Homebuilt ROVs Forum

How do you think it will be good if the core is cat5
http://youtu.be/JMhr_GNpfZU

What would you use instead of wool? Something to help with floatation I guess, but what?

I'm not sure what I just watched but that thing is cool. I'm not sure why but I want one.

-Steve

I would think that it's easier to just buy some hollow braid polypropylene rope off ebay or some other place.
Comes in different sizes, low cost, high strength and adds flotation to the tether.
I haven't tested it myself, but it is my plan to use this solution. My only concern is how much more drag it could potentially add.
We will see.

Since I've seen this I've sorta looked into knitting mills and sourcing some polypropylene twine. The only problem is that while I don't doubt that you could automate this little mill to some degree. I don't think it could really handle the job once you got up into any serious length of rope. Part of the problem is that it appears to rely on rotating the material as it works which is in theory fine for smaller jobs. I think there is going to come a point where it just doesn't have the mechanical force to operate like it is designed to.

On the other hand fishing cable through 300-500' of hollow braid poly doesn't exactly sound like a fun job :/

I hand fed my cat 5 through 100m of hollow core braid, it wasn't as bad as one might think. At a guess it probably took me about 3 hours, the more room you have to work in the better, as you need to tie off ends and then pass the loose braid along the entire length.

It's not a job for the living room that's for sure, a basket ball court or the like would be ideal.

I still needed to add extra floats as well, the rope gives good floatation initially but as it gets worked through the water the trapped air gets displaced and the tether ends up sinking.

I haven't tried diving in any sort of current yet, I doubt that it would be very successful with a 14mm (9/16") tether and my little ROV, not mention my lack of expertise.