Hi there.
We are trying to put together a T500 rov. We just threw ourselves in and ordered the parts we thought we’d have use of together with a complete BlueROV2 to make acquaintance with the architecture and to use on inspection jobs.
We are a company supporting the foundation VOTO, Voice of the ocean who wants to:
- Support science.
- Visualize the past.
- Create engagement.
It is all about the sea, have a look at: https://voiceoftheocean.org/. VOTO shares a lot of high-resolution oceanographic data for all scientists to take part of and might support your research in other areas. Recently involved with an unmanned sail drone project in Hudson Bay.
Back to the vehicle, it is to be custom made to carry a relatively big echosounder our R2 Sonic 2024 (+16kg) and a SprintNAV mini. Positioning will be from HiPap.
The frame machined out of PP plastic is in the making and should arrive shortly.
It is also planned for a fibre mux to be able to handle the data and run on a thin tether.
We intend to go for two battery pods containing two batteries each like the Mega battery. Pods will still be light in water and are stacked in the top.
Its not a vehicle made for pipeline survey but smaller grids of work like shipwrecks or reefs. Possibly it could be refitted/ rebuilt for photo, photogrammetry or film later.
The best would be if the batteries could be connected into one big battery, thinking of making a power hub where batteries join and the ESC:s are housed and then thrusters connect to. Possibly moving the Pie in together with the mux.
The first idea was to use a 400mm 4" bottle and just change out the 200-ESCs, but even if we removed the dome and added another flange for connectors, yea I’m not sure. Maybe better to move the Pie and just run a cable with signals to the ESCs.
Another idea is to put (four and four) ESCs with the batteries. Its not as straight forward of how to (evenly) supply the rest of the vehicle with power then.
Its not going to be a perfectly executed plan, but the intension is to get a prototype up and running. A home made ROV built on T200s (top side powered though) managed to pull of a survey with this MBES last year.
I have a lot of questions. I am trying not to spend too much time on issues like heat dissipation or tether entanglement around the trusters just yet. No, it can’t even sit on deck like that, but staying slick would not create unnecessary drag, it can sit in a crib. Plenty of space to manufacture buoyancy in the top.
It is hard to dimensioning things out. Cabling can’t be dimensioned for running all thrusters at full speed simultaneously (43x8 Amps). The initial idea was to use 500s for their efficiency. Verts just running on idle while on site just to maintain depth. Probably could have gone with just two 500s or four T200, still can. Thrusters should be able to limit in the software, add fuses to that.
It would be preferable to seize up in dimension battery cables going to a power hub, I haven’t found any good connectors for more than 50 Amps. To hardwire one cable with two conductors through a gland would save some end cap space. I am all ears for solutions and parts.
Robin Claesson - Midocean