Underwater Drone Built With Parts From a Flying Drone
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 พ.ค. 2024
- In today's video we are talking the parts from an old FPV drone and building an underwater from it.
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Music:
Diluted - Aiyo
Sea Adventures - Bonnie Grace - บันเทิง
Hey Simon, I love your videos! I work for a scuba dive computer manufacturer, and a lot of the issues you are facing are awfully familiar. Our earlier dive computers have a faceplate with 8 screws onto an o-ring sealed surface much like the one on your drone. We've found that ironically this kind of design leaks far more commonly near the surface than when at depth because the water can seep by the seal when the pressure is lower, but as the pressure increases, the faceplate is forced back upon the o-ring. The sealing surface for the o-ring is critical. Too much surface roughness (as you may find with a painted 3d print) and the water can pass right by the o-ring at lower depths. As well, properly sizing of the o-ring is also very important. Too thin and it can't make good contact, but too thick and it can fold onto itself and cause channels for water to pass by. All that being said, I am a firmware developer, not a mechanical engineer. YMMV.
Temperature probably plays a part too. The water will start to cool the internal volume of air dropping the pressure inside. Getting the electronics hot to compensate, pressurizing the hull slightly, or pre-cooling below water temp might help.
Thanks for the input. Sounds like you may have used a face seal, then. Maybe you went to a "piston type" seal later on. I noticed a lot of, if not all, Suuntos use that.
Just one correction, small, thin o-rings can actually hold quite a lot of pressure perfectly well - as long as the surfaces are smooth. But if you meant sealing on a 3D printed surface, I guess you are right, a bigger surface could help bridge small gaps in the surface.
Anyhow, I have 1.5mm cross section o-rings in some spots in my pneumatic spearguns ( up to 33bar). And Suunto has 1.0mm cross section rings on the button pins on, at least, D4 and D6 computers. And in one place in one of my computers, they have an even smaller one.
@@AntiVaganza Another thing with o-rings is that you should put a generous amount of grease on them to fill any gaps. I work in manufacturing/qc for small sensors and we always have a big jar of vaseline at hand to grease up the seal of our pressure tester.
@@unicorntulkas I hate to disagree, but normally, the rule of thumb is not to put much grease on o-rings. As little as possible, actually.
I think the idea for the grease is not to fill in gaps, but more to lower the friction of the o-ring so that it can move easily into where it needs to sit in the groove during assembly and when pressure is increased.
Perhaps, that's just the internet speaking, and maybe you are right, but that's how I have always done it. I would think if you need grease to fill in gaps, your surface is not smooth enough in the first place.
@@AntiVaganza I mean I’m not an engineer, but I play trumpet and we use grease and oil on the slides and valves to help seal the instrument when we play. It mostly lubricates but helps with leaks too
You have to remember to oil those motors after EVERY use. Get some CorrosionX HD and soak the motors in it. It should help prevent the bearings from seizing like they did
Yer for my rc car motors /drone I power them up in distilled water to get out all the dirt then oil then they don’t seize
I was expecting a 3D printed scuba suit... kinda disappointing.
you are not supposed to pollute wildlife water with oil
@@bittasweetsymphony726 you can use vegetable oil instead
You can easily replace the bearings with 3D resin printed water-film bearings/bushings , I did this on a 5065 motor on a diy electric kayak, works much better than ball bearings under water. The water forms a film and decreases the noise a bit. The ones I have designed have 6 small canals running axially across the bushings which suck in the water that creates the film. No oil, no rust, no contact
The hull is so thin walled that you could definitely get away with magnetic feedthroughs for the propellers rather than external motors. Also hatches should be round, or at minimum round off the corners. Rectangular seals are a huge pain in the rear every time. Also you can just buy o-rings in practically whatever size or material you want, which will probably work way better than that printed thing.
Edit: Credit Brick Experiment Channel which built a lego-inside-tupperware submarine using such a feedthrough. It worked great.
Have you seen the video video "Building a Lego-powered Submarine 3.0 - balloon and compressor*" on the*Brick Experiment Channel?* (It's a fun watch.) He used a magnetic couple to keep the motor inside the sub. It worked pretty well but it really limits the speed and torque from the motor. Friction is a big problem with magnetic coupling.
@@ddegn Yes, that is precisely the inspiration. Limited speed and torque is fine. The total possible length of voyage of this thing is the length of the tether, so speed is not a high priority.
@@sealpiercing8476 It would be cool to see. The one which used Lego bricks worked pretty well.
