We have a new product to thrust upon the world: the T500 Thruster! It will be available through pre-orders, starting on Thursday, May 26th, at 9am Pacific Time, with a limited quantity of 300 units available for pre-order!
Meet the new T500 Thruster:
The T500 Thruster is a high-power, ruggedized underwater thruster with over three times the thrust of the T200 Thruster. It generates 16.1 kgf (35.5 lb) of thrust at an operating voltage of 24V, consuming just over 1 kW of power. The T500 Thruster is designed for ROVs, USVs, AUVs, and even human-carrying vehicles like kayaks or standup paddleboards.
The T500 Thruster represents the next generation in our thruster design. It has a lot of similarities to the T200 Thruster, but with improvements to make it more powerful and robust. To achieve that, it has a larger 140mm (5.5″) outside diameter and has a powerful new motor built in. It is made from impact resistant glass-filled polycarbonate that’s tougher than the regular polycarbonate used in the T200. The magnet rotor design is improved with a metal abrasion shield that protects the magnets from damage due to sand or debris in the thruster and it has a new internal overlapping design that minimizes the ability of sand and particulate to enter the thruster.
The T500 Thruster compared to the T200 Thruster. It has 3 times the thrust!
It achieves maximum performance at 24V, but it also works well at 16V, the operating voltage of our lithium-ion battery and the BlueROV2. At 16V, it generates nearly 70% more thrust than the T200 Thruster, but at much greater efficiency and similar power consumption. That means you can directly replace T200s in your application and get a 70% performance boost without any additional power consumption!
The T500 Thruster has four M4 mounting holes that make it easy to install as well as a pre-installed WetLink Penetrator (WLP) to seal the cable. Note that the penetrator has an M14 thread size, so it requires larger holes than we have on our enclosure end caps. We’ll have several new end caps available in the future to support this size and assist with T500 designs.
In addition to the T500 Thruster, we also have a new speed controller that is well-suited for use with the T500. The Basic ESC 500 operates between 7-26V (2s-4s) and is optimized for use in spaces with poor cooling, like inside an ROV enclosure or USV hull. The ESC comes with everything needed to use it with the T500 Thruster.
Pre-orders for both the T500 Thruster and Basic ESC 500 will open on Thursday, May 26th, at 9am PT. We have a limited quantity of 300 units available for pre-order. Shipments of those units are expected to start in July 2022, followed by regular availability of the thruster in our store later this summer.
We’ve been looking forward to sharing this news for a long time and we hope you’ll find some amazing applications for the T500 Thruster. That’s all for today – thanks for reading!
Update: All available pre-orders have been sold. Stay tuned for regular availability, coming in a few months!
Okay the T500 looks great. Kudos to developers. BUT…it won’t fit a BlueROV! Is there a T200+ in the works?
Hi @egarriso, welcome to the forum
This is true… perhaps it’s intended for something else?
Product improvements are always something we’re working on, and we do have some plans for making the T200 even better.
What would you want from a “T200+”?
I would very much like a T200+ that can stay submerged in salt water for 6-12 months with very low risk of failing due to rust/corrosion (it might already be possible today if you are lucky with the coatings etc. and no rubbing?).
I know it is a fringe case, but hope we will see more and more of long term submerged/resident drones (ROV/AUV) and it would be great if BR parts can be used in this context.
The T200 could benefit from the T500 impeller design.