I have the Explore HD USB camera mounted facing down on the fram of my Blue ROV2. Last week when I put the ROV in seawater I noticed that electrolysis was occuring all over the camera’s housing and I could see amperage og from a resting .9 amps to 4+ amps when the camera touched water. The camera now has quite a bit of alkalyn couting from serving as a cathode. I later noticed lots of chips coming off the corners of my electonics enclosure’s aluminum end cap. I found a positive hot wire touching the end cap which explains the scarier half of the issue, but it leaves me wondering whenther the housing of the USB external camera is meant to be grounded or not? It seems like it should be electrically isolated liek the rest of the ROV’s systems and when I take the camera apart and move things around, the connection between ground and the housing is inconsistent which makes it seem like a fault. The wires coming from the penetrator into the cameras housing are soldered to the circuit board within a couple millimeters of the housing and I do see some fraying on the USB camera ground wire. Is grounding by design or a fluke that only became apparent when I exoperienced another electrical issue?
Hi @koehler -
The camera housing should definitely not be connected to ground! Please contact support to report a problem with a product via the help center and include your order #. This has happened to other users but it’s a rare problem. Sorry for the issue!
Thanks for confirming. Help center sent me a replacement very quickly and we were able to get back out on the water.