3D Printed ROV – Lighting
(June 2022) – After a four year hiatus from this project (life what can I say) it was time to start work on some Lighting. I am going to try to use these cheap 1100 Lumen Scuba Dive flashlights I found on Amazon.
I started by designing some brackets that will hold some external dive flashlights. These are simple mounts for now just for testing.
The dive light will just be held in place on the bracket with some simple zip ties.
I also designed some clip on shades to hopefully keep the light from scattering to much into the camera view.
Here is the printed bracket and the Dive flashlights.
The dive light bracket just mounts to the same holes that hold the frame to the float pod.
The strap bracket on the light fits into this tab on the bracket to keep it in place.
Two zip ties will then keep everything in place.
The angles will probably eventually change but for now this should work for testing. I still need to print the other side and the shades.
I updated the bracket slightly just to keep the flashlight from spinning while trying to turn the end cap to turn it on.
Here both diver lights have been mounted.
They may be a little to spot lighty (is that a word?) but I’ll have to get it in the water to see how it looks. I may be able to fix this with different lens covers. The angles may need fixing also but I’ll wait till I get it in the water before I change anything.
To be continued soon….
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2 Replies to “3D Printed ROV – Lighting”
I know your testing has probably already completed on this project, but im using there exact same flashlights for a 3d printed ROV that I’ve been building for the last few months, (I’m on the current sixth place MATE team world wide and got bored in the off season), and I’ve found them to be a little underwhelming in water, though i believe that’s because I’m just using a cheap endoscope camera off amazon, because it was the cheapest camera i could find with 20 meters of cable, i was wondering if you had any suggestions about them, seeing as though you use the exact same dive flashlights as i am, or if its just a problem with my camera?
Unfortunately I haven’t even gotten around to the water testing part… life keeps getting in the way of me finishing this ROV. (I mean I only started it 10 years ago at this point.. LOL) I’m not really sure if these lights are going to work or not… I know in real world conditions they probably have to be spaced out toward the sides more to help with light scattering off anything in the water. (you probably won’t have that problem if your doing it in MATE pools.) I am also not sure if a spot or flood light type will be better. I think these were more spot lights but I was going to try some type of lenses on them if they need more flood capabilities. But usually the biggest problem with vision underwater is going to be the actual camera and whether it has low light capabilities. The Camera I chose for this ROV was suppose to be a low light version but again I bought it so long ago I’m sure there are better ones out there nowadays but I’m sure they are not cheap. Usually you get what you pay for when it comes to cameras so the lower end endoscope camera is probably your main issue.
That is awesome you are on such a great team, I’m totally envious… I wish they had the MATE competitions back in my day when I was in school I would have loved to be able to do that. I was fortunate enough though to be invited to one of the MATE Championships by Jill Zande many years ago and it was an awesome experience. Anyway I wish I had better answers for you… good luck on your future competitions and dives.