making cat5 neutrally buoyant

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mikec
Posts: 26
Joined: May 10th, 2012, 8:04 am

Re: making cat5 neutrally buoyant

Post by mikec »

I've also tried something similar, and although it made a (very( slight difference to the buoyancy, this was more than offset by the considerable drag produced by towing several meters of thick wet rope, causing the thrusters to work too hard.
scubersteve
Posts: 251
Joined: Jan 28th, 2013, 10:29 pm
Location: Milton, Florida

Re: making cat5 neutrally buoyant

Post by scubersteve »

Well too bad it wouldn't't work.
It would have been such an elegant solution.
:?
scubersteve
Posts: 251
Joined: Jan 28th, 2013, 10:29 pm
Location: Milton, Florida

Re: making cat5 neutrally buoyant

Post by scubersteve »

so being unwilling to give up the idea, i googled "floating rope" and came up with the Novabraid website.
They make an assortment of floating ropes. I used their contact form to get suggestions for possible rope to use in a tether system.
This nice guy named Herb emailed me suggesting "Oletec-12" in 1/2" diameter.
When I asked how much it cost he said he would send me samples in 3/8 and 1/2" to evaluate and if it worked we could discuss price later (yikes?)
So I guess I have samples coming...I'll let you know how they work out.

heres a link to the rope info...
http://www.novabraid.com/rope/oletec12.html
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thegadgetguy
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Location: Pennsylvania

Re: making cat5 neutrally buoyant

Post by thegadgetguy »

Cool. Keep us posted!
55meterrov
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Joined: Feb 10th, 2013, 12:18 pm

Re: making cat5 neutrally buoyant

Post by 55meterrov »

floating rope (top) for the fishing net. You can ask the old network with fishermen.
scubersteve
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Joined: Jan 28th, 2013, 10:29 pm
Location: Milton, Florida

Re: making cat5 neutrally buoyant

Post by scubersteve »

After doing a little bathtub testing, I found that the foam off of one Buzzbee (nerf knockoff) dart will support two feet of cat5e cable just under the surface. They are relatively cheap (50 for $10 at Target), not overly big(less drag), and have a properly sized center hole. Held on with a little gorilla glue they may bear further consideration.
buzz-bee-dart-refill-102-count-1c.jpg
buzz-bee-dart-refill-102-count-1c.jpg (50.1 KiB) Viewed 4649 times
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KR2_Diving
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Joined: Aug 30th, 2012, 11:43 am
Location: Currently: NW Suburbs of Chicago. Originally: NE Wisconsin

Re: making cat5 neutrally buoyant

Post by KR2_Diving »

scubersteve wrote:After doing a little bathtub testing, I found that the foam off of one Buzzbee (nerf knockoff) dart will support two feet of cat5e cable just under the surface. They are relatively cheap (50 for $10 at Target), not overly big(less drag), and have a properly sized center hole. Held on with a little gorilla glue they may bear further consideration.
I really like that idea! might have to look into that myself!

keep in mind though that with open cell foam, the buoyancy will change the deeper you go.

That said, it would still be worth a shot!
scubersteve
Posts: 251
Joined: Jan 28th, 2013, 10:29 pm
Location: Milton, Florida

Re: making cat5 neutrally buoyant

Post by scubersteve »

I got the rope samples and did some more bathtub testing.
That stuff is very buoyant. The 1/4" stuff floats cat5 on the surface.
It's a little more flotation than I was looking for.
Between that and the added stiffness I'll likely be looking elsewhere for my tether construction.
However if someone has a more weighty tether the oletec-12 May be a viable option.
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TigerShark
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Joined: Jan 7th, 2014, 2:43 pm
Location: Washington State

Re: making cat5 neutrally buoyant

Post by TigerShark »

What type of cat 5 cable did you use (what size conductors)? You might be able to get closer to neutral with cat6 since the conductors are a couple guages thicker. I have done several ROV's with the poly rope (yellow stuff available at hardware stores) and it really seems like the only solution without the huge expense of a commercial tether. Adding floats to a cable just won't work well on a cable reel plus they catch on things. I had to do that to mine with the rope as well to get neutral with cat5 and two 16ga wires.

How stiff is the stuff? Will it bend easily over a 3" or 4" radius? This could be good as it prevents kinks.
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TigerShark
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Joined: Jan 7th, 2014, 2:43 pm
Location: Washington State

Re: making cat5 neutrally buoyant

Post by TigerShark »

I recieved some samples of the Olectec-12 and I found the 1/4" to be neutral with cat5e if about 2g per foot of mass is added in fresh water. I will do some further testing (including in seawater) but adding tiny weights would be pretty easy to make up the difference.
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