Homebuilt ROVs Forum

Saw this when I was in Inverness last week and was just wondering if there is the possibility of modding it for use underwater?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/robotic-arm-kit ... ace-266257

Hello haggis my brother bought one couple of weeks ago (in Inverness) basicly to utilise the control board for his rov why he went to that expense I don't know. but I had thought I might use the end of it for a manipulator. to control all the functions it would need a lot of butchering and probably look at replacing all the screws, rods etc to s/s, its always possible just a lot of work the motors would have to be washed down and sprayed to keep them working.

In that case then, I think that I'll give that a miss and go with a 1f grip stick and leave the multi-function for later.

I know I'm going to get another "I told you so" for this but got to agree with him don't use it use a proper control board if you want to go down that line as it's not as simple as it looks to wire up as you need signal boosters to power 12v relays as well as use diode's to ground the channels so to get a earth, it also needs a 3v and 6v supply to power it, I didn't manage to get it to fully work as for some reason one off the chips decided to go into meltdown and fry befour I sorted everything out, I wouldn't be so annoyed if I could figure out why it happened!!

it has however got me thinking about making a pneumatic arm for my rov if I can sort the valve gear out as a side project, not going to be any time soon though.

Ben

How about one of these-



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Robot-Gripper ... 107wt_1124

theyr'e designed to be driven by a servo but maybe you could do by pumping water into and out of a ram.
(not that kind of ram haggis, haha.)