I haven’t posted on BR in many years. I go way back to when BR was in its’ infancy and catered to the DIY community. I had a lot of success with my ROV design using BR products, a Cat5e tether and keeping the cost under $500. My ROV made over 50 dives to 60- 100 feet photographing the reefs off of Jacksonville Beach, FL.
You can view the videos on my YouTube channel Richard Fast. The biggest problem I encountered was strong ocean currents at depth and maintaining situational awareness. I used a magnetic compass mounted outside the enclosure and viewed on my topside monitor. Here is an old post describing the build: Under Sea Rover 1 (USR1) - Build / DIY ROVs - Blue Robotics Community Forums
I became discouraged due to the position keeping difficulties, among other things, and sold the components here on BR. I just stuck with the great fishing at the reefs.
I have since moved to Kansas City and I have become interested in lake bottom exploration. Here the problem is poor visibility where 2-4 feet is considered good. I only need depth capability to 50 feet, and it is, of course, fresh water. There are many fewer problems than 100 ft in the saltwater, 2 knot current environment.
The purpose of this post is to get back involved in ROV’s and to ask if any of you have experience with the following connecter?
Waterproof Coupler | Cat5e/Cat6 Shielded RJ45 | ShowMeCables.com
Not having a way to disconnect the tether at either end is a real pain-in-the-butt, as you know. Thought I would ask here before spending the money to try it out. I am only sending 8 volt DC current signals through the tether so some water leakage shouldn’t be a problem.
Thanks,
Richard
p.s.
Rusty, are you still at BR? You were always so helpful.
