With aluminum housings it appears the BR2 is rated to 400 meters depth. Has anyone actually taken it that deep?
What is the maximum depth anyone has operated the BR2 thrusters at?
I there any depth limitation on the thrusters? Has any testing been done in Blue Robotics Crushinator?
Hi @dtrail,
Note that the Blue ROV2 is NOT rated for use beyond 100 m. Its rated depth is 100 m, and the rated depth of the aluminum enclosures is 400 m, but swapping in the aluminum enclosures will not increase the depth rating of the BlueROV2. It has not been bested as a complete system with aluminum enclosures for an official depth rating, and there are other components that limit the depth, namely the foam and some cable penentrations.
The deepest we have taken a BlueROV2 ourselves was just about 320 m with @nperry and his sled, as seen here. This did lead to some leaks however.
I have also heavily modified a BlueROV2 for use by Valley Christian High School/The Quest Institute at 890 m on MBARI’s MARS stationary node platform. Among other modifications, this ROV has thicker aluminum enclosures, syntactic buoyancy foam, and Seacon connectors rather than penetrators. You can see more about it here.
We actually don’t have an official depth rating for our thrusters, as we haven’t found a limit yet. Due to our unique fully flooded design where water freely moves throughout the thruster internals, pressure isn’t much of a concern. There are no air cavities to compress, or seals of any kind. Our thrusters will definitely function well down to at least 500m or so.
-Adam
Thanks Adam. Understand all the other issues beyond aluminum enclosures and plans to address. Just making sure before I go there that thrusters wouldn’t prove to be a limiting factor. So it appears the system on MBARI’s MARS station would be evidence of thursters performing at nearly 900 meters especially since they are down there permanently.
Hi Adam,
I’m looking into designing an ROV for 1000 meters and after reading your post here I was wondering if there are any leads you can contribute regarding syntactic foam resource, connectors etc.
I plan to design suitable housings (did that in the past), suitable buoyancy and I was also actually thinking of using the penetrators (possibly WetLinks) to save the expense on so many subsea connectors.
Cheers
Oded.
Check out the following. They have both stock pre formed blocks and also castable products you can mix and pour into molds.
Radha Agarwal
I SynFoam Division of UDC
112 Naylon Ave.
Livingston, NJ 07039
Office: 973-994-4334
Mail: RAgarwal@synfoam.com
Hi Doug,
They just popped up on my search, I will contact the address you gave me, much appreciated!
Oded.
I just used HP-20 for my custom built ROV rated for 1000 meters on job at 620 meters deep. No issues.
Doug
That’s great to know, thanks for the info!