Body Building !

Got the body assembled (somewhat).  Visibility in this pic is not good, but I've gotten the batteries installed in the center tube, and those side-tubes will house the LED lighting in the fronts (looking at you) and the motors in the back.   STILL not sure how I'll accomplish the up/down motor(s).  Think I only need one motor for vertical ascent / descent, but still not sure where to place it.   Over on the left there are the endcaps that the motors will be installed in, with the prop headed out of them on the smaller side, with a coller around that as well.

I'm also not convinced that this setup is the one I want long term.   I'm pretty sure everyone else in the world comes up with a square ROV for specific reasons.   Flotation being one.

More thinking.

I've always taken up projects, gone full bore at them, and then something diverted me (usually life) and I forget about it. This is different.  This consumes my every spare moment, learning, reading, watching...

Came across something this morning, during my normal everyday "ROV" google search, and it gives me inspiration ... It's exactly the idea I want to do, except I'm going for on-board battery systems.

Check it out.

Very cool.

I attempted this long weekend, to cut a piece of acrylic that would serve as the equipment board for the center tube in my design, but cracked it and it split, so I am considering alternatives.  Not sure if I shouldn't just use wood.   Not sure I want metal, in fact pretty sure I don't, with the corrosion factor and all.

More later...

Electronics Layout

Began the layout of the electronics this morning.   If I'm going to change to a dive plane arrangement, batteries will probably have to go into the main tube, but here's the idea on the original.

Dive planes ?

I thought of something today....   Instead of "regular thrusters" for the rov, what if it had the motors installed on dive planes that rotated up or down with whatever motion was necessary in order to point the prop in the right direction?   

I.e.....  To descend, the code rotates the servo that controls the dive plane do that the thruster props are pointed up at a 45* angle.... That force would push the rov down into the water... Opposite for up, and for forward the dive planes would be at 0*.  For reverse the motors would spin in reverse on the same dive planes, and also the dive planes would have to work in reverse.....     Too cool..

Getting to work on this design Asap.

Other remote controlled ideas

Pondering this today, in speaking with family...

How about a tank tredded metal detector with gps mapping?    Could be autonomous unit like a Rumba vacuum you put down on the sand, and it does preprogrammed sweeps of the beaches...  A speaker on board could blare out as it finds something, or even a return-to-gps-site feature...

Or, a tow behind sonar with a tether to the boat towing it, to show a map of what's under the water.   Cool huh?

More pondering to come...

Design Plans

OK so let's get back to this "Should I do a top-side buoy or not" thing.

I'm thinking about initial plans to include just a long tether to the ROV.   

ROV Hull - Long 4" cylinder with cameras fore and aft, with two "runners" along the side, which will house LED lights in the front, batteries in the middle, and thrusters in the rear.  Two skids will attach to the bottom of these outriggers, and there you have it - an ROV.

Very crude whiteboard drawing, but this is the concept.
Central tube houses all the brains, and the fore/aft cams.
Outriggers support it on the bed of the water body with
Steel feet / structures.   

Just not sure on how to do the up / down thrusters.  Thinking about doing angled motors underneath the ROV, so that it's not "straight up and down" but up and down at an angle.

Time will tell.   Also, the connections between main tube and outriggers will have to be solid in some fashion.   I'm going for the "sea ray" look...

Found the perfect software

In my endless research for this project, I found the "ROV-Suite".

There's a program that runs on a PC, called Monterey.   They're up to version 4.0, and it's downloadable, so I grabbed it and it works!   It supposedly supports USB joysticks, so I'm attempting to get the xbox 360 controllers working with my PC.

If that all works, there's another program they have called "Bottomside" which runs inside the ROV platform on an Arduino microcontroller.    You install the code there, connect together via ethernet tether, and voila!  You have communication based on a network connection.