Underwater ROV

rov

Jason wanted a simple underwater housing for his cheap X10 camera. He decided to add IR illumination and thrusters to move it around. Before he knew it he had a simple PVC remote operated vehicle on his hands. The lights and camera are housed in the upper PVC tubes. Six 12V bilge pumps are located below for directional control.

14 thoughts on “Underwater ROV

  1. I’m dying to put one of these together. Looks awesome. I want to make mine deployable from a kayak, so I also need a waterproof control box and viewer. Maybe I can seal up an old Palm or Jornada.

  2. I have been involved with this type of thing for years!! There is even a national competition (last year held in NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab!) every year! And you can even see the underwater battle-bot type of competition sponsored by the Discovery Channel a few years ago called Depth-Charge. Here are some great links to this kind of thing:

    GREAT book on how to build these things:
    Harry Bohm & Vickie Jensen
    Build Your Own Underwater Robot and Other Wet Projects
    Westcoast Words, 2003.
    ISBN 0-9681610-0-6

    National Competition:
    http://www.marinetech.org/rov_competition/index.php

    Discovery Channel Depth-Charge, Team-MATE’s site:
    http://www.team-mate.org

  3. it better have not! but just in case here is a mirror.
    http://www.rollette.com.nyud.net:8090/rov/

    thanks to all you hackday day readers I have gotten so much email about my railgun and now this.

    I plan on redoing it a bit over the winter, and next year will be all that much better. I got a few of those cvs camcoders now too and plan to make spots to put them in on all side for extra footage to review. as well as adding a floting serial gps bouyie so if I find something cool I can go back to the same spot.

  4. it better have not! but just in case here is a mirror.
    http://www.rollette.com.nyud.net:8090/rov/

    thanks to all you hackday day readers I have gotten so much email about my railgun and now this.

    I plan on redoing it a bit over the winter, and next year will be all that much better. I got a few of those cvs camcoders now too and plan to make spots to put them in on all side for extra footage to review. as well as adding a floting serial gps bouyie so if I find something cool I can go back to the same spot.

  5. Nice pics. I was just disappointed by the lack of how-to-do-this-you-poor-slob-with-no-imagination, since I am also keen to have a whack at an ROV. Hopefully he will do a detailed page up when it’s all finished. I like the bilge pump idea; maybe some diagrams of placement in this model would help us!
    Nice fun hack.

  6. actually i find the simplicity and the ablity to add so many features quite interesting about these bots, but my one problem is the wire running to the camera, anyone have any thoughts on a wireless camera, with some decent range?

  7. DEAR SIR AND MADAM,

    NOW WE ARE A SMALL GROUP DIVER IN VIET NAM . THE ROV IS VERY PLAY A KEY ROLE IN OUR SURVEY, SO IT IS VERY EXPENSIVE, COULD YOU HELP ME TO FIND A GOOD PRICE ABOUT THE ROV. WE NEED IT TO SURVEY THE HULL OF VESSEL.

    THANKS AND BEST REGARD

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