Magnetized sand affecting T200´s

Hello guys,

I have been told from one of my clients that the BR2 has no credibility in some places in latinamerica (where salmon farming is) due to the Thrusters had burnt while diving near to the sea bottom (sand). They say the sand on this places is “magnetized” had anybody heard about this?.

could this actually happened? 5 persons already have told me same history and all from the same place.

If this is true could we do something to fix this?.

Regards,
LG

Hi Luis,

By design, our thrusters are fully flooded, with water moving through all parts of the internals. This means that the brushless motor stator and magnetic rotor have water moving over then, and the magnets of the rotor can pull ferrous particles out of the water which will then stick. Our thruster have a larger than normal air gap between the rotor and stator, which does slightly reduce efficiency, but allows for some stuck particles to accumulate without interfering with thruster operation. However, as part of regular maintenance, the thruster should be periodically disassembled and these particles removed to prevent too large of a buildup from occurring.

When our thrusters were originally developed, we did a lot of sand and particulate testing to ensure that this was a non-showstopper issue that could be mitigated to a satisfactory degree with maintenance. However, we did only test with what was available to us at the time, California beach sand. We’re learning that marine sediment from around the world can have a very different makeup with varying particle sizes, and some with significantly higher proportion of ferrous particles. Its entirely possible that the issue is far more significant in certain environments. We’re always looking to refine our products and address areas for improvement in our thrusters; it would be great if you could provide more information! If possible, we would really appreciate additional details and pictures- could you share some of this with us over email (support@bluerobotics.com), and perhaps help us get in contact with these customers?

Maybe we could start a collection of sand and marine sediment from around the world…

-Adam

2 Likes

Hello Adam,

I´ve never had an issue related to this in the whole pacific ocean as I´ve worked already in different cities with the BR2 from north of mexico to south.

The problem is in south america in some coasts of Chile where the sand has more ferrous particles as they said. At the moment I dont have pictures of the burnt thrusters but I would ask for them and check if the ferrous particles are stick to the magnets.

I have no clue of who is the guy who had the thrusters burnt so I cannot give you a name neither a mail but this history is running from mouth to mouth and affecting some how the sales, luckily we are working with a partner located in chile giving Tech solutions for salmon farming and these news came to us.

Me and my partner had a conversation about this and he will be happy to send sand samples to BR office hence you can check it out and maybe come with a solution for the future. On the mean time he will do some tests to check if enought ferrous particles stick to the thrusters to stop it.

Regards,
LG