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USGS IN YOUR STATE

USGS Water Science Centers are located in each state.

Programs at the Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility

Project: Electric Reel Drive

The Electric Reel Drive was designed to replace and improve on the standard USGS ‘Jack & Heintz’ electric reel drive. The new drive allows the user to set a vertical transit speed, and the drive will then regulate itself to run at the selected speed in both the up and down directions. This is intended to meet the needs of USGS personnel using depth-integrating samplers to gather sediment or water-quality samples.

• The drive is designed to attach to the USGS type E crane, and to drive the USGS type B-56 and E-53 sounding reels.
• Maximum speed in the normal configuration is about 3-1/2 ft/sec driving a B reel, and about 1-1/2 ft/sec driving an E reel.
• The drive will operate with sounding weights and samplers weighing up to about 300 lbs.
• The drive is powered by either 12 or 24-volts DC (VDC) supplied by one or two 12-V batteries.
• The user controls the drive via a cord-attached handheld control unit.

HIF Engineers verifying transit rates on an electric reel drive.

The initial production run of approximately 45 units was very well received. Unfortunately, some of the electronic parts used in the design are no longer available, and a considerable amount of redesign was needed to update the design so that we could build more units. As of late March 2010, this work is nearing completion.