Jet propelled ROV

[Byron Jonson]

Hello! Just a little project page for my ROV.

It has two main parts, the outer frame and the main hull.
The frame is made of 1/2" PVC and is roughly 1.5' feet long, 1' tall and 1' wide and it's watertight so we can run wires through it to the lights.
After looking at our original frame, we realized the 2',1',1' frame we first made was much bigger then we needed for a simple observation ROV like what we're planning, so we pulled it apart and remade it into this!

The little do-dads on the top front corners are going to be light pods.

Frame#2 1.jpg (123.16 KiB) Viewed 6209 times

The frame is just made with PVC fittings so it would be easy to modify.

Frame#2 3.jpg (94.53 KiB) Viewed 6209 times

The main hull is going to be a roughly 1' piece of 4" PVC with a plexi-glass (I hope I spelled that right) window on one side (like Sthone's simple housing #2) and a screw plug on the other end, which we're going to run our tether through. No pics yet though.

For propulsion we're planning on using a centrifugal pump and a series of jets. (one pointing out diagonally from each corner)

I'll try to answer any questions and any tips would be welcomed.

[thegadgetguy]

That sounds interesting. Will each jet nozel be independently controlable so you will be able to move around?

[Byron Jonson]

That's the idea. We're planning on having eight valves mounted on the hull with tubing running to each of the corners ending in a nozzle, that way we have less wire floating around.

[Unorthodox]

How do you decide how much jet force you are going to need? Pumps seem to be rated in GPH and sometimes they give a PSI. But for underwater jet propulsion what should you be looking to have, high flow GPH or high pressure?

I was looking at eductor pumps recently, where you force low flow, high psi water through a venturi which turns it into low pressure very high flow water. But I dont know how useful that is.

[Byron Jonson]

How do you decide how much jet force you are going to need? Pumps seem to be rated in GPH and sometimes they give a PSI. But for underwater jet propulsion what should you be looking to have, high flow GPH or high pressure?

Right now the plan is to hook everything up, put it in the water, push the button and hope it moves!
Seriously though, we have no idea what we're doing, we just thought it was cool idea and wanted to do it!
I'll make sure to post how our tests go though.