I would trust waterproofing advice from a guy named Seal.
I don''t know the quality of them speed and torque wise , but mini submersible fountain pumps with custom propellers seems like an idea.
Only halfway through, and someone has probably suggested this already, but.. To save yourself some trial and error with the ballast, you could just temporarily seal the hull, submerge it in a container, take note of how much water it displaces, and calculate the updrift on the drone. Then just add enough ballast to make the drone weigh the same or a bit more than the updrift, and you should be golden~
You probably won't read this but here are some things that could be improved:
- Replace original ball bearings with sleeve bearings
- Print the housing using ABS and do acetone smoothing
- Make the lid smaller and out of aluminium (you need the weight anyway)
- There might have been something wrong with how you used the gasket, make sure you use continuous one, ideally rubber one not the weird foam one
- Instead of gluing all the connector use proper IP rated connectors with orings
- If you want to avoid the balance connector, attach active balancer circuit (1A balance current and it's not dumping the excess into resistors but to the cell with lower voltage) because you do really need balancing for li-po, you can skip it for perfectly matched li-ion (a lot of power tools and all laptops do that)
I would agree that matche lthium ion don´t really need balancing (but you never know, if they are used for years and for example one is nearer to a hot driver, they will unbalance a bit), but all laptop batteries ive opened have active balancing (from 10 years ago to quite current models)
The lid could be undearneath too, even made of steel for better weight distribution. The other good thing about this solution is the water is forcing itself more through roof, the air inside boat will prevent water from getting in (as long as it's horizontal, so most of the time)
Ceramic bearings are pretty common, and they can't rust. The water should actually lubricate them so that you don't need any oil (less pollution in the water). Just don't run the motors when they're dry or it will wear the bearings. Due to the hardness required of a bearing material, you can't make them from a type of stainless steel which won't rust like 316.
Good point about using proper connectors. Even if you would manage to seal around a normal connector, it will most likely leak between the pins and the plastic. Water can pass inside the cables between the wire and the conductor, so if it can get in one end it will come out the other sooner or later.
Another issue is electrolysis of the conductors. While regular water is only slightly conductive it becomes very conductive when you have the positive and negative terminals in a closed space, the current corrodes the metal and the ripped of metal ions increases the waters conductivity which increases the current and thus the rate of corrosion until the conductors becomes a highly conductive metal soup.
In salt water you're just screwed if you don't do it right.
Also, You can just cool down the transmitter by making a hole for the heatsink, and seal it shut so water won't get in. It's water cooling, free real estate.
I recommend putting propellor guards on those props of yours. They will make easy use of the umbillacal and leave your ROV (remote operated vehicle) loose and dead in the water. Also important on both your home made ROV and the iFish is to keep a count on how many turns you make in each direction, as a lot of turns and a sharp pull can sever the connection inside the umbillical. It is easier to seal a round hatch waterproof than a square and it is very, very important to cross tighten the screws. I.e. tighten the opposite screws, much like the bolts on a car wheel.
I find your dedication to making an underwater drone amazing, despite all the failed attempts you never give up !
Keep up the good work :)
Suggestions for you…
1. instead of multiple cables running to surface which are bulky, heavy, and don’t allow the drone to move as freely as it could… just lengthen the receiver antenna so it reaches the surface.
2. All openings should be round. You could design one that threads (like a jar lid) on and has o-ring at base. Should seal reliably, easily, and be quickly removable.
You're an RC Legend! I have been watching you for years. Never disappointed with your new projects. Always posting the good, the bad, the ugly, and in the end rewarding projects. Keep it up, Simon.
The best tip I can give you is to seal the electronic components before sealing the actual body, and some wd40 can make a stuck motor spin almost instantly but I would recommend using some kind of water sealant or oil since wd40 isn't meant for being submerged in water. Grease can also work like a charm too, but overall you did an excellent job making this rc underwater drone.
Ok, this is cool, and the fact that you show all the journey to arrive to a working thing is just awesome !
Couple quick notes, motors, as others have said they won't fail immediately but oil will help a lot, and at least rinse with clean water afterwards. Also, with the balance lead, usually with a well-balanced battery with well-matched cells, it will probably be fine, but charging with only the main lead can definitely lead to some cell imbalance and damage. In the future, you can get a passive balancer board that will balance while charging, but take very little (or no) power otherwise. For something short like that, I would just undercharge it a bit, like to 4.1/cell or so just to avoid overcharging a cell.
