Switching between battery powered and surface power (OTPS)

Blue Robotics Vehicles
1

Hello,
I’m wondering if anyone managed to make an easy switchable solution between battery and OTPS system? I would like to make a BlueROV2 that has the ability to work in both modes.
I’m normally using 4pin Cobalt (Bluetrail’s) connector and cable coming from battery housing, but the OTPS ROV power supply comes with the standard two cable for power, and unifying them to one cable into 4pin Cobalt connector will limit the power that will be possible to draw from the OTPS.
I would be happy to hear of any user-friendly solutions for that. Thanks.

2

Hi Oded,
My team recently received an OTPS and are working toward this goal. Wondering if you’ve made progress toward this question?

Our initial thought as to add another 4pin cobalt (2 total bulkheads) and wire all 4 conductors into one bullet connector / positive on the XT90 connector on one pigtail and all 4 conductors into one bullet connector / negative on the XT90 connector. I’ve tried to illustrate that here (Ignore -camera and -Need…):

IMG_3648_2
IMG_3648_22960×1375 396 KB

Thanks,
Mike

3

On Second thought we might be going a different route with this as it states pretty clearly in the user manual that Users should not modify the can or any part of this or risk of electrical shock and voiding of the warranty.
User Manual
Other Forum thread

4

Putting a connector on the OTPS bottle wouldn’t be that hard (happy to do it for you, if that’s what you need!) , but the current draw would likely exceed the connector rating.

2 Likes
5

Hi Mike,

This project got postponed and so we didn’t get to that yet. We just handed the battery version of this ROV to our client and the next phase will be to get the power supply system and see how we solve this issue.
As for using 4pin Cobalt for each polarity, I guess it’s an option although I would consider using different connectors types for the two polarities, possibly one 4pin and the other ‘3pin Power’ to avoid confusion between polarities, the price for that is the lower current limit (60A instead of 80A I think).
I would be interested in hearing how you solved this issue.
Good luck!