Greetings all members
I am new to this forum. I just bought a blue ROV but have no concept of how to control and operate it.
I am just done with the documentation reading and found out how to assemble it and assembly part is almost completed. I am a Senior Undergrad Electrical Engineering student and have grip on important subjects like control system etc which are required for the development of ROV.
Please some one elaborate the things that i will be required with details of everything. i will be thankful to all the community people.
Block diagrams , component list, their online shopping website will be highly important.
My task is to develop a ROV that can just travel at specific point under water and I can maneuver the robot anywhere in my swimming pool using joystick.
I need complete help please help me out. I just opened the box and currently assembling it.
My I suggest you start simple by using an Arduino microprocessor and the servo control program <Servo.h> in the Arduino library, to control your BlueROV. The Arduino and the Arduino c language is adequate for all ROV maneuvers with the BlueROV, and you will have the advantage of doing all of the programming yourself. You will be able to understand everything that is happening and will be able to solve any problems that occur.
I highly recommend you read every thread posted in the forum before you start your project.
I have a firm grip on arduino mega and have made several projects with it. I am good in programming too. The main problem is that I have connected the 30A speed controller. How can arduino control the motors ? How can it maneuver ?
Arduino output is 5v and 30mA max how can it run the motors ?
Can you please provide me a basic connection diagram of arduino an a basic code in which thruster turn on one by one or forst for 5 sec rov go up then for next 5 it go down and so on
Actually I can write one code too but the connections is the main issue how to drive them from board? should i have relay?
You “drive” the thruster with battery power through the ESC, not the microprocessor. The microprocessor “controls” the ESC output using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). The technical section for the ESC gives you example code on how to do this.
Sir I am done with assembling the ROV. In my package i didnot findout the ESC all I have was 6 thrusters.
Can you please tell me the thruster pins ? I mean there are two wire red and black i beleive that will be the powering. How much shoud I apply on them. Secondly I came to know about 1500us 1900us stuff.
My question is can I do my task using arduino without having ESC. and what are the remaining colored 3-4 wires that are coming out of thruster. Where should I attach them to arduino directly if i have no ESC. Any wiring digram from thrustuers to motor will be highly thankful.
right now my broader task is to just have arduin0 that will be controlling the thrusters and my code will be fed in arduino and it jst move move my rov in straight line and then back I am just intending to
Sir, I believe you are joking. You can’t possibly have paid 1200 dollars for a Blue ROV and not have a better understanding of the required subject material than you do. Some of your questions don’t make any sense. Go find something better to do than waste our time!
There’s a lot of information available on the components in the BlueROV kit on our website. I would recommend starting with reading about the ESCs here: Basic ESC Documentation (Old)
If you aren’t comfortable designing an electronics and software control system for this then you might also want to check out our ArduSub software, which runs on a Pixhawk autopilot and takes care of a lot of the work for you. You can read about that here: http://ardusub.com.
The thrusters require ESCs to operate - they cannot be run directly from an Arduino without that.
There are other threads in the forum that have wiring diagrams and address most of the questions you have. If you can, please read through those first and then let us know if you have other questions.
Sorry I pissed you off sir. Never intended to do that. I just bought the rov a bit earlier to get hand on experience of hardware. you are right i should have read all forums first and now also understand that to drive brushless thrusters one always use ESC.
Thanks Rusty for all the help man! you are the inspiration behind the project
There is another query of mine. Should I have to buy 6 4s lipo batteries or just 1 to power all the thrusters?
I will be connecting all in parallel to supply equal voltage but my question is will the single 4s battery enough to supply current required to all thrusters in parallel condition?
The thrusters I have I think they are already fitted with blueESC. because behind the motor there is a blue round and then the clone cap.
The wires coming out of my T200 thrusters are red and black in power wires and black yellow green white from control wires.
what will be the connection of those four wires? any link please
Richard, this is a support forum. It’s function is to help people with exactly these kinds of questions. He could have chosen a different sub-forum, but I see how ‘Build’ could be appropriate.
Sheikh, do you have access to Google? My very first search using Arduino, brushless motor, and ESC, gave me this:
It should get you started on the right track.
Ignore the part about “arming” the ESC, the ESC purchased from this site does not have arming control.
On the left side of the page there are multiple examples of Arduino control, including Arduino c code to use. Once you get just one of the thrusters running from the Arduino, and you understand what is happening, then you can progress to ROV control using multiple thrusters. You first need to decide how you are going to provide user analog input (joystick, single potentiometer, etc.).
Sheikh, the above tutorial use a computer (USB serial port) to send commands to the Arduino for motor control. For your purposes in just getting started, I recommend you work with an analog device like a joystick. The Arduino reads the voltage (0-5 volts) from the center wiper of the potentiometer in the joystick using the analogRead(pin#) function. The output is 0-1023 (value) and must be mapped to PWM pulse width values for thruster control purposes:
value = map(value,0,1023,1100,1900). You then send this value to the ESC: writeMicroseconds(pin#, value).
It is all quite simple, but you must take the time to study and learn the basics before you can build a workable ROV. Read my posts and you can see how hard it can be to get to a comfortable level of knowledge in ROV control. I still have a long ways to go, and I am 75 years old!
If you keep asking questions that can be answered by simply reading the documentation for the BlueRov components, people will quit trying to help. I’ll be glad to help if you will at least do the homework.
Actually i was bit excited to work the ROV it just has been 2 days since my rov has arrived and i am done with all the assembly part of it and now worried about choosing a board etc.
Few things I figured out:
a single 4S lipo battery (5000mah) will be enough and good to drive the all thrusters of my ROV.
A single Arduino Mega 2560 can do all the work conected to controlling my rov including manuvers, joystick movements etc.
I will be going to but the battery and arduino tomorrow and then start working on the electronics part
Arduino mega has a number of PWM pins to control motor so i can connect all thrusters on different PWM looks fine. But it has a single SDA and SCL pins so can i connect all the SDA and SCL pins of all thrusters to single SDA and SCL pin on arduino mega ? will it work fine?
it just has been 2 days since my rov has arrived and i am done with all the assembly part of it and now worried about choosing a board etc.