Reply To: Which micro ROV?

I was lucky enough to be on a inspection job recently with 3 micro rov’s

Seabotix’s
the good

– has both low light and colour and will give a better picture than a video ray
– better thrushers than videoray -can make headway against real currents
– does have lateral thrust -which you’ll need in tanks with low vis

the Bad
– pretty poorly put together and prone to leaking
– cant take much abuse
– slow and differcult to dismantle and repair
– electronics doesn’t like noisey power ( use isolating transformer to get around this )

Videoray
the good

simple design
can take a load of abuse
the Price

the bad

no lateral thrust
the plastic dome distorts the video image — to a level that is questionable
only one small vertical truster which wouldn’t even get rmotely close to the Seabotix’s 2 vertical thrusters

The seabotix’s was the ROV of choice on this job but was prone to reliability problems.
The Videoray won hands down for the ability to take abuse.

this inspection was at 60metres which i think is near there limits – the seabotixs could actually dive in open seas to that without help.
We chose to deliver all these vehicles with a work class rov.

A note to the Manufacturers- there is alot of room for improvement

Its a shame that the Seabotix’s is let down by the chassis – if they build with industry in mind I would highly recommend it.

make sure you purchase a good neutral tether otherwise it wont matter what your flying- you’ll get no where.

don’t believe the paper spec’s – if you can – get some hands on

If I was to buy one just for FUN then the Videoray takes it

hope this helps