Sea-Bird Carousel Auto-Fire Module (AFM)

The Sea-Bird Carousel Auto-Fire Module (AFM) is a device that is used with any of Sea-Bird’s Carousel Water Sampler models to open and close water bottles autonomously, with or without a CTD, to a depth of 6800 m. The AFM features an internal memory that holds data for one case (maximum of 24 bottles), recording varying categories of data depending on whether or not a CTD is used.

When used with a CTD (such as the SBE 19plus v2 SeaCAT), the AFM is able to monitor pressure data recorded by the CTD in real time, and fire bottles at predetermined pressures or depths during upcast, downcast, or when the carousel is stationary for a  specified period of time. The AFM then records in its internal memory the bottle number, date and time, confirmation of firing and five scans of CTD data for each bottle fired. The raw CTD and bottle data, from the CTD and AFM, respectively, can then be uploaded and converted using Sea-Bird software to create CTD and bottle data files.

When used without a CTD, the AFM fires bottles at a set of predetermined elapsed times upon receiving the Arm command. Sample depth can be approximated using elapsed time and the monitoring cable length pay-out. During data collection, the AFM records bottle number, date and time and fire confirmation for each bottle. This data can be uploaded from the AFM at the end of a cast.