Homebuilt ROVs Forum

Can pond pumps be used as thrusters? I was looking on amazon and found the link below that seems like it might work. I am assuming that they would go extremely fast, and i'm not sure how deep they could go. But if I wanted to go very fast would these work well?

http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-AAPW40- ... +pond+pump

explorer98 wrote:Can pond pumps be used as thrusters? I was looking on amazon and found the link below that seems like it might work. I am assuming that they would go extremely fast, and i'm not sure how deep they could go. But if I wanted to go very fast would these work well?

http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-AAPW40- ... +pond+pump

the thing with that type of pumps is there for 120v/240v.
adam

Oh, haha maybe for a big rov

There are plenty of 12v/24v pond pumps on e-bay.
The 24v ones come in some large sizes with large prices but the smaller 12v 100gph ones look ideal for smaller ROV's.

I've ordered some for my video ray clone so will let you guys know how they work out.

2 of these for fore/aft, will be cut back and fitted with 50mm props.



and one of these fitted on top of the hull for down thrust only. will be fitted with a T piece on the inlet to draw water in from the sides and use the existing outlet to thrust out the top. (no prop) vehicle will be slightly positively bouyant so will float up slowly when not being thrust down.



I may well fill them with transformer oil to be on the safe side.

Update- the one in the top picture works well but the bottom one wasn't worth bothering with.