After receiving 230 feet of 10 gauge wire from Matt Anderson in December, we twisted and coiled the two wires together. We did this thinking that in the future we could easily add some flotation and be done with the tether.
A few months later, we decided to finally finish the tether. We measured the density of the wire, and then purchased 250 feet of 1/4" foam cord for flotation. To cover the wires and foam cord we purchased an expandable polyester sleeving. After uncoiling and then untwisting the wire, we tapped on the foam cord and then spend a few hours pushing on the expandable sleeving. Below is an image of the wire, foam, and polyester sleeving combination.
We also took a time-lapse video of the processes:
After finishing with the tether, we also finalized the power transfer on the float. We had tried a few different ways of transferring the power from the battery to the spool. At first, we tried to transfer electricity through the ball bearings we are using on the spool. Unfortunately those provided too much resistance as the contact points between the balls and the metal rings were extremely small. We looked into a few other options and final decided to use a brushed system to transfer power from the batteries to the tether on the spool.
The final design of the spool consists of the brushed system you see below. The brush is made using a threaded copper rod and copper tubing. The threaded rod is inserted into our support braces and attached to the power coming from the battery. The rub is soldered onto the rod leaving just enough room for the brush. After reaching the rod, the power is transferred into the tube and then through the brush onto the metal plate shown below. This plate is wired into the tether and thus provides the submersible with power. An image of the final brushed system is below:
No comments:
Post a Comment