First series of turtle tag enclosures is finished

14 January 2016

We finished a first series of turtle tag enclosures for Zoological Society of London. Turtle tags are used to track the movement of turtles and collect the information necessary to design better strategies for their conservation.

First prototypes of enclosures were 3D printed. The final version of turtle tag enclosure is made out of three parts: acrylic shell, aluminum base plate and lid, which is compounded of two materials: aluminum base and polyurethane seal. Base plate is glued with epoxy on turtle’s shell, but enclosure is designed, so it can be removed and replaced with new one if needed. The enclosure itself is also reusable since we do not use glue as a fastener but stainless steel screws.

turtle-tag-enclosure-1 turtle-tag-enclosure-2

turtle-tag-enclosure-3 turtle-tag-enclosure-4

Design was carefully calculated to be as much buoyant neutral as possible. At the end, the total weight of the assembly is approximately 300 grams on land and 24 in sea water, with absolute density of around 1,1 g/cm3, which is slightly higher than sea water density 1,025 g/cm3.

turtle-tag-enclosure-5

The turtle tag enclosures will now be tested in real life scenario and improved in the next versions if necessary.