Wetlinks and Lumen Light tilt

Hi All:

We’re starting the process of rebuilding/replacing the Lumen light strings on all of our BlueROVs to ones that use Wetlink penetrators- but have immediately run into a snag.

The M06 Wetlink penetrator is significantly taller than the M06 potted penetrator:

Typically on our vehicles we’ll tilt the lower set of lights downward, as we spend most of our time looking downwards with the camera:

But if the Lumen has Wetlink penetrators, it pretty much needs to be installed horizontally:

Has anyone else grappled with this yet? I’ve been scratching my head trying to figure out a new mounting spot for the lower lights (I don’t want to mount them outside the frame because I don’t want them to act as a tether trap). But unfortunately there’s just not enough material on the frame to drill some new holes where I’d like them. I might try 3D printing a bracket that mounts on the forward lower cross-piece, but right now I haven’t come up with a particularly elegant way of doing that either.

Any ideas are welcome.

-Walt

Hi @wholm,

From looking at the frame CAD it seems like it should be possible to fit some suitable holes in by moving the lights forward to protrude a bit more out the front. If you want it further back you could maybe make a 3D print that recesses into the bottom of the existing triangular slot, with one hole in it, and then drill the other hole into the front ‘column’ of the side panel.

I’ve also brought this up internally, in case there are any other suggestions :slight_smile:

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Hi @EliotBR

I’ve thought about that, unfortunately that makes the lower lights even more vulnerable to deck handling issues than they are right now. I’d really like to find some solution that moves the lights back a cm or so as well. This may not be possible short of designing some custom side plates for the ROV.

I’m going to continue to ponder this issue, will post again once I have something put together.

-W

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@wholm - did you come up with a solution to this problem? I’ve run into the same problem too!

Nope.

It’s an annoyance for sure, but we’ve been so busy with other stuff that this hasn’t risen to the top of our priority list.

If we do end up fixing this, I will definitely write about it here.

-W

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It seems to me that the best/only solution is going to be to keep using the old pale metallic blue penetrators on the back of the lights and then have a wetlink penetrator on the end of the cable that goes back into the main ROV tube.