Rockland Customers Tow-Yow-ing the VMP-250

Rockland Scientific instrument users continue to push the operational boundaries of microstructure turbulence measurements.  A sub-section off these microstructure data collection trailblazers have been developing “tow-yow-ing” techniques with the VMP-250 to gather underway profiles in the mixed layer. 1. Oregon State University Dr. Kipp Shearman, Dr. Johnathan Nash and the Ocean Mixing Group at OSU […]

A Method for Determining Mixing Rates from Concurrent Temperature & Velocity Measurements

Ocean mixing has historically been estimated using Osborn’s model by measuring the rate of dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy and the background density stratification N while assuming a value of the flux Richardson number, Rif. A constant Rif of 0.17 is typically assumed, despite mounting field, laboratory, and modeling evidence that Rif varies. This challenge […]

Corrosion Prevention: Anodes, Nail-polish, and Continuity Checks

Corrosion prevention is an easy to overlook, yet critical practice for operating in the corrosive environment of the ocean. Your Rockland Scientific MicroStructure instrument is equipped with one or more sacrificial anodes to prevent corrosion of your instrument. The anodes are electrically connected to the entire instrument providing protection to the instrument when submerged in […]

Troubleshooting Realtime Instruments

The Rockland suite of instrumentation includes many realtime instruments including the VMP-2000, VMP-500-RT and the VMP-250-RT. Realtime instruments use an electro-mechanical cable to send data back to the ship in real time. Cables can reach lengths up to 2500m and sending data this distance is no easy task. The strength of the received signal on […]

Powering a MicroRider Instrument: Startup and Shutdown Sequence

  The MicroRider is a small instrument package for turbulence microstructure measurements, designed to integrate with a variety of marine instrument carriers, such as Gliders, AUVs, moorings, CTD rosettes, profiling floats and the WireWalker. Depending on the age if your MicroRider instrument, it will either have an IE55-1206-BCR or a MCBH(WB)-8-FS connect on the rear end-cap.  This connector serves as […]

Limiting the Size and Duration of Data Files: autoexec.bat

When preparing for a long duration deployment it is important to consider the length of the data file that will be generated. MicroRiders are often deployed for days or weeks at a time. The default setting on Rockland instruments is to collect a single data file unlimited in size. A file collected over days or […]