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PostPosted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:00 am
by I_Died_Once
King_Ice_Flash wrote:I would go with a cable. This way when it breaks, you have something to drag it up by.


Unless you can make an X-Wing rise out of the swamp...

PostPosted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:19 am
by Thorn
Buncha woosies. "Pull it up by the cable, I don't want to get my little tootsies wet."

Let me just grab my snokel, mask and flippers. If it's deep, then I'll need my tanks.

<Thorn walks away shaking head and muttering about when NS Forums had Real Men writing posts.>

:D

PostPosted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:44 am
by G8tK33per
Thorn wrote:<Thorn walks away shaking head and muttering about when NS Forums had Real Men writing posts.>

:D

Yeah...where the hell is BW anyway?!

PostPosted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:02 pm
by sykojester
BW *sniff*

Yeah, attaching some Cat5 to sucker would get you 300ft AND would be dirt cheap, however, I don't know how big this waterbound robot would be, but I'm 'guessing' that it won't be too keen on dragging around a few hundred foot of Cat5 (even if stuff weighs less in water). I'm too lazy to find out if Cat5 sinks or swims, maybe someone here has already tested that.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:06 pm
by Thorn
sykojester wrote:BW *sniff*

Yeah, attaching some Cat5 to sucker would get you 300ft AND would be dirt cheap, however, I don't know how big this waterbound robot would be, but I'm 'guessing' that it won't be too keen on dragging around a few hundred foot of Cat5 (even if stuff weighs less in water). I'm too lazy to find out if Cat5 sinks or swims, maybe someone here has already tested that.

Good point. Tethered ROV's use floats attached to the cable to keep it neutrally buoyant. (See what you learn watching all those National Geographic specials.)

PostPosted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:10 pm
by The Others
Thorn wrote:Good point. Tethered ROV's use floats attached to the cable to keep it neutrally buoyant. (See what you learn watching all those National Geographic specials.)


There's still going to be drag on the cable, though. Pulling close to 300 feet of cable through water wouldn't be easy, even if it's not dragging on the bottom.

This all has a certain compettion feel about it, i wonder if the device has to be fully remote controlled. That is, if it's even a compettion at al...

PostPosted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:26 pm
by Madhadder
CAT5 Will Sink.... (Cat6 Floats) :D
.
As for pulling 300ft of Cat5 under water, any Robot that can go down to
20+ ft and move around on the bottom should also be strong enough to
pull the cable. Once Cable gets close to the end of the Reel, simply start
moving the ship.. Same as the Guys on "Discovery".. If it really bothers
you you can wrap the Cat5 in steel braids. Also just like the bigboys..

PostPosted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 6:20 pm
by nleahcim
Yeah I had been planning on starting out with something like cat5 or maybe even just have an rs-232 connection down to it for extra simplicity. One nice thing about using cat5 is that you can get that outdoor cat5 that is pretty much waterproof, even if it has holes in it (there's a special kind with some sort of oil in it - it's supposed to be absolutely horrid to work with - but waterproof none the less)

But at least for a while I don't plan on having it be able to go down very deep (keeping a good seal becomes difficult and whatnot when you start going down low)- so I was thinking I might put an 802.11G card onboard - then run a 12ft or so shielded wire up to the surface with a floating omni antenna. I think that shouldn't be too hard - though again it will be kind of a pain to be pulling that antenna around everywhere... but it will only have to deal with the drag - as the antenna will be holding up the majority of the wire.

But I'm still trying to find some information about VLF systems - trying to see if there's anything already available for that - because I really don't want to have to make that stuff from scratch...

PostPosted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 6:45 pm
by Barry
nleahcim wrote:because I really don't want to have to make that stuff from scratch...


Dude, you're already building a friggen ROBOT! What's one more home made thing going to hurt??!! :eek:


On a different train of thought, anybody know of a small tracked robot type thing that could pull cat-5 bundles through overhead cable trays??

PostPosted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 9:58 pm
by sykojester
Now THAT would be useful! Sign me up for one when you find it.

PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 6:32 am
by Thorn
nleahcim wrote:... But at least for a while I don't plan on having it be able to go down very deep (keeping a good seal becomes difficult and whatnot when you start going down low)-
...


You bring up a good point about the depth. At 33 ft. there is another atmosphere of pressure. Those Cat5 waterproof connectors are probably only rated at a around normal sea-level pressure, not two or more times that level.

Get to a local dive shop and see how they seal such things with O-rings. They might have an idea or two.

nleahcim wrote:... so I was thinking I might put an 802.11G card onboard - then run a 12ft or so shielded wire up to the surface with a floating omni antenna. I think that shouldn't be too hard - though again it will be kind of a pain to be pulling that antenna around everywhere... but it will only have to deal with the drag - as the antenna will be holding up the majority of the wire.


Signal loss might be an issue here. Depending on how far way the other end of the connection is from the floating antenna. If it is an issue, another possiblity would be to use a WiFi USB dongle (e.g. NetGear MA111) on the float. You could run the USB cable up to the surface in the same manner, but not have the loss.

PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 7:18 am
by Madhadder
To run cables in Drop Ceilings All always used this sorta crossbow/rocket
launcher thing.. (Don't laugh, They do exist just for this Purpose)..

I had one that worked with a Spring and another that used Co2..
They both had spools of Kite/fishing String and a weighted dart/projectile
on the other side. You tie the string to the Projectile, load it into the gun,
aim,and shoot the thing over all the stuff in the Ceiling.

Then you tie/tape the CAT5 to the cable and pull in thru...

As for the tracked option, We used a small RC toy tank to pull a kite string
thru the ducting.. Granted the ducts were large...

PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 7:26 am
by Thorn
Madhadder wrote:... As for the tracked option, We used a small RC toy tank to pull a kite string thru the ducting.. Granted the ducts were large...


You just reminded me of something similar. A friend did the same thing when wiring the school where he works. They used an cheap RC "Bigfoot"-type truck from Radio Shack to pull the cables through the drop ceiling. The big tires where enough to get over most obstacles. He said it worked great.

PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:46 am
by sykojester
I have seen, but never used the 'dart/spear gun' apparatus and it seemed to be rather effective. I never really thought about using an RC car or the likes, of course, most of the cable I run is in residential houses and addicts. The RC car would not be of much use in most of these situations, the gun would be though.

PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 3:04 pm
by nleahcim
Barry wrote:Dude, you're already building a friggen ROBOT! What's one more home made thing going to hurt??!! :eek:


On a different train of thought, anybody know of a small tracked robot type thing that could pull cat-5 bundles through overhead cable trays??

Well RF is a sort of weakness for me. All the digital stuff I can handle - and the mechanics aren't all that hard...