Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.'"

7 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. How many weeks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    And how much was the budget?

    The writeup doesn't make it clear.

    I read the writeup. But the writeup doesn't make it clear.

    1. Re:How many weeks? by Linus+Torvaalds · · Score: 4, Funny

      They had two weeks and a $100 budget.

  2. Re:perhaps that was sarcasm? by milktoastman · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think this AC was just joking about the repetitive mentioning of the time and budget constraints in the article summary. Or call it a troll, if you will. Usually that's what anonymous cowards are doing. Probably, he/she WAS just joking about the repetititive mentioning of the time and budget constraints in the article summary. Again, just joking about the repetititive mentioning of the time and budget constrainst in the article summary.

  3. What ir Remotely operated here by threaded · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This looks like a camera that has been waterproofed and fitted in a frame. Where're the thrusters, the variable balance tanks, grippers, torpedoes.

    --

    threadeds blog

  4. 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)
  5. Re:Remote control submarines... by MeanE · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well I have a friend who does this sort of thing (currently 200k off of Newfoundland I believe), and all the commercial ROV's he has worked with have positive buoyancy, lose power and it floats up.

    It is quite interesting stuff, he works with ones that are just simple cameras, all the way up to larger ones with multiple arms and tool attachments.

  6. 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