Looks very nice in fact!
Adding another T200 aft is a good idea especially when the tether i mounted in the rear as that tether creates a counter force when descending. An extra T200 to push down and balance will be useful and also like you say for increased lifting capabilities.
I do agree to tilt the vertical thrusters as it looks like some of the flow will counteract inside the frame (in the front)
I see you still keep the original buoyancy so I guess the distance between Cog and CoB is narrow making the vehicle unstable (off course you have thrusters to counteract this now) Adding more buoyancy on the top and led under the bottom would allow the Vertical thrusters to work less = draw less current) Doing so might let you save the cost and power consumption of installing that extra thruster?
Have you considered to move the two aft horizontal thrusters further aft to be in line with the aft vertical thruster? The reason why I sketched only one single vertical rear thruster was so that the aft horizontal thrusters could be moved aft, making turns smoother, ROV less responsive, and at the same time add momentum to it. My tether is connected at the top, lifting in the center. The two fwd vertical thrusters will counteract for the “nose up” when going horizontally during survey. Also why i want the frame to be longer and heavier so that the CoG can do its part of counteracting the “nose up” tilting.
Is it at all possible to open the side frames a little more as it seems to be some enlarged projected area there. Something like this?
If the plastic get week you may consider to stiffening it with sheet aluminium on the the backside?
All in all i like the ROV and how much room you have to add on inside the frame. Its a slick frame unlikely to snag on anything.
@PaulP
Paul responded quickly on my mail earlier. I got the prices and also a statement that price would drop rapidly the more manips that where ordered at the same time.
I have also asked if Paul is willing to post the price here in the forum. I will honor is right to do so or not. For this reason I will keep the price for my self but I am sure he will respond if you ask for a quotation by mail.
All I can say was that it is over my budget for the whole 5F unless we can get together and place multiple orders.
Happy to post the prices up here. Just getting them all together for quantities. The 3,4 and 5 function manip is still pre-production so prices may vary from these slightly. We are more than happy if a few people are after them to group the orders together and offer a discounted price. We are also willing to offer further discount for people/companies who want to test beta versions and assist in improving the effectiveness of these tools by being accommodating of software bugs and providing feedback.
It would be nice to get something like this to complement the in house gripper we are designing but its a bit out of our price range for this class system.
The idea behind using the BR2 is to keep operational costs down, I think your manip, although very nice, is too expensive for BR2 type projects. (For us anyway)
To give you an idea, we are hoping to build this for about 1000USD:
@PaulP Thanks for the transparency, that means a lot in this community! Unfortunately, I have to agree with the others, the 2F-5F are pretty far outside my price range, but the 1F grabber I could afford eventually. If an accessory costs more than the vehicle, then that’s a little hard to swallow for recreational/light commercial market. But if you have your market figured out, best of luck!
@etienne That looks like a great little grabber! Do you have a website or a blog I can follow for updates?
@kevink@etienne Thank you for the feedback. There is a fair bit that goes into these little units so reaching a $1k price point would require to make a highly defeatured version and use lower quality components. Saying that if people require something we are happy to discuss it and potentially make it a collaborative effort.
@PaulP - I think the fact that you’ve managed to build a 5 DOF manipulator that works on an ROV the size of the BlueROV2 is simply amazing. The price tag, compared to what you’d pay for a WROV manipulator, is a bargain. I think those of us who have been in this industry a while know just how expensive all this technology was before the Blue Robotics thrusters and BlueROV2 existed.
Having said that, I think a simple 1 DOF manipulator priced under $1K would sell very well and would definitely be one of those “must have” options everyone with a BlueROV2 would want to get.
I agree with @paul-unterweiser, the price off this 5F is not bad at all if the quality is just as good as the visual impression. This arm can undertake far more task then any 2F gripper ( in theory) Because the power/mass available on the ROV (and the arm) gives its own limits. But with surface supply (more power and continuous operation) and a combination of this arm and a 2F/3F grabber would make it capable of performing tasks like grabbing onto a wire and cut with mini grinder (Already one made using T200 motor) Or grab on to do other works, impact wrench? Drill? sample kit? Crawler skid for hull inspection etc. The question is more; how much “light work” is there out there to justify add-ons and tooling. NDT might be a good niche for a small ROV. A grabber to keep position and and use the arm for CP, UT, AFCM, Eddy Current etc. Time will show. With BR2 as a platform (I would prefer it a bit larger and heavier ) the future is at least rigged for light reasonable priced operations
We are doing some tests and hope to get this fabricated 1st Quarter 2018. Then we will be trialing it and see how it fairs before we can consider selling it to the public. I’ll post the results here in the build section.
I’ve been in this industry for a fair bit and found that most of the work is done with a grabber if the pilot is capable enough. This design is inspired from grabbers such as the Shilling Rigmaster and is the precursor to a bigger grabber I want to build for my Mohican.
We are on the same page IE cost of manip VS cost of ROV. I’ve also looked a lot at different manip options and found that the price justifies development. This is why I am aiming at building something rugged, simple and cheap. (and neutrally buoyant)
If there is no need for great effort to operate, it is only grabbing. the 6DOF of the 8 thruster is equipped with the ROV of the single function, it is more cost-effective to configure the ROV.
It won’t replace when you need to grab on to something and use an articulate arm for more complexe tasks but it will definitely increase the usability of the gripper.
It would be nice if BR added this thruster configuration to QGC.
