Embarrassing, but this is one of the places we were lucky and not good, so we thought we would post about it in case it helped anyone in their designs. The initial designs for what evolved into the Blacktip drone had a dry internal cavity. Since a dry chamber requires that the entire chamber be …
Author Archives: Aaron Toney
HomebuiltROVs.com
This isn’t out work, but it was so inspirational for us we thought we should hang a lantern on it. (Stephen was nice enough to let us use pictures of his work here, but go check out his site – homebuiltrovs.com. The book Build Your Own Underwater Robot, and Other Wet Projects was first published in …
Buoyancy Engine Design Released!
Our Syringe Buoyancy Engine is available for release. All the parts are available in the downloads section now. The design uses a Medline 30mL Luer Lock disposable syringes (part number SYR130010), and a common M3 /55mm shaft linear actuator module. Originally the thinking was that BBs could also be added to a hollow piston when a …
Lanternfish – New Electronics Chamber
As we added components to the desired electronics in a Lanternfish we eventually hit a wall with the old electronics chamber size. Everything could be made to fit, but it was just a nightmare to assemble. The new chamber is deeper, creating a wider opening to work on the electronics, as well as creating room …
Lanternfish – Buoyancy Neutral Base Plate
On every drone you have a mass budget. Every time a new component is added, that components weight as well as the weight any required new wiring and mounting hardware get added to the total system mass, and subtracted from the mass budget. The most recent changes to the Electronics chamber added a lot of …
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Blacktip – Float test passed
The earlier float tests have all been for either parts of the Blacktip hull individually, or of the hull with only some of the internal and external hardware bolted into the hull. Today’s float test was for the entire hull – with everything but the electronics part of the ballast control system in place. Both …
Lanternfish – Lamp Float
Lanternfish was designed to be extensible, and this float is our first accessory. The float’s buoyancy is a little over half a Kg, and it buoyancy neutralizes an underwater dive light like the one pictured here. We are using a $21 Suptig diving light from Amazon. It is supposed to be rated to 45 meters, …
First Lanternfish back from paint!
First lanternfish back from paint and ready to be stuffed with electronics.
Lanternfish Ready for Paint!
Latest Lanternfish test print and assembly seems like everything works. No clearance issues on assembly, and it looks ready for paint. Major issues with this design were increasing the float height, which in turn increased its buoyancy. The height of the legs was also increased, increasing the distance between the base of the float and …
Welcome to the drone factory!
One of the major research questions we have been working on for nearly two years, is figuring out how to bring down the cost of drone production; both the labor and components costs. While we still have a lot farther to learn, some time in the last few months we crossed a major milestone without …