Homebuilt ROVs Forum

For anyone who hasn't seen it, my main electronics bay is a piece of PVC pipe with arcylic end plates bolted on. For waterproofing the cable entry points, I considered normal cable entry glands, but realied that the wire insulation alone wouldn't be squishy enough to keep the water out. The solution...

Also, slight change of direction on the topside controller. Java looked to be a right pain to interface. I've gone with GAMBAS. It's a Visual Basic style IDE for Linux. I really like it. Fantastically simple, even though Linux is almost completely new to me. Here's the working control electronics. B...

Yes, I've seen dual H-bridges on the one device warm up when they both run. This board appears to operate on eight seperate half-H bridge ICs (http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/12638.pdf if you're interested) spaced around the 70x100mm board. It has no heatsink and it doesn't get warm under load!

Just realised the potential 2600g bouyancy from my electronics bay. That's rather too much probably...

Two of the above canisters made in fibreglass. They each displace 3833g of water and their mass 700g each. That's a truckload of bouyancy. I've decided to code the topside controller in Java on a PC. First project in Java. I got a quad H-bridge driver board https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11593 an...

50W 12V halogens. Bad call. P=IV, I=P/V = 50/12 = 4.1Amp, which is twice as much juice as the motors! I'm off to find LED lamps.

Looking good. What are the bolts around your arcrylic faceplates bolted to? Have you glued a flange onto the pipe? Mine also has a gasket made from a car inner tube. Fantastic stuff, inner tube.

Specifically, is there any reason not to use the initially mentioned fibreglass resin as a potting compound? I happen to have gallons of the polyester and if it's been tried and tested, then that would save me trying it AND testing it. Thanks.

I decided I was going to be more adventurous and go deeper, but didn't want to run 10 Amp cables in the umbilical. Pretty sure this means I've got to submerse the battery, too. I'm thinking a couple of sealed lead acid home alarm batteries ought to suffice. That means I need bucketloads more buyoanc...

I have some test data from my 350GPH Seaflo bilge pumps converted with 50mm two blade props. 20121217 Motor.JPG I used a test rig as close as I could to that seen elsewhere . 20121217 Motor Test.JPG The current appears to increase quite linearly with the Voltage, although the reverse current is typi...