Important Safety BulletinSM2M and SM3M Marine
RecordersFollow up about the dangers of pressurized housings after
deployment. Dear valued customer, Several months ago we sent you a Technical Bulletin
email warning of the possible danger of SM2M/SM3M housings becoming
pressurized during deployment, creating the possibility that the
cap could become a projectile when unscrewed. This could result in
serious injury or death if it strikes a person. While extremely
rare, safety precautions should always be taken to avoid
potential risk. In that email we gave some recommendations to
follow to assure your safety:
- Wear work gloves and eye protection. If batteries
failed, there may be corrosive liquids and gasses trapped inside
the housing under pressure.
- Lie the
housing down on the ground, never upright.
- Aim
the cap away from people and consider what would happen if the cap
is forcefully ejected from pressure inside the tube.
- If you hear air release and stop, do not assume that the
housing has depressurized. You may have heard air
escape between the two sets of O-rings and the enclosure
may remain under pressure.
- If your
housing is equipped with a Pressure Relief Valve (PRV), it may
still be under enough pressure to cause a
serious hazard.
In that email, we also promised
to send a multi-language warning label that could be applied by you to
the SM2M/SM3M housing and a revised User Guide that adds
warning about the risks and instructions on how to mitigate
the possibility of injury. We are ready to send out both and
ask that you email support2016@wildlifeacoustics.com to arrange for us
to ship you those items. Please include the quantity of labels you
need and the shipping address with a phone contact. We will include
instructions for application of the warning label with your
shipment.
If your SM3M was received
after August of 2015, then your housing includes a pressure
release valve on the top cap to reduce the possible pressure
in the housing to no more than 10 psi. The PRV can be
seen installed on a top cap here:
(You can also see the warning label
installed.) Again, 10 psi is still enough pressure to create a
hazard so caution should still be taken as outlined in the bullets
above.
We have also devised a modification
that you can do yourself to the top cap that will make it safer
when opening. The modification is a small hole that is drilled
in the cap to the bottom of the O-rings which allows air/gas
to escape the housing when opened while the threads are still
holding the cap. This way when the threads are freed, there is
no pressure left to cause it to become a projectile. This will
release pressure safely in all but the most catastrophic failures. This
will not work on SM2M/SM3M Deep units, only the PVC housing of
the standard SM2M/SM3M. Here is a document describing the
process:[ pressure_release_hole.pdf
] If you have any questions
or concerns on this process, please contact support2016@wildlifeacoustics.com.
If you wish to have a pressure relief valve added to your
existing SM2M/SM3M, we can perform this service and will only
charge our material cost of $800 for SM2M/SM3M and $1200 for
SM2M/SM3M Deep (plus round trip shipping of the cap). We
will replace your cap with a new cap with the PRV installed. If you
have an older cap with the clip on hydrophone cage, that will
also be upgraded to the new and more robust bolt-on style at no
additional cost. Please contact support2016@wildifeacoustics.com if you would
like to arrange installation of a PRV on your recorder.
Thank you for your attention to our continuing efforts to
assure safe use of our products. Ian Agranat, President
and CEO Wildlife Acoustics,
Inc. |