Yup. I totally cringed when he said you don't need to use the balance lead when charging (and didn't follow it up with a warning about cell balancing). But since he was apparently only doing this as an ad for that expensive commercial one I guess it makes sense...
Okey this looks much more cleaner, the design is really coolll, ALSO WHEN ARE YOU GONNA USE THE HUGE BLDC MOTOR YOU GOT
he already did
@@MatthewNovoselskiy oohhh, sorry my bad I forgot😭😭
They are called ROV. Better to have the electronics in an cylinder with o-ring endcaps and bulkhead-connectors. Then also do a vacuum test
We want a family blog from you because we don’t know about your family and love to see more from you and love the comedian style you put into your videos
Damn this was fun! I'm glad that you don't just show the end result but also the way of getting there, including all the failures!
Awesome video, man!
For 2 years I worked on ROVs for a competition. My experience is that:
1.WIRES LET WATER THROUGH. Oh yeah. If you have a wire running from the outside to the inside and you do not put a waterproof connector there - like on your motors - water will get inside through the wire itself.
2. We never managed to seal a faceplate onto a faceplate like your hatch - no O ring could fully seal it, even when we used marine grease. Instead we had to put the O ring radially against a perfectly flat surface (like an acrylic tube) and use at least 2 of them.
3. ESCs heat up and increase the air pressure inside. This sounds kinda good if you have a good sealing, because it pushes air and water out. However it also puts a stress on your sealings from the other direction, which can damage them and make them leak, if you did not take it into consideration.
Use CorrosionX on the motors, and all the electronics inside, that stuff is pure magic! Trust me I fly over salt water :)
Also, you NEED those balance leads to safely charge… Cells will slowly have different voltages and the list of stuff that can go wrong grows. But hey, its your house…
Amazing project!!
I am finally getting back to doing cool creative stuff like this. Super cool to see your work even if it was a failsess - frustrating but enjoyable at times and very informative to go through the process.
12:06 - not only two crabs fighting but also a starfish riding a leaf :D
Thanks for the scam... Sigh
for v3 you could try a submerged audio transmitter for control
That's pretty amazing, I would like to give a suggestion for the floatation device though, instead of blowing air into it you could seal it with a water cooling system inside, a water cooling heatsink with a circulating fan and a pump using the water from whatever it's floating in.
This is a more complicated solution but it would avoid trouble from rain, rough waters, etc.
Also even on hot days the waters will be significantly colder than ambient air temp so it should cool the components very well
Using the other drone to pick garbage up was cool, that's a very cool application
Masterclass! Please do more Videos 👍👍
bro thats awesome! did you see the starfish drifting by during the crab fight? its going down under the sea! nice job picking up the trash :)
Awesome stuff, mate.
Great to see your sister getting involved too.
The Titan sub needed a man like you
A+ for effort, I also made little water motors out of old CDROM disk drives, even after packing and filling the inside of the 3d printed housing with waterproof gear grease. water still managed to find its way in and seized the motors. Water environment is just as challenging as space I think.
Mate your projects are bloody brilliant. This one is one of my faves.
I like all your videos, but would like more always want more.
we just can't agree more ✌
How can somebody as clumsy as you be so bloody brilliant. You're a genius mate this is looking fantastic
**reads title**
“This kid is going places.”
Can't agree more 😊
Du lyckas alltid lägga ut intressanta saker och detta är nog lika bra som allt annat på din kanal.
1:45 That cable makes it great as bait for fishing too 😄
Pretty slick!! I love that you painted it green. Cheers
I like your style with the brushless motors and wireless float on the surface. Made my own underwater drone this way, which is constant work in progress, but works quite well most of the time. I found epoxy sealing where the wires go into the motor helps since wires are not coated where they join from motor windings to cable. Also I use pvc pipe as a pressure hull. Pipe union style fittings for the pvc pipe have an o-ring style seal, and you can swap the flat side of the union for a piece of plexiglass/acrylic and you have an easily openable but very robust hatch of sorts. Only challenge there is you then need a long narrow chassis to easily get electronics in and out of the pipe enclosure. Keep up the cool projects!
I done mine the same as you with PVC pipe and used screw cap ends, unfortunately the smallest I could find was 100mm pipe and wished I could have found some screw on caps to suit 65mm pipe so it would have displaced less. I got around this by adding a heap of lead in the pipe, the battery sits on the lead so it kinda works like a heat sink lol
a proper rubber seal around your screws should fix any water leak issues to a certain depth. Also, for the heat sink in the transmission box you could cut a hole in the bottom and seal a heatsink in the hole this way the lake water would cool the heatsink. Cool Project.
