Hello everyone,
I'm putting together a home-made ROV, to be more precise an UROV (Underwater Remote Operated Vehicle). My device so far has very low level of sophistication but I want to build-up on it.
I used PVC for the frame and bilge pumps for thrusters, not an original idea but sort'a works. I'd like to improve the controls. Now it has a cheap joystick for the horizontal controls and 2 push buttons for the up-down. The connections are lame, all the brown wires from the pumps to a wire strip in one box and all the black ones twist together in another box. Then 20 feet of #24 shielded cable with 8 conductors, one end with the ROV the other to the control box when 12V from a battery powers the whole thing. One 3amp fuse and that's it.
Well I need better control... I don't think the distribution of power is even to the 6 thrusters. In order to go forward I need to activate two thrusters in the bow that are positioned about 45o. With the present connection the vehicle favors one side a lot more than the other.
What kind of digital control would you add to this, I have BOE-bot from parallax and works so nicely, how would you merge both concepts, with no more than a couple hundred $'s ?
Any ideas would be appreciated Ana