Hello, I’m a beginner robotics student working on a BlueROV2 heavy - and we’re trying to find a way to kill our robot more safely than the switch Blue Robotics offers. (which is somewhat dangerous because our robot is autonomous, and the switch is difficult to turn underwater) Think big red button, easy pull tab, a magnet on the outside that flips a switch on the inside - anything that is SUPER easy to do. I was wondering if anyone out there might already have a “big red button safety methodology” and might be willing to share.
Hi @SillyLittleFrog -
Welcome to the forums!
The Blue Robotics switch would not work as emergency stop - it is rated for 5 amps, and the ROV can pull over 100A!
A reed (magnetic) switch would work better to more easily trigger, however finding one of those rated for serious currents is likely not possible…
Unfortunately, I don’t think an E-Stop on an ROV is an easy problem… Are you operating the system without a tether? If connected to a topside, you can always disarm the vehicle, but if no connection is present, that obviously isn’t an option.
Your best bet may be a reed switch in the main electronics enclosure. You could wire it from 3.3V to the ADC input on the Navigator, and use a LUA script to disarm the vehicle if the signal goes low. Thus when the magnet is in place, everything works, and if it is removed, the autopilot disables the system.
This doesn’t cut the power directly, but that may be desirable, as you’ll want to connect to the vehicle and see logs of what may have gone wrong! Some of those logs, if present only in BlueOS extension containers, would be cleared by a reboot…