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Model C STL files?

Hey bluedot peeps

Just found out about the project from youtube, good to see another open source ROV project.

I use a lot of FPV drones and really want to try using off the shelf FPV drone components inside the case of a Bluedot model C but can't find the maindeck files, are they hosted anywhere?

cheers!

2 answers2 replies

4 Comments

Davy Stevenson

Apr 22, 2020

Hey Costa thanks for the reply,

Would love to buy a frame but the $249.99 shipping to the UK (not including the import tax which is another 20% and handling fee's which is normally around the $25 to $30) is maybe a bit rich for me 😂. Maybe some day when there's an EU distributor, the IP issues are resolved or even an STL file I can purchase to download (like on cults3d) I can get my hands on a frame, in the mean time I will watch this project 😀

Using a Go-pro Underwater dome for the pressure vessel is a stroke of genius though, as the electronics housing is normally one of the most expensive parts of a ROV build!

The FPV underwater wasn't going to be a terribly big or clever one, when you crash a FPV drone you normally have 3 motors and 3 esc's left behind so it was mainly to use the remains in something a bit more interesting;

3 motors with 3d printed parts to make them more marinised

3 esc's with BLHeli loaded on them so you can switch them from their usual operation to the 3d flight (bidirectional) for moving both directions. An off the shelf fpv camera on a servo similar to the Model C, (all going well switch it out for a Tarsier or Runcam split for HD footage?)

Load a Wing profile onto its flight controller board, the vertical thruster into its main propeller channel so your depth is controlled by what would have been the throttle, and the other 2 forward and backward thrusters into the pitch and roll channels. The video and SBUS signals up a length of Cat5 cable to a floating buoy similar to the Model C where the receiver and video transmitter is housed,

My FPV underwater idea isn't a clever one, but I just want to build a small and portable ROV to be used with my drone gear, I own a BlueROV2 but it comes in at about 10Kg and while it is great its just too damn heavy and cumbersome to be lugged about easily, the Model C has an advantage of being much smaller and lighter and would have made a great addition to use on days where flying isn't such a viable option,

Davy Stevenson

Apr 26, 2020

Replying to

@costassoler

The one thing with using something like a SP-racing or any other drone flight controller is they use a serial data protocol to communicate with their receivers (I'm using Frsky's SBUS) which isn't too dissimilar to how a normal ROV works (Seaeye's Falcon ROV uses a serial protocol over RS485)

But yeah, to change the ESC's (make sure its a BLHeli one and not a SimonK!) you either do it through the flight controller but you can also do it via Arduino nano / uno (there's youtube videos on how to do it,) once you change them into 3d mode they will save their settings onboard the ESC's so when it gets a PWM signal of 1000, it goes full one direction, 1500 is stopped and 2000 is full direction in the other way, you can also set up deadzones on the ESC etc for saftey and whatnot its quite flexible

The video on the E-pod is amazing, waterproof housings have been a massive sticking point for lots of rov projects and you've cracked a tough nut with using the go-pro dome. that video guide you did is fantastic, keep up the good work!