my ROV design....

[DavidF]

I have been wanting to build an ROV for a good number of years and have been scribbleing out the design of a crawling rov on paper. Recently I have purcheased a cad drafting program and been transeferring all those scribbles into a working design. I still have some more design work to finish up, mostly figuring out materials and loads, but the basic concept has been drafted out. Unfortunatly this rov would cost over $20,000.00 to construct (not including my labor) so It will probably sit on the back burner until I hit the lottery.
So now im working on a smaller rov design (standard swimming design) just to get my feet wet and have some fun.
the next design will use r/c car motors and esc's to keep costs to where I can afford to build it.
Any way here is a couple of images of the rov that will probably never be built....

[bikerbones1968]

Nice drawings!!! If I win the lottery, I will fly to wherever you are and help build this just for the experience It looks pretty impressive.

This is the right place for technical information, examples of designs and lots of knowledgeable people willing to answer questions or opinions in the constrcution of ROV's.

[DavidF]

thanks Bones, Im surfing the forum now checking things over and getting some ideas for a more affordable design. Might just scale the SEA-KERR down and loose the manipulators so I can get something together and do some exploring. Still up in the air about things....

[thegadgetguy]

Whoa - Pretty awesome CAD drawings! What program did you use? Good luck on your build - if you vehicle ends up looking half as good as those drawings, it'll be awesome!

[DavidF]

It was drawn out in Alibre then rendered in keyshots. Honestly i dont know how i ever got anything done without a cad program, they help out so much in the designing of things. You can download alibre for free to try it out and thier base package is only 199.00, or opt for the middle of the road pkg for like 800.00 and get the photo realistic rendering too. And if your tight on cash you can make payments over 4 months so it doesnt hurt so bad. There is better programs out there, but this is what I could afford and i have no complaints. Hopefully I dont come across as someone trying to sell you a product, but if your interested let me know and I will send you a link to down load it for free, and this will give me credits where I can get a free upgrade to thier pro package. And of course they e mail you after the free down load trying to get you to purchase it LOL no surprise there huh. But honestly Im very happy with thier product and unless i hit the lotto I wouldn't upgrade to solidworks or auto cad (although Id love to have them)

Ok back to the rov a bit. The sea-kerr is 30" wide 39" long and would weigh in at 1500 lbs tethered. It isnt designed to hit extreme depths, but instead designed to work in swift moving water and the surf where most home built swimming rovs would have a difficult time. It is electric / hydraulic powered with encoders for position and speed feed back, and can be run untethered on its own battery bank with a floating antenna via sat nav. Ambitious?? Yea one could say that, but there are spicific tasks that i had in mind when designing this rov. Ok so I cant afford to build this one just yet, but maybe I can scale it down and make a smaller version with some skate board wheels, injection molded tracks, and pvc pipe housings. where theres a will theres a way LOL

[DavidF]

Bit of a revival..... I might actually be able to get this design built. Im ordreing a 3d printer in the next week and plan on printing out the parts and seeing how things go. I may have to print then investment cast the parts to get the strength I need, but its the only way I would be able to afford this build......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFnfLsrSuAM
this is one of my earlier casting attempts with lost pla casting.

[Zaibach]

Seriously nice results with the lost PLA
Nice touch cheating with the mixer and the pressure tank

Still waiting on the PLA I ordered but one thing I was thinking about to "smooth" it since you can't acetone finish PLA like you can ABS. Is on top of printing the part at .1mm layer height to go ahead and print it slightly smaller than the final part and then dip it a few times in thin hot wax. Allowing the wax to smooth the form even further. Just not sure how thick the wax layers will end up being or how many it would need to get a really smooth finish before molding. Course that would wash out the detail of any small intricate piece but for something like a custom prop it should in theory work out great assuming the PLA wasn't warped by the heat of the wax. Which might be an issue since the window for getting the viscosity of the wax just right looks to be really close to the melting temp of the PLA. Course it isn't like you are leaving the PLA in the wax for any length of time just a quick dip or two but still :/

Now all I need to do is order a pressure vessel and the refractory material for a small scale foundry

[DavidF]

im not cheating LOL Wife not happy about her mixer thats gone missing though

I have found that wiping a coat of carnuba paste wax works wonders for smoothing out the print lines. I have also been investment casting with the vapor polished abs parts. They come out great but the smell is wicked and must be burnt out outdoors.
I ordered my printer on Friday, went with the Rostock Max for its large build volume and ordered a e3d hot end and some magnets for the delta arms. Hopefully I will see it in the next week and can get it working. There are about 2500 parts in the tracks alone so I have alot of printing to do. Hopefully this will work out Id really like to get this ROV built.

[DavidF]

sometimes you just have to go for it and hope for the best! LOL 11 more to go...

[olegodo]

Wow! Is that printed with solid infill? How long did it take?