Today’s new product should grab your attention - it’s the Newton Subsea Gripper for the BlueROV2 and other subsea vehicles! Check out the new product video:
The Newton Subsea Gripper is a single function manipulator that's simple, robust, and highly capable. It's controlled by a standard servo-style PWM signal, just like our thrusters and lights, runs on 9-18v, and is rated to 300 meter depth.
It comes with a quick-adjust mount that makes it easy to mount to the BlueROV2 and allows it to be retracted and rotated in the field. The mount attaches with two included M5 screws but you will have to drill the appropriate holes on the BlueROV2 bottom panel. We have clear instructions on how to do that.
That's it for today! If you are in Japan, please visit our stand at Oceans '18 in Kobe next week! We'll have the BlueROV2 and the Newton Subsea Gripper on display.
@etienne Thanks for the praises! We’re excited to see what you do with it! Oil compensation is fairly difficult for us to work with from an engineering and production standpoint. We may get to it one day, but for now we will be keeping things simple and either having air cavities for electronics or free-flood components such as our thrusters.
The oil compensation for an actuator would require a bladder on the outside to adjust the oil volume inside the actuator as it moves. We are happy with the depth rating right now so we chose not to add oil compensation.
I’m thinking about using the Newton gripper in a different way.
I would like to remove the yaws and use the linear motion to control a wing on a sidescan instead to keep it a proper “flight height” above the bottom. That means that the loads will be quite low but it will be adjusting the linear position in small steps quite frequently, will that wear down any part in the gripper since it might be outside the design spec?
We haven’t used the gripped components in this way, but I can’t think of a reason it shouldn’t work. Moving under load is what primarily wears the lead nut, I would think frequent moments at minimal loads wouldn’t result in a significantly different wear rate. Let us know how it goes!
@ROV - the motor inside is available with higher gear ratios, which would provide more force, but this is completely untested from our end. Why do you need more power?
…well bec sometimes you need a lot of power…bodyrecovery…well Hydo lek manip was not useful… after recuestes(from the Police and Firedep.)…i had to do a letral movement and it just slipped… body was at a steep at 500m… about to loose it all?.. but my point is that if i do this job i would like to NOT repeat this… as i had to with the Hydolek… is it possible to get is higher gear or to lock?
…dont have to be tested…this is for one time use!..price doesnt matter here…if it brakes after a job, no worries… but is it posible to Lock it? …or just increase the power?..and how?
The gripper is operated by a lead screw and locks as you close it, so I don’t think this would be an issue. We actually talked with some users who were concerned about it being too strong for body recovery and causing bodily damage. We designed the strength to minimize that possibility.
