Pettersson D500x
The D500X is a "Direct Recording" ultrasound recording unit intended for long-term, unattended recording of bat calls. Designed to be deployed for two weeks, this device detects full-spectrum ultrasound and records in real time. Coupled with sophisticated automatic species identification built into an upcoming release of SonoBat software, the D500x will become the hardware component of passive acoustic monitoring solutions for the future.

The D500x recorder is equipped with four slots for CF cards. A total capacity of 128 GB can be obtained if four 32 GB cards are used. The triggering system allows the device to start recording as a sound is detected. The recording length can be selected in steps from 0.3 up to 30 seconds. In order not to fill the card too fast at locations with high activity, a minimum time between two recordings can be applied. The recorder is normally operated in a low-power mode with no pre-trigger (i.e. the recording starts as the sound exceeds the chosen threshold level), but both pre- and post-trigger functions are available in the standard (not low-power) mode. The battery lifetime depends on the chosen sampling rate, the bat activity and the settings (e.g. how long to wait between recordings) It is expected to be up to one week for the internal batteries (but perhaps more realisticly, 3-4 days). This assumes the unit "sleeps" during daytime and that it is active for 8-hours each night (but not constantly recording during that time). Using external batteries will of course allow longer operating times. The current consumption while recording is in the range 150-200 mA.

"Direct Recording" is a relatively new class of bat detectors that is not intended for active monitoring, only passive monitoring where the unit will be deployed essentially unmanned for hours, day, or weeks unattended. This class of detector has no speaker or bat call display and the memory cards must be copied into a laptop for analysis.

Features

• Built-in electret microphone
• Jack for external microphone
• Powered either from 4 AA cells (internal) or external batteries/power supply
• Timer to turn the unit on/off at desired intervals
• Weather-protected housing (built-in microphone requires some protection)
• Storage capacity for 2 weeks under normal conditions, generates *.wav files on CF cards
• Copy .wav files into laptops ready for anaylsis, no transfer utility needed.
• Low power consumption <200 milliamperes
• No laptop required to launch detector or record files.
• Size: 165 x 170 x 53 mm, rugged aluminium housing
• Sampling rates: 44.1 kHz, 300 kHz and 500 kHz (optimized for 500 kHz)
• ADC resolution: 16 bits
• Selectable high-pass filter to attenuate undesired low frequency signals
• Optional external trigger input jack
• Optional external microphone input jack, an external mic can be 100' or more away.
• Time/date stamped sound files
• Use any CF card reader to drag and drop .wav files from the memory cards to your computer, in the field.
• Files read directly into SonoBat and BatSound.

More info?
Download a PDF
brochure on the Pettersson D500x...

D500x Survey Pouch : $34.00 USD
Soft pouch used to hang a D500x on a tree trunk or other mount.

D500x External Power Cable : $26.00 USD
16'' fused cable terminates in blades for connection to 6v rechargble batteries.

D500x External Battery : $39.00 USD
6 volt, 13Ah sealed lead acid battery, non spillable.

Due to the limited number of units available and manufactuing lead time, this is considered a special order and your credit card will be processed to hold your order. Shipping will be calculated during checkout.

The D500x utility on a windows PC was used to prepare a new CF card before use in the D500x. The utility and this "card preperation step" is not used with the newest firmware of the D500x. Do not "prepare" your CF cards with this utility if you are using the new firmware, simply format the cards using the FAT32 file system and insert them into the D500x. If the card does not work, use a SanDisk brand.

SanDisk CF cards in 2, 8, and 16 GB sizes have been successfully tested. 32 GB SanDisk and 32 GB Kingston CF cards are unreliable at this time. Other size Kingston cards have not been tested. Transcend cards of any size do not work with the D500x at all.

To turn on the detector, you must remove the CF cover on the bottom and flip the switch to "INT" for internal batteries, or EXT for external power.

When the display says "waiting"...the detector is waiting for the timer to to turn on the detector. If this was not your intention, go to the timer settings, select the timer, and press the "on/off" key on the face of the detector to turn off the timer.

When the display says "armed", it is now waiting for a bat call and should record when the sound exceeds your threshold settings.

The new version of the firmware much improves the trigger sensitivity. The values for the trigger level now go from 0 to 4095. The lower the value, the more sensitive trigger. Starting out, you might try an input gain of perhaps 80 and a trigger level of 160. Of course, you should always test the settings with "real" sounds if possible since the background noise may vary from location to location.

We have used the D500x with a 6v, 14 amp/hr battery for 1 week in the field recording 1,000 - 5 second long files, using 3.2 GB of memory, and the battery still full showing 6.2 volts. No solar panel needed. We have used the internal AA batteries for 1 week recording 1,500- 5 second files with the battery meter showing 1 off of full. Others have reported 5 days use on internal batteries, it just depends on how many recordings are made.

The D500x currently names each file sequentially and stores the creation date in metadata within the .wav file itself. David Riggs wrote a short script that resets the file timestamp on all .wav files under directory DIR based on their D500x metadata timestamp. This is useful when you add notes to a file in SonoBat and the dates may change. Here are the Mac OS X instructions (tested on 10.5 only).

Installation:

1. Download 'set_timestamps.py' script to ~/Applications directory.
2. Start OS X 'Terminal' application
3. Ensure that the script is executable by running `chmod +x
~/Applications/set_timestamps.py`

Running:

1. Start OS X 'Terminal' application
2. Know the location of your D500X .wav files, for example, '~/audio/bat_calls'
3. Run `~/Applications/set_timestamps.py ~/audio/bat_calls` to fix the
.wav file timestamps on all files in the 'bat_calls' directory.

These are my launching steps, in order:: After the card is formatted (I only use Win XP), eject it without doing anything else.
Insert the cards, flip on the power, confirm the setting below. Do not try to make a test recording in manual mode, then flip the setting back to autorecord mode. If so, reformat the first card. 

The D500x "opens" a new file when it is "armed". If you lose power, reboot, or do a hard shutdown of the device, I feel it may corrupt the card. Always "wake up" the device holding the power button on the front panel until the device is in "idle" mode. Even if it was "waiting" and the cables get bumped and the power is lost....I still re-format the first card to be safe. 



Please confirm the settings:

- correct time and date
- correct timer on/off setting, I have it set to turn on at 00:01 and turn off at 23:59. This 2 minute shutdown allows the detector to write 1 file a day when it starts/stops thereby letting you know it was actually working. During those 2 minutes the display would read "waiting"... it is just waiting until the next "on" session and then it will say "armed".


user profile 0
sample freq: 300
pretrig: off
rec length: 5
hp filter: yes
autorec: yes
tsource: sound
t. sens: high or medium

when pressing the record button, the final recording setting are available:

input gain: 80
Trig lev: 160
interval: 0 (in my experiments having a 5 second delay often causes you to miss the best part of the sequence, therefore for new projects I would suggest no delay interval so you are sure to get the best sequence to analyze.)

When hitting the enter key, the detector goes to sleep. pressing the power button on the front panel displays "waiting". It is waiting for the timer to go off. When the timer condition is met, the detector will say "armed" and should record (the display will lght up) when you rub your fingers together. If you cannot get the display to light up at all....reformat the card, or try a 2 GB.

I know someone working to compare these setting with a "typical" ANABAT. So far the d500x records more "usable" calls, but the ANABAT records more files, though there is questions on how many are useful.