The T100s supplied with BlueEsc (at my request!), came with my (kickstarter) Blue ROV kit.
Just now found time to start assembling it.
Perplexed by the dual wiring of the thrusters, as in - How to get them into the watertight housing?
When ordering I had thought that the BlueEsc would be controlled by I2C (I know they can be - but I am using Ardusub + Navio2). If that were the case then the I2C wires could be commoned outside of the housig, alowinf a single penetrator + 1 each for power. If they are to be driven PWM then I need to get 12 wires into the housing (just for the thrusters). 1 more for the tether, plus one for the depth sensor == 14!
I am quite content to order the 14 hole ali end cap ( I want the dome anyway) bu how should I then wire lights (or anything else for that matter) ?
I would recommend sticking with PWM since it will make the ArduSub integrate much easier. To get the cables into the enclosure, it’s actually possible to install both cables onto a single cable penetrator. All of the wires will fit together at once, and since you won’t be relying on physical separation to avoid I2C noise, that should work fine.
The 14 hole end caps also helps out and then there is plenty of room for lights an other accessories.
I did have another thought: I wonder about commoning the power cables outside of the housing. If I use two larger capacity (work it out later) single cables in two penetrators, then I could connect the power cables externally and pot the connections. I realise that this would be inconvenient if I needed to change a thruster - but it may be worth it: the I2C and power would be separate (so I2C noise would not be a n issue if I decided to use the telemetry data from the ESCs), I would have plenty of pentrators left for cool things!
I used the provided Power Distribution and Signal Distribution boards and ran the BlueESC power cables to one Battery WTC and the signal cables to a separate Navigation Controller WTC. The Power Distribution Board is in the Battery WTC and Signal Distribution board is in the Navigation Controller WTC.
I have controlled the BlueESCs both with PWM and I2C signals and they worked fine, except the I2C control signals get a little iffy at longer cable lengths and might not be reliable.
I have only one WTC (BlueROV 1) - I have 3d printed a couple of boxes to suit the connection boards supplied with the kit. The idea is to pot these in engineering wax.
This way I need only 5 penetrators, 2 for power (single core), 1 for I2C and 2 for PWM (all four core).
Planning to go with PWM, keeping the I2C for metrics in due course.
