Xylem’s new baby – the EXO Sonde

July 4, 2013

YSI, now part of the impressive Xylem Group, a leading provider of fluid technology and equipment solutions for the planet’s most challenging water issues, recently held their bi-annual international sales partnership conference in Budapest, capitol city of Hungary and situated on the River Danube.  As we’re all aware from the news, this part of Europe has been hit hard recently by the heavy rain fall causing the Danube to burst its banks in certain places, this was still visibly evident during the conference – ironic when you consider the instruments give accurate water quality measurements – important when flooding occurs!

The conference was an opportunity for the company to demonstrate new equipment and one of the most impressive pieces of new generation equipment shown by the Xylem YSI team was the EXO sonde, an advanced water-quality monitoring instrument for the most demanding of environments.

The EXO hosts an array of specialist features and is unique. It has 3-5 additional sensors in the one small package,       high-accuracy sensors with on-board memory, wireless communications and seamless integration from marine, estuarine, freshwater and ground water monitoring systems.  The ‘Smart QC’ monitors the overall system operation, checking for faults and errors to ensure successful deployment, with wireless communication between sonde and handset (incorporating a colour backlit screen) which removes the need for any cables. The copper alloy components serve to protect the equipment and a smart park wiper provides an anti-fouling system second to none assisting and maintaining performance of data when deployed. Titanium laser welded sensors with an easier tip replacement when a probe expires and negating the necessity to dispose of the complete probe, plus an inbuilt back up in every other probe – the EXO is truly the ultimate multiparameter water quality sonde for challenging marine and freshwater conditions.

CDOM for Chlorophyll measurement and now FDOM, which measures Fluorescence, the combination of these parameters provide a Total Algae solution which is more than proving its worth specifically regarding a new and real threat of what has been deemed and identified as Blue Algae, a particularly nasty version which was reported as being responsible by the United States Environmental Agency for causing one case of death to a dog and several identified conditions of skin infection to humans through exposure to infected water.

So thanks to Darren, Ian, Val, Eloy, Chris and Wolfgang for all making Van Walt feel so welcome, we thoroughly enjoyed visiting the conference and Budapest, a very beautiful City with some great architecture to take in – well worth a visit.