Homebuilt ROVs Forum

Conclusion: the tether is too short on this ROV. I've learned a lot about currents and drag with this ROV and it has made me reconsider the larger 'PAROV-1' plans. I want to downsize that one by at least 50% or I'm not going to build it. I just won't be able to afford the power system on it because ...

Brought the ROV back home from the boat and made version 1.1! This involved removing the lead weights from the top and putting new ones on the bottom of the ROV at the four corners. This moves the mass further out and lower, which hopefully will provide more stability. Next I cut the two weights off...

The compass worked fantastic, however we once again ended up being off-target by some 80-90 feet. Relying on the marker bouy is certainly not the best plan. Why I didn't bother to check the GPS once we were in position is beyond me, but it is very easy to be pre-occupied with the operation of the RO...

First 'production' dive was successful in that the ROV functioned and we were able to bring it back to port. It was fail in terms of locating the two target objects below. Basically the short (50 foot useable) tether is a real limitation with the boat drifting back and forth on the anchor in 30 feet...

Two dives so far at the marina. This thing is lots of fun!


http://youtu.be/6COcM-ba8go
First dive!


http://youtu.be/4SRy3fO8yG4
Second dive.

The Mini ROV is done! First dive was tonight in my pool, which is unfortunately green for now so there wasn't much visibility. Hopefully tomorrow evening I will get to the marina and do the first salt water dive. It moves surprisingly quick. I bought the wrong kind of switch for the vertical thruste...

It ended up being longer than I wanted. My other choice would have been to purchase larger tubing, but I wanted to keep expenses low and use what I had on hand. http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/580464_471108316259787_655010721_n.jpg This is a mockup of the basic layout. Positions for every...

I'm working on a larger ROV project but it is getting expensive and heavy quick. To motivate myself and to assist with thruster testing, I decided to throw together a very simple tri thruster ROV based around my existing Color Sharp CCD underwater camera. It came with a 20 meter cable and I will be ...

Funding is a bit short on this for the moment. Also I wanted to do some thruster testing so I have decided to make a very simple three thruster ROV based on my Color Sharp underwater camera. It only has a 20 meter cable so this worked out perfect to make a simple Cat 5 cable to send the voltage dire...

Actually I'm talking about exactly what you are... a float with GPS and thrusters of its own. The main idea would be for it to hold a postion over the ROV's general working area. That way the boat would be free to drift around on its anchor line and I wouldn't need to have an extra 100+ feet of teth...