Day 1: Alligator clips, anyone?

Today, we performed the all-important duty of testing the field equipment.  This turned out to be non-trivial.  

We are using a DC/DC converter to transform the 12.4V from a car battery into the range that we need for making measurements, anywhere from 100V to 800V of DC voltage.  According to our colleagues here, the converter worked last Thursday, but today... we had no such luck, at least not in the morning. 

The suspect converter, pre-debugging. 

When there was a problem, our first instinct was to consult the manual or the manufacturer.  But of course, the manufacturing company of the converter:

• is based in France, where it was already after 5PM at the time of our problem,
• is exclusively French-speaking, and
• does not put manuals online. 

So when the converter beeped constantly and wasn't able to produce the proper voltage, we decided to take it apart and trace the signals.  

The inside of the converter.

Protecting the debugging activities from a sudden rain shower.

After trying many things and seeing many strange behaviors, we decided to bring the converter indoors and take a break.  Our theories that the device only worked by magic when it was upside-down or when our professor was in the room were... not satisfying.  But after a while in the AC, the converter stopped beeping and started behaving correctly instead.  So even though we never conclusively found the source of the error, we suspect that moisture in the instrument may have caused it to behave badly. 

Performing surgery on the electronics equipment.

In the course of our debugging, I was reminded that electronics equipment is harder to come by in Saint Lucia.  Alligator and banana clips, for example, might not be available at the nearby hardware store, and might only be available at a few places on the island if they are available at all.  Shipping things from Amazon isn't an option either.  In the case of the voltage converter, we simply do not have a replacement if this one breaks.  We're hoping that it will perform well during the next week. 

In the end, we left the electronics out on the table in the air-conditioned room overnight, hoping that we'll be able to use them more consistently in the morning!