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Homebrew Underwater ROV

Posted by timothy on from the blub-blub-blub dept.

Blue-Footed Boobie writes "A very geeky member of TechReport has built himself a homebrew Underwater ROV to use while on vacation. For what they said was 'Version 1', I would have to say the results were great. Full build log, with videos, can be found here. Good job guys! 'Being the geeks that we are, we always come up with some sort of project to bring up to the lake and play with. This year, two weeks before vacation, we decided to build an Underwater ROV. For those not familiar, an ROV is a Remotely Operated Vehicle. Generally "real" ROVs cost anywhere from $8,000 up to Millions of dollars. We had two weeks and a $100 budget. Usually they have high-resolution camera systems and high powered thrusters to maneuver. We had two weeks and a $100 budget.'"

2 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Remote control submarines... by jd · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Seems easy enough. Three ways you could do this:


    1. Motor running to a pin, holding some ballast. You trigger the motor, the motor slides the pin back, the ballast is dropped.
    2. The slightly geekier way would be to hold the ballast in place with electromagnets. The power to the electromagnets goes through a relay, which is held shut by a keepalive signal. Kill the signal (or the signal is lost for some other reason), the relay opens and the ballast is dropped.
    3. The slighty more geeky way would be to have the line running to the submersible corrigated in some way. The line runs through some toothed wheels attached to a motor. If the keepalive is lost (killed or lost signal), the ROV disconnects the control line from the computer and switches on the motor, "climbing" the control line back to the operator.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. Stand and deliver, robot style by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's pretty cool, but this story about four underpriviledged high school kids from Arizona and their ROV is worth a read. With little funding and experience, they take on college students and, well, you'll see...

    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/robot.htm l