So where to begin... Observation class ROV

Spot for your general beginner questions.
Post Reply
The Bear
Posts: 2
Joined: Nov 9th, 2015, 5:22 am

So where to begin... Observation class ROV

Post by The Bear »

Well I've already settled on a hull design & thrusters..

Basically I'm going to use Plumbing pipe as its cheap and I'm on a budget, in a central core and two nacelle configuration, with the thrusters mounted within the nacelles and on top and bottom of the central core. Thrusters will be modified bilge pumps to keep down cost.

The part I need advice on is control .. I hear a lot of people talking about arduino plus shields and that looks like a good route, but for somebody without an electronics background this is slightly daunting and I don't really know where to begin, I would also like a camera(thinking cheap cctv camera or webcam?)and lights(thinking lights in forward part of nacelles but open to ideas).


so questions.

how easy is it to setup an arduino to control four thrusters from a laptop?
and what kind of cable/ tether should I be using(obviously this would also depend on power config thinking shore based and transmit through tether but open to ideas...and video output as to whether I could run that straight through an arduino shield and add some sensor data, depth heading etc. to footage)
and how much will it all cost? obviously as a student my budget is limited but I still want to do a good job as its a graded project...

I've seen people referencing hobby king components as good sensors, but do you need software to run the sensors or are they plug n play? I've heard stories of cheap sensors but need specific software and costing megabucks for that..

looking forward to any help.. :)
rossrov
Posts: 383
Joined: Feb 28th, 2013, 5:01 pm
Location: Australia

Re: So where to begin... Observation class ROV

Post by rossrov »

Hi Bear. Spend some time looking through the "control systems and tethers" section of the forum to find out a bit about various control methods. Is the laptop element required as part of the course/grading? Depending on what you want to learn then a few buttons and an LCD connected to a topside Arduino could be the go.
Post Reply