Drones and ROVs and Arduinos
A journey building drones and ROVs and other open hardware and Arduino based stuff
Motors, ESCs and impellers: some problems attaching the impeller to the shaft
After a very troubled shipping (HobbyKing is great and cheap, but the pain of all these import duties and payments sometimes makes me want to find a EU based reseller) I received all the parts for propulsion compartment of the OpenROV: motors, ESCs and propellers.
I also tried assembling the impeller to the motor shaft, but doesn’t look like it’s going to work with the parts I have.
As you can see from pictures below the shaft has a small hole on the side for a small hex screw (but not part of the package) and a small hole for a screw on the top. Probably a correctly shaped cap would be needed, but it was not part of the package either. Also the shaft is just long enough for the base of the propeller, but not enough to get to the cone. At this point I really don’t know how I could fix the impeller to the motor’s shaft without it slipping. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment.
Together with the motors and ESCs I also received the servo that tilts the electronics chassis: this always impresses me. I know its dimensions (23mm) but I didn’t realize it would have been that small. Look at the picture above, it’s smaller than a USB plug.
Next step is trying to play with an Arduino and try to control the ESCs and the motor from the BeagleBone. And if you have suggestions on how to fix the impeller, my comment form is free for everyone.
Love the blog! Would it be possible to skip the beagleBone and go all Arduino and shields if not using the Camera?
Definitely it would be possible, but you would need to implement a different communication protocol (unless you want to implement an http server running node.js on the arduino).
But since you are underwater and don’t see where the ROV is going the camera is pretty necessary.
David just left a post on the forum about this. Not totally sure how I will cut these out, have a couple of things in mind, but we will figure something out! Will update.
http://openrov.com/forum/topics/attaching-delta-v15-props
Thank you Frank.
It looks like I’ll have to cut me some more stuff next time I go the FabLab
What about a 1″ long #10 machine screw? When I use the Octura 1250 propellors- the 1″ long machine screw fits through the propeller and into the MAS3200 very well. I’m happy to email you some photos if you email me.
Hi just looking at the impeller and cap, looks identical to a ducted fan for brushless motors I got on ebay, the part I bought was just the fan and housing it came with a long threaded screw with a collar that slipped over a chamfered base with four slots cut down the side and across the base with a vertical hole the hole slides over the brushless motor drive shaft, the collar slips down. onto the chamfered base the fan then sits on the collar has a nut which secures the fan and pushes the collar which tightens the base onto the driveshaft the cap goes on and is secured with a cap screw that’s threaded internally, the ebay seller sells the threaded screw separately, hope this helps
Richard this sounds interesting. The laser cut little plastic adaptors they are rigging up are on the order of “probably will work”. But having actual hardware to safely couple this could be good. Do you have any sort of link to point us towards this product?
Hi frank try this seller on ebay lrvin007 or this seller, rocky_models_hk , the last seller is what your looking for and almost identical to mine also he does multiple fan types ,
Richard
sweet, bookmarked to check out a bit later, thanks!