Fan119]

Moving in on photonicinduction's turf with the capacitors there. Also any one know what happened to photonicinduction? I know he is getting a devoice is that why he hasn't been making videos?

[@voltare2amstereo]

see boomboxdelux's vid, explains all. pi still kickin'

[@Anvilshock]

That montage of increasingly violent methods to try opening this thing was hilarious! I was half waiting for you to end up wrapping the thing with a belt of detcord and taking it to a quarry to blow it in two halves!

[@PetreRodan]

can you please tell me what is the exact model of the msp430? I find it's mind boggling that they used this much silicon only to detect fish :/

[@b19drums70]

Cant believe how much damage the supercap can do !!!

[@boonedockjourneyman7979]

The kids all cheered when the bandsaw came out! By chance their industrial arts program had done bandsaws this Monday.

[@GuruBrew]

Interesting device that I never knew existed. thanks!

[@kristhetrader5029]

Amazing teardown!!!!! Keep them coming mate!

[@Arnthorg]

Marine buoys are generally programmed with an optical serial interface. It might be that the reed switch is used to trigger it.

[@aaronazz]

ROFL Solar garden light from hell. You made my day. Thanks Mike :-)

[@MartynDavies]

That thing's letting no-one in

[@MichaelBeeny]

Looks like it was never made to be serviced but I expect it was quite expensive to buy. Someone must be pissed off losing it!!

[@mohamedabdulakrim5052]

around 7000usd

[@OneBiOzZ]

I think i have used that exact cap on my miniature spot welder project, works great

[@uzaiyaro]

What on earth is that notification sound at about 11:50? I’ve heard that sound everywhere but never been able to track it down.

[@svenhoek]

London Calling!!!

[@jonhoyles714]

wow how clever is the human being in its greatness to build something so amazing these day with electronics nice vid mike thanks for the education :)

[@redtails]

17:10 "and this is some voodoo dielectric material"

[@ribb4200]

Things I would not do on KZbin! Or things I would not do at all. You have to wonder who owns that thing.

[@nurxg]

Good stuff, but I would have loved to see you play around with the echo sounder.

Thanks friend!!! I like your tube zone!!!! Best regards from spain!

[@SLRist]

What you need is a Fein Multimaster.Great for dissecting things.

[@4dirt2racer0]

holy shit!!! 3...thousand farads...?? good god

[@OK2BCK]

can it has working?

[@tomwilkinson4630]

A supercap ! Nice find. This thing looks really nicely engineered.

[@robot797]

that is one awsome capasitor i could do big things with that

[@adaptine]

Kongsberg Maritime AS, hey a norwegian company!

[@redtails]

12:50 555 timer in a weird location!

[@jaysonrebangcos2943]

I have a zunival tuna 8 explorer.

[@GabrielRotar]

Absolutely brilliant

[@ArsenioDev]

Whoah! I'd love one of those super caps

[@Razor2048]

If you can boost the voltage enough, can you use that super cap to build a tazer that can offer a high voltage and high amperage?

[@timbdotus]

No, to increase voltage you have to sacrifice current. That's what the measurement of watts is for. Power = V*A

[@Razor2048]

Timothy Brown yep, I was just wondering if the higher amperage capability of the super capacitor would allow tazer voltages with a little extra amperage than what is found in the average tazer (to make it slightly more effective)

[@ryanbarnes2332]

do you want to sell the 3000 ferad capacitor?

[@youdonotknowmyname9663]

Hmmm, that supercap give me an idea ... Make a device that has a supercap and a few small solar cells. They will slowly charge up the SC over time (just like thing in this video does). When needed, you can short out the supercap with "something", that will then get very hot and could be used to set something on fire. An electric lighter! (Most electric lighers use HV, so why not make one that uses HC?) Would be a fun little project ... Obviously there would have to be a good cover over the "exposed connectors" of the SC ... Of course the "mechanical" stuff would be the hardest part. Trying to create a "case" for it ...

[@rogeronslow1498]

Attention: Opening unit voids warranty.

[@Ogma3bandcamp]

2 minutes in I was screaming 'angle grinder!'.. you didn't disappoint.

[@KirkOfBellevue]

Are the solar panels worth getting out?

[@ryanbarnes2332]

I have a PayPal account

[@kerrytrantham6197]

Moments like this I love my sawzall

[@trigg99]

hi mike did you save the super cap

[@kartoffelwaffel]

rip screwdriver

[@andislow]

ISL+159867

[@kemi242]

24:46 Headphone users are now deaf.