Love this project! Can't wait to see V3.
the way you cool watertight devices is by having a heatsink (or a full pump and heat-exchanger and blower (radiator)) with or without fan to the hull, it blows cold air from there. water will go inside the floating relay thru the fan opening and you'll lose it.
also if you shape the floating relay like a buoy it would be better, like 2 tall cones stuck by their circular parts, with some lead ballast on one end around the cable exit (and a cooling heatsink) and the antenna up top, that way it causes less drag to the sub and stands the antenna easier over the waves, waves cut out, and reflect the signal upwards. you could open it and close it twisting the two cones together with some o-rings in between
I'd make the bottom of the 'hull' of the floating control out of aluminum with an o-ring seal to the plastic sides/top. Then use that aluminum as a heatsink, or even put some actual heatsinks on the bottom so that you're constantly water-cooling the heatsinks.
You getting so close and I see lots of helpful comments below. Hope you continue this project cause its badass.
Great trial and error engineering Simon. Your destined for greatness that's for sure
If you plan on leaving the flotation device, maybe you can remove the battery from the drone alltogether and power it from the device?
I wonder if a jet drive would be better. Removing every thing except for the camera and batteries. Batteries are better suited close to the motors unless you want super thick cables for power. I seen a comment above about someone talking about doing a vacuum test. I wonder if one could pull a vacuum and it would still work underwater with all of the different types of pressures at depth?
I can not recall who made a sub a while back. They used a syringe to push and pull water for buoyancy.
@@kameljoe21DIY Perks did a submarine like that.
@@Dooezzz Yeah that was the one. I could not think of it. It was pretty cool!
Best thing I have seen in weeks Simon. Thank you for your sense of humour.
So nice. I had the same idea in my head since a log time but you realized it!
I measure project success on how close I came to dying. This is 10/10 complete success. No one even remotely looked like they might die.
1:11 that was a smooth transition 👍
That’s badass! I was wondering when someone was going to try to build something like this!
This channel is pure chaos. I LOVE IT!
I love the magnet on the screwdriver. I do the same thing on a set I have that was cheap but works well but isn't magnetized.
please dont give up on having a hatch you can open, And I didn't see you properly testing for leaks, submerging in a wheelbarrow with neutral pressure isn't good. I would recommend adding a schrader valve for testing, you could use a hand pump for a little bit of pressure, and just leave it on the drone knowing it is air tight. And to test for leaks, You can use the wheelbarrow (lol) or just some soapy water, watch for bubbles. I really hope this project continues, I myself have always wanted to build one, Mine was going to have a metal detector in it as well. :)
The YT algorithm is kicking for me with this recommendation. I love drones and model subs and have been looking at diy for a bit. Thinking about a pvc frame with outriggers for control arms much like a fpv drone.
Maybe including some of those silica beads that ship with 3D printer filiament could help with the moisture?
Great video :)
An old trick we used to use for custom gaskets for hatches on race RC boats was to use silicone on the body and petroleum jelly on the lid. Fasten together, not torquing down completely, and you have a flexible, custom gasket.
Since you printer the drone in PLA you should have vapor smoothed the inside and the outside to prevent leaks. You can use dichloromethane for PLA or print the drone in ABS and use acetone.
tack för dina väldigt inspirerande projekt och just rover får en att drömma om att endag ha råd att bygga en egen (utan att sälja en njure) kör hårt!
You can paint the 3d printed parts with resin ( the type used in resin printing works well )which helps with water proofing.
Hi Simon... thanks a lot for such a wonderfully created things... anyway I was wondering if you can make more videos talking about the 3D design process for each project you had made so far?...this would be great...thanks
For waterproofing a removable lid take a look at how PC water distribution blocks are made. You have screws on both sides of the gasket staggered and it works really well I've made my own distribution block out of acrylic and it worked the first time with no leaks no blues or ceilings other than the rubber gasket
Incredible work
The remote floating antenna is genius.
Great experimental video👍🏻 Love your work🤩
om jag hade mer tid skulle jag fortsatta med projektet. bra jobbat, du kommer lyckas!
love this video and appreciate your build creativity.
"And it's even waterproof" that was fun!
You need to use "O" rings, you get far better seal (it is how the high pressure parts of diving & hydraulic gear are sealed).
