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Is it possible to deploy the Eco in a side-facing orientation?

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Jake Madewell

Our study area is fairly shallow (we're lucky to see depths greater than 1m) and we would like to use an Eco to measure flows. In the past, we have been able to point our Aquadopps across a stream channel--instead of facing upward--with great success. Is this possible with the Eco? We have four deployment sites and currently only one Eco purchased for a different study. Would the lack of access to raw data files be a barrier to this?

For other reasons, we usually deploy our ADCPs with an additional conductivity, temp, and depth sensor so I'm not worried about the on-board pressure transducer as long as it isn't integral to any of the core calculations.

There are two primary drivers behind wanting to point it sideways: the first is increased battery life since our waters are shallow, and the second is fear of boat propeller collision damaging the sensor.

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    David Velasco

    Hello Jake

    Thanks for the question.  The Eco is designed to operate only in an up-looking orientation.  It does not have support for operation side-looking or down-looking, and that is inherent to its design.  However, you only need about 30 cm of water above the transducers for it to collect at least one layer of valid of velocity data.  I have done plenty of deployments in estuaries that go from only a few cm to >2 m with the tide and you will certainly get plenty of data below 1 m of water above it under most conditions.

    Couple of pointers in these situations that might be helpful:

    1. If you are using the official Nortek Eco Tripod (https://www.nortekgroup.com/eco-webshop), you can set it such that the bottom of the Eco is flush with the bed, which will maximize the height of water above it.  See the below FAQ on the Eco App for details:

     

    2. Depending on your site's condition, you can also bury the Eco a little ways into the bed, having just the head stick up out of the bottom.  However, if your site has a lot of sediment transport along the bottom, you should be cautious with this approach so that the Eco doesn't get fully buried so that you don't collect data at all, or worse, you can't find it again :-)

    Good luck with your deployments!

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