Bluerobotics.com Inexpensive Thrusters

[SSN626B]

Hi All,
The bluerobotics.com KickStarter Underwater Thruster Project just when live today. Check it out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/84 ... r-thruster
I pledged for three of the thrusters at $90 each. I believe that the early bird pricing is reasonable in relation to the time and materials required to build your own thruster. The special plastic bearings are replaceable.
Regards,
TCIII/SSN626B

[fryslan76]

Looks nice the project, also the bluerov looks well thought off. Would love to see some video from the prototype performance. The forward reverse difference is about 50% which gives me worries, if you are not able to program the ESC the ship with it.

Kind regards,

Fryslan

[olegodo]

Beautiful thing!
Looks like the funding is going well also.

[sthone]

I'm in for one so I'll let you guys know how things go.

-Steve

[rusty]

Hello everyone,

This is Rusty from BlueRobotics. Thanks for posting our thruster here and for your support! If you have any questions about it I would be happy to help out. We've put a lot of time into the product and we hope that it will enable communities like this one to build better and more capable ROVs.

You can also contact me a info@bluerobotics.com.

Thanks!

-Rusty

[scubersteve]

Welcome to the forum Rusty!
You and your team have created a nice looking thruster there and I hope your venture is successful.

Since you are on here... there has been some conversation as of late about nozzle design, (kort, rice, etc.) and I was wondering if you could share any insights you might have.
What nozzle profile does the T100 use?
How did you settle on it?

Again, nice looking thruster.

Thanks

[rossrov]

Hi Rusty. Very impressive. I think you and your team have shown great vision bringing this design of thruster onto the market. By getting rid of the corrosion problems associated with metal bearings, thus allowing truly open operation, the sealing, potentially dangerous oil filling and cooling issues associated with other designs have disappeared. If the thruster proves to be as good reliability- and performance-wise as it certainly appears, then for the price it looks very hard to beat. I expect schools and professional users will be your main customers, with many hobbyists continuing to design and make their own thrusters just for the challenge of it or the potentially lower cost. Have you considered selling the motor component on its own? I'm guessing though maybe the motor is the greatest cost of the unit, with the other parts being molded, in which case no real savings to the end user?

Ross

[SSN626B]

Hi All,
Good news!!
As of this morning, Aug 15th, Blue Robotics' KickStarter T100 Thruster Project has met its goal of $35K.
Congratulations to Rusty and his Blue Robotics Team!
They now have a stretch goal of $40k which will allow them to include a mounting bracket for the thruster.
Regards,
TCIII/SSN626B

[sthone]

I know I'm going to regret only pleading for one right now .... so Rusty whats the retail going to be like once the kick starter project is over?

-Steve

[rusty]

Hello everyone! Thank you for the kind words. We are very excited to be past our goal but we still have a lot of time left!

@scubersteve - Thanks. Our nozzle design is based on a Kort 19 profile, like most thruster nozzles. We used it because of its commonality and the fact that it handles forward and reverse thrust well.

@rossrov - Thanks. We appreciate the kind words. I'm sure many hobbyists will continue building their own thrusters as well. That's great but hopefully we can enable people who would have been stopped previously by the lack of thrusters. The motor component is very tightly integrated into the thruster design so it can't be removed and sold on its own. That said, we are considering making a version of the motor that is more comparable to a standard brushless motor but highly water resistant. It'd be great for all sorts of things.

@sthone - The thruster will be $109 after the Kickstarter. It will be available through our website.

Thanks everyone - let us know if you have any more questions.

- Rusty