You may consider using removable gel to protect your electronic from accidental water ingress, we use that on outdoor electrical junction box, you mix 2 liquid that solidify into a gel that is close in texture to the gel candle. If you want to remove, you can juste break the gel
Also perhaps a kids daiper for capturing the water inside 😀🤓
That claw is so good!! Hope your drone works out too.. Well done so far.. 👍
Have you tried putting the access cover under the unit instead of on top? The air pressure inside might be enough to prevent water from coming entering the sub.
Garrett Evans Wow thank you Garrett, you've made my day!
I think the Water inside the Drohne could be condensation water. Perhaps putting some these Pearls that suck them out could help. You know these little pads to protect Hardware shipping packets
"The right stuff" gasket maker is extremely good and can be returned to service as soon as the pieces are fastened together
Awesome 👏 build!! Great job thumbs up 👍
Man I love all of your videos. Even the outtakes and bloopers. You should do a blooper roll sometime. It makes me want to try to make this
Simon... another SUCCESS-ISH video. Loved it !!!!!
Great progress, keep at it!
It's late and honestly will take a chance from a cursery glance at the comments and say, Simon still can't print a watertight hull nor use o-rings;-)
Here goes my tips:
You can print watertight. Print at high temps, no retractions, watch any gaps carefully and play with overlap and such. Look at what the guys printing RC sailboats are doing. Waterproof hulls at 1-2 walls:)
O-ring design is not difficult at all. And to aid you just use Trelleborg's or Erik's online o-ring calculators.
I have printed parts for pneumatic speargun holding 30 bar of pressure and all the o-ring groove dimensions were verified in one of the above calculators.
But it can be difficult to FDM print a super smooth bore or groove that an o-ring can seal against at higher pressures. I solved it by secondary machining - sometimes just sanding. But with resin printing, you can actually get the surfaces smooth enough.
Drill the cover holes so the thread falls through the cover this will help avoid warping of the plastic and a better seal also might be worth doing it the same as a car, where you tighten small amounts at a time to avoid any warps and similar torqued screws.
Awesome build great work mate
YEEES FINALLY! A new episode. Älskar dina vidios, hare gött
conformal coat the electrical components inside, to give them extra resistance against water
it.s realy amazing cool atractiv mechatronic project
Well made !
hilarious!!!! I love going on these techie adventures with simon!! we need to put a claw on simons drone so they can have an underwater drone claw fight!!!!
Nice, i didn't even know that they invented underwater drones 😁
Keep it up 🔥🔥
One suggestion, if the connection to the internals of the drone is a physical plug, the metal contacts could be bridging in the water. Even if it's fresh water, there are still minerals which can facilitate electrical transmission, and all the worse when the contacts are closer together too. It'd be better to fully seal it and use induction charging to supply power, maybe with a physical twist lock to attach it to the drone. Also as others have already said, use a solvent smoothing technique or just take some sandpaper to it so that the seal with the o-ring will work better. If you take a piece of aluminum and make it part of the hull, you can cool the electronics by placing them directly on that. The heat will dissipate into the water much better that way.
glad your back missed you and your videos
Great DIY idea 💡
You could just ad a power switch with magnets.
And a magnetic coil charger for wireless charging. Slow but works.
This video is so freakin cool! I'm so excited I haven't even finished the first half of the video and I'm already in the comments! I totally need to build this so I can find my other quads that I've sunk in various bodies of water lol!
Silicium pack inside is the key for moisture 😉
loved it, thank you
Fantastic work, dude! Really well done! 😃
The only thing I would do differently is that I would use a flight controller with iNav! This way you would only need 4 wires for the receiver. 😉
Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
I used a crossfire to pwm converter in mine. I am really tempted to add an inav fc and GPS in the floatation device in mine but that's a learning curve I am not quite ready for at the moment haha
@@sulphur_fpv Nice! 😃
Yes! This is sick.
you should mount the heatsink upside down and on the bottom of the floating bit, cut a hole and seal around it so you can mount the PCBs to it with thermal pads and boom, the water also helps cool them...should be easier to seal since there isnt nearly as much hull pressure vs submerged
I love this series
Good job, congratulations!
The editing is epic
Use the spare pins to send battery from the floating box then you will need less holes in your sub. Each pin will add some amps you can send.
If you pause during the print then you can design the holes in the print and maybe even have it as a single print with connectors on the main board
You never cease to amaze!!!
I like how your idea for the radio control is basically the same thing DIY Perks came up with for his submarine