Simple one, want to make a simple drop camera. Literally a camera in a housing.
Ive used numerous varations over the years, thrown over the side to find my dive spots.
Figure ive got the rov tether,
What do i need? Raspberry, fathom x and cam, was hoping to run it via top side power but maybe a 9v battery will do the trick? Ill just have a switch, its only powered on for maybe 30mins at a time.
Keen for the input. Cheers
Hi @mberry
Your plan sounds pretty sound!
A battery onboard may help make the unit negatively buoyant enough to sink, but the low power means you can likely send power over the 6 unused conductors in your tether, and use one twisted pair for the Fathom-X- especially if you send 12 or 24V DC down the tether and convert it to 5V with a power supply. I really like these little units, but you could also use the Blue Robotics 5V power supply connected directly to the Pi GPIO pins. If you install BlueOS and connect a USB camera, you can monitor and record the video from a connected phone or laptop on the surface!
You could probably cram it all into a 3" enclosure, but a 4" one will make things less difficult. You could also use a water-tight box, and an external USB camera like from DWE.
Best of luck! We’d love to see your build, and any footage you capture!