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PVC RC Sub with Basic Stamps

Justin Hulbert | June 16th, 2008
Illustration Illustration Illustration Illustration

I’m in the process of building an RC sub. It’s all built inside a 4” x 50” PVC pipe. Will have a 12v battery power system. All communication will be over an RF radio link, or maybe sonar I have not decided yet. Between two Basic Stamp 2 boards. Will take it to local ponds and pools to explore. Since it will be equipped with a wireless TV camera and other sensors.

Also working on a small electric car with the help of a kid from school using electric wheel char motors they are supper strong but only go about 15mph so we hope to use bike chain and sprockets to bust that to about 35mph. Thing shown is an early experiment we mocked that up real quick to test the speed controller, we want to make it look like a real vehicle possibly even 2 seats.

5 COMMENTS on “PVC RC Sub with Basic Stamps”

  1. leef_me | June 18th, 2008 3:48 am

    >>All communication will be over an RF radio link,
    >>or maybe sonar I have not decided yet.
    >>Since it will be equipped with a wireless TV camera and other sensors.

    I’ve read that RF attenuation underwater is 10 dB/ft. at a carrier frequency of 100 MHz, making communication poor. Sonar is a ping that doesn’t carry information and isn’t bidirectional. Have you actually tried any tests of RC control or video underwater? Expect to be dissapointed.

    >>small electric car
    super strong motors @ 15mph, wimpy @ 35mph
    deciding on motors involves several factors including speed, power and cost. Since your idea involves bike chain and sprockets, your trying to use mechanical advantage to increase speed. To do this requires more torque to turn the driving sprocket. For the same load as the wheel chair you would need more power vs time which means shorter distance traveled or more batteries.

  2. Jim F | June 24th, 2008 10:56 pm

    Back up regarding sonar, please. Consider the sonar transducer as a sound wave communication system. The sound wave can be modulated/demodulated to carry information. How you encode/decode determines what you can send. Two stations (transducer sets) can share a half duplex converstion (on one frequency) or full duplex using two frequecies. This is similar to the problems electronics pioneers (e.g., Edison) faced in trying to improve telegraph throughput on a single line.

    Lower sound frequencies (higher wavelength) travel farther (attenuate less) in water. Very low frequecy (VLF) radio can penetrate to 20 meters (but we’re talking about a loooong antenna!

    Check out topics such as hydrophones, directional transducers and submarine communication.

    Good luck. One ping only.

  3. Jon | July 1st, 2008 5:30 pm

    Yeah I did something exactly like this except it had one big motor and bigger PVC. But for the communitcation problem I just got one big antenna and attached it and even if the antenna we complety underwater it still worked. I could control it until about 50 ft.(under water), and when it got out of range it would then float right to the top. I know this is kinda wierd but what type of communications does a R/C car plane ect. use. Because all of you are talking about RF and sonar please tell me what those type of communication purposes that would be good for and again what type of connection a regular R/C item uses.

  4. bob | September 2nd, 2008 12:08 am

    im doing the same sort of sub only not rc because its too much $ and ¢ on mine u turn it on and let it go

  5. rex davenport | September 7th, 2008 4:09 pm

    What kind of motors did you use and how did you waterproof them?

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