Homebuilt ROVs Forum

Hello everyone, I've been on the forum since February, and my friend and I recently completed our ROV that we have been working on for a while now. It's nothing fancy, just a Seafox style ROV upgraded with propellers and relay control, as well as a camera. If anyone has any comments or suggestions, they will be greatly appreciated.

The ROV uses three 500gph Johnson bilge pumps for propulsion, which are controlled by relays on the ROV. The relays are controlled from the surface by a basic controller using switches. For lighting, we have one 50 watt 12 volt bulb, which is quite bright, especially at night. The camera is a .01 lux black and white camera, that we are currently viewing via a computer. The tether consists of three wire bundles. One CAT5 wire for control, one 2 pair phone line for the camera, and one pair of 16 AWG wires for powering the relays. They are all inside a hollow braid synthetic rope.

Looks pretty good. I'm considering the Johnson bilge pumps as well. My frame is going to be a bit bigger/heavier than the Seafox and I can't decide whether to go with 500, 750, or 1000gph pumps. The 500's are almost half the price it seems.

Yes, the 500 gph bilge pumps are significantly cheaper. They do put out a good amount of thrust, though, when coupled with the Robbe 50mm props. If I did this again, I would defenitly build it a lot bigger, and add computer control so I could get proportinal control of all the thrusters. At the time we started the build, we didn't have the know how for that, though. So anyway, the 1000 gph bilge pumps do spin a lot faster, as we purchased one but didn't put it on. I'd say that you could defenitly use 500s for moving around , no problem, but I would shell out the money to buy a bigger one(s) for vertical movement.

Good luck and welcome!