Hello everyone from a snowy Scotland, thought I would post my build pictures so far I have been building this for sometime and then lost interest moving on too multi rotors, periodically looking on the homebuilt rov page to keep in contact of how other projects were proceeding, one such visit I noticed BR thrusters in a post from Rusty and they inspired me to re-start the project, so here I am so far still a bit to go but getting closer. Absolutely loving the thrusters BR well done!!
Hey Rusty, it measures 440mm long x 290mm wide x 250mm high, the side panels are machined from polypropylene therefore are buoyant, the frame is constructed with 15mm x 15mm openbeam anodised aluminium and all the fittings are marine grade stainless steel the front wtc i designed and machined myself from delrin, I had a similar wtc for the rear but decided it was to small for 2 batteries and decided to use BR end caps utilising a aluminium tube that I already had, I will need to add some form of additional bouancy, I do have some high density foam that I will probably use.
The control for now will be via my Rc controller and a pair of pwm-ppm fed to the rov then ppm - pwm to speed controllers / servo’s and an rccc board that can switch AV feed and control the lights and switch on the GoPro for HD recording.
Batteries just now will be 2 no 3 cell turnigy 5200ma/h in parallel.
Ideally I would want to control the rov via a ps2 controller pluging into the top box, feeding something similar to apm so that a osd can be introduced utilising the open rov pressure and compass module, and of course really need a good purpose built neutrally buoyant tether and an affordable price
Hey john, I noticed you are using a gopro as your camera. I am a total noob at this stuff and am trying to wire up a gopro4 as a drop cam for when we go diving, I have tried hooking up various bits of kit and using my cctv monitor system and have so far manage a black and white image only. I have tried various video out cables, baluns, micro hdmi to hdmi cable (horrible high pitched scream from that one).
I would love to think I could go on to convert it into an rov, but failing so poorly at the start.
Any pointers, I would love to get this down 50 to 60m, so that’s the kind of cable length I am thinking about.
You mention Scotland, I am in Aberdeen, where are you?
Hi Adrian, I’m through in Inverness not so sure about hero4 mine is only hero2 far easier I believe to get AV out although if you look at TCIII post he is using a 4 I think with an extended casing for AV out he would may be quicker answer he also has a post on homebuilt rov’s, what diving you doing was with Inverness bsac through here for a wee while till I got to busy.
@Adrian- my cctv system uses a Sony 12volt board camera off of ebay ($18 US) and keeps color fine through 70 meters of cat5e (24AWG wire). Are you running a 5 volt cctv system? I don’t use baluns, I did but they are not necessary.
Hi guys, thought I would update you all on progress I have got most of my control sorted out now bit of tweaking to be done still then the real fun begins
