Top 5 PowerRay Tips For Inspection Preparation

Hello Everyone, Welcome to the PowerVision blog!

In today's blog entry we will be walking you through five tips to prepare for a pier inspection with the PowerRay. The PowerRay is a powerful tool in many commercial environments, such as mooring inspection, search & rescue, boat hull inspection, recovery efforts, and many other commercial uses.

So with all that said let's dive into 5 helpful steps to preparing for a pier pylon inspection.

1. Be Patient - With any inspection using a remote device you need to express patience. You need to remember conditions underwater are much different than above the surface. Water clarity can be really good or really bad. It changes daily in both fresh water and salt water. Take your time to really assess the situation and find the right path to completing a successful inspection. Below are two examples you might come across with water conditions.

Clear Waters of Lake Tahoe

Murky Waters of Lake Chabot

2. Learn Product First, Inspect Second - Before you go out with this great plan to start inspecting underwater piers, learn firsthand what the product can do for you. We suggest learning the controls and many different features in a swimming pool or any waterway that has good visibility. In the pool, you can really learn how to control the PowerRay. The pool will also offer objects that you can practice inspecting such as lights and drains. Remember practice makes perfect.

A pool is a great place to learn the product's features and behavior

3. The Remote Control Sticks - When inspecting a pier pylon you're going to have to move the PowerRay quite a bit to get the view you're looking to achieve. The Powerray offers 4 different stick configurations so find the configuration that is comfortable for you. You will have to constantly move forward, backward, up, down, left and right quite a bit when inspecting. So make sure to understand all the controls before you go out to inspect a pier or anything else.

Here is a GIF example of hand movements on the remote controller

4. Speed Settings and Dive Settings - When inspecting its very important to have the PowerRay settings dialed in. Our suggestion is that the speed control should be set to either M or L. H speed will be too much power for some of the precise maneuvering you will have to achieve. For the dive settings on a pier inspection, we suggest you use video stabilization mode to enable top tilt the PowerRay up and down easier. Depth hold mode works too but its harder to get them up and down angels you will need.

Here is a screenshot showing the dive settings and speed settings

5. Camera Settings - This is probably one of the most important subjects when going out to inspect anything. The PowerRay has 4K, 2K, 1080P, and 720P. For inspections, we suggest 1080P since the files are much smaller than 4K and the quality is still very good. White balance features in the PowerRay consist of preset balance categories such as Sunny, Cloudy, Incandescent, and LED.

There is also a dynamic series of white balances from D4000 thru D10000. Out here in California, we mostly use the sunny pre set. In darker waters, you're going to want to jump into the D series of white balances to brighten things up even more. You can adjust the ISO settings from auto to 1600 ISO.

Also if you're in diving in depths of more than 30ft the ISO should be turned up, in bright light you want to have the ISO down to 100. We also have an EV setting to adjust brightness and darkness on another level. Our best suggestion here is to try different settings to fit your needs of clarity.

Here's a screenshot example with the camera settings opened

So let's go back over the 5 steps one last time:

1. Be Patient. Learn about the conditions and how each condition is different. From fresh water to salt water conditions will always be different.

2. Learn product first, inspect second. Take your time to learn the platform.

3.The remote control sticks. Learn the controls in water where the PowerRay is clearly visible, practice makes perfect.

4. Speed Settings and Dive Controls. The more familiar you are with the speed and diving options the better pilot you will become.

5. Camera settings. Always remember that camera settings are important to each and every dive you do. Check your settings for the best possible image before each dive.

Thank you for checking out this post, if you have any further questions feel free to reach out to us at us@powervision.com or leave your name and a comment below and we will be sure to get right back to you!

Cheers,

Craig Glover

PowerVision

Marketing Director

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