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Thrusters

A project log for BorgCube ROV

Underwater robots!

tim-wilkinsonTim Wilkinson 01/26/2016 at 22:500 Comments

The ROV has 12 thrusters. That means I need to make cheap thrusters - buying 12 Blue Robotics thrusters would cost $2000 which is quite a lot of money. What can I say ... I'm cheap. Also, I want to be okay with a motor failing and being replaced, which also means they need to be cheap.

To this end I bought twelve A2212/13T 1000kV motors for about $6 per motor. If a few $6 motors fail, I'll be okay with that. To turn them into thrusters I needed to add propellors. I chose P40D47 Three Vanes RC Boat Propeller. This may turn out to be a bit small (time will tell). Also, I couldn't find clockwise and anti-clockwise version, which again may end up being an issue. To attach one of the props to the motor I used shaft couplers and double ended stainless steel threaded studs. The assembled thruster is below:

In this picture you can also see the aluminum mounting bracket made using a 90 degree hub mount and an aluminum spacer. The motor screws to one side of the hub, and the spacer is screwed to the frame ... like this:

Right now the propellers are unprotected. I intend to add some sort of cowling, mostly so I don't hurt myself on them. The final step with them will be write them to the ESC board; but waiting on some connectors to finish that step.

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