Up until now I've been posting on various websites regarding my progress with a project of mine relating to designing a small underwater remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, in my spare time.
I thought it was time I consolidated some of my results in a single place, so here it is.
I design large ROVs for a living but I am interested in the feasibility of producing a low cost, yet hopefully very capable ROV aimed at the hobbyist (i.e. myself at home).
I do not intend producing an open design as such at the moment, but am interested in how far a small scale setup with limited funding can get me.
It has taken me about three years to get my workshop set up so that I can do most things relating to the prototyping of small mechanical assemblies.
In three years I am only now capable of producing a reliable, leak free underwater housing for my brushless DC thruster motors (or so I think ;)) and also I am able to drive it with a custom BLDC motor controller PCB designed by my self.
I will go into more detail as time goes by but for now here is a link to a video I made of my thruster a while back where I thought I had a reliable design, but in fact I didn't, that's engineering for you ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA1KVHdKWNU
I am also interested in 3D simulators for ROVs and here is a video of a 3D simulator I wrote in C# with the aid of TV3D (a very capable 3D software library containing an equally capable physics engine called Newton).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EQ3fvZyT7o
And finally here's a video of one of the ROVs I helped design in my day job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt90Xvq3wi0
This will not be a swift process but I am really hoping I will learn a lot along the way, I have so far, and long may it continue.
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