10/02/09     A routine dry land testing went awry. The relay box, which was completely enclosed in wax and had been working flawlessly, begun smoking ! Somehow a short circuit had ocurred, most likely due to a sloppy wiring job I did while trying to solder all those wires into the miniature relays. Obviously I am not good at that. Currently, I'm in the process of melting wax to save the wiring. A new set of larger relays have been ordered. Click on thumbnail to see the mess.

10/09/09   I have begun the re-construction of the new realy box on the ROV.

10/13/09   The new relay box is done ! New relays were a pleasure to work with as opposed to the minis I used before.  I took the rov for a dip in the pool, even though I cat the floats to half their size, it is still not neutral ! I decided to add in/out valves to the floats so I can achieve neutral bouyancy by partially flodding them. That's my next project. I also found that the camera was too high to get a good view of the manipulator, so i deviced a clever way to be able to adjust the cam to any position. Chek the pics at left.

10/16/09   I finally got the rov to neutral buoyency !  Tired of adding and substracting weights, I decided to partially flood the ballast tanks to get it right. It worked ! I drilled two 1/4" holes on the bottom and added a valve on top and I can control how much water goes in until it's neutral. See photo at left. My next job: to work on the grip (claw) reliability.   Added picture page 3 and other general site maintenance.

10/22/09  Added Q&A