my ROV

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Seahound
Posts: 4
Joined: Jun 16th, 2011, 10:23 am
Location: United Kingdom

my ROV

Post by Seahound »

Hi All,

Saw this site last week and was glad to see I am not the only one! Great stuff on here and some really innovative ideas. Thought you maybe intrested in the ROV I have been building for some time now. When SCUBA diving we try to find the wreck we want to dive using sonar....not always sure though if it is a rock, hard bottom or the wreck! So thought it would be useful to have a quick check before getting into the water....also useful for checking out unusual bottom topography. Commercial ROV's are way to expensive so decied to build my own and here it is.....
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2011_06222011april0005.JPG (707.38 KiB) Viewed 5570 times
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MagicHat
Posts: 15
Joined: Jun 12th, 2011, 6:19 pm
Location: Norway

Re: my ROV

Post by MagicHat »

Nice ROV. :) Please provide us with some quick facts, like how deep it goes and what technology you have used. :D
Seahound
Posts: 4
Joined: Jun 16th, 2011, 10:23 am
Location: United Kingdom

Re: my ROV

Post by Seahound »

The thrusters are machined ali with acetal ends, motors are geared 12v and the props are from a boat thruster. The system is driven from two car batteries giving 24v, which is converted to 12 inside the ROV. Most of the electronics are home designed using Microchip PIC 16F877A, with speed controllers being VIPER 12amps each. The umbilical is a deep sea diver comms cable. Depth rating is probably more than 50 meters. Frames are stainless steel with a bouancy box with sealed cell foam made out of polyprop.
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thegadgetguy
Posts: 238
Joined: Feb 13th, 2011, 8:27 pm
Location: Pennsylvania

Re: my ROV

Post by thegadgetguy »

Yes, very cool. Do you have any manipulators or anything else like that on it?
Seahound
Posts: 4
Joined: Jun 16th, 2011, 10:23 am
Location: United Kingdom

Re: my ROV

Post by Seahound »

Nothing planned yet....but would like to attach sonar at some point in time....side scan probably.
soulreaper
Posts: 88
Joined: Mar 23rd, 2011, 8:17 am

Re: my ROV

Post by soulreaper »

Please post a video of one of your Rov dives, in the Mission footage section.
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GUI
Posts: 23
Joined: May 27th, 2011, 4:37 pm

Re: my ROV

Post by GUI »

I like it =0
biglakeexile
Posts: 20
Joined: Jun 6th, 2011, 5:54 am
Location: Las Vegas

Re: my ROV

Post by biglakeexile »

Looks Good! I'm after a similar goal, to see the lake bottom either without having to gear up for a SCUBA dive, or deeper than my current SCUBA cert allows. So I picked 300ft for my depth goal.
Tell me more about this deep sea diver comm cable ;) That sounds like a nice idea, what do those usually have for conductors? Like a pair for VDC, and a set of three for voice comm? I imagine it's built neutrally buoyant? hmmm...
Seahound
Posts: 4
Joined: Jun 16th, 2011, 10:23 am
Location: United Kingdom

Re: my ROV

Post by Seahound »

The cable is used for hard hat divers and is supposed to be neutrally bouyant, altough I am not totally convinced ;). It has 10 cores plus a coax. I use six of the cores for power to increase the wire cross section to minimise voltage drop, 4 are used for RS485 comms and the coax for video. I had a deep sea plug moulded onto one end and bought the mating socket for the ROV. It took ages to find something suitable, if you look at some of the pro ROV sites they sometimes have left over cable that you can buy....it ain't cheap tho! The cable was bought from a guy here in the UK who rents ROV's and it was him who suggested the diver cable......the problem with ROV specific cable it is exactly that and usually made to order for a specific design.
Hope this helps
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