Hello, friends! Today we have a few new and updated products to announce: black propellers for the T100 and T200, an update to the 4″ dome end-cap design, and the new Bar02 ultra-high resolution pressure sensor.
Black Propellers
Walking around at Oceanology International in London last month, we were thrilled to see a number of vehicles on display at different stands using the T100 and T200 thrusters! We also noticed that our blue propellers aren’t the perfect match for everyone’s color scheme.
A few vehicles at OI2018 with T100 and T200 Thrusters.
We decided to start offering the propellers in black as well for situations where you want the thrusters to blend in or have a slightly different look. The black propellers come in clockwise/counterclockwise sets with mounting screws.
Updated 4″ Dome
Our 4″ dome has always been one of the most popular watertight enclosure parts and is also a critical part of the BlueROV2. The original version was manufactured with a neat process called “laser welding”, which allowed the clear dome to be attached to the black flange. While that created a sleek part, it was a bit fragile and also expensive to manufacture.
This new dome comes in two separate pieces, the injection molded dome and the injection molded flange (just like our new 2″ and 3″ domes). That makes for a simpler, more robust design. The dome is a little thicker as well and is now officially rated to 500m depth!
Since it’s less expensive for us to manufacture now, we’ve reduced the price accordingly, making the 4″ Series enclosure a little more affordable.
Updated Battery
We’ve added a thermistor into the 18Ah Lithium Ion battery for the BlueROV2. This allows the battery’s internal temperature to be measured (with the proper hardware). We’re planning to use this in the future but we’re starting to include it in the batteries now. The thermistor specifications are available and it is broken out to a two pin JST-XH connector.
The Bar02 Pressure/Depth Sensor
This new pressure/depth sensor is nearly identical to our Bar30 Pressure/Depth Sensor, however is uses the 0-2 bar version of the Measurement Specialties pressure sensor (MS5837-02BA). This sensor is being added to our product line based on popular demand – we’ve built a few custom batches of these for various customers so we figured we should make it available for everyone!
The performance of this sensor is quite different than the Bar30. The Bar02 is only good from 0-2 bar absolute pressure (10m water depth). However, it’s incredibly accurate with a water depth resolution of 0.16mm, and altitude resolution in air of 13cm, and +/- 4 mbar accuracy. That’s really important for applications where you need a waterproof sensor that’s highly accurate, but you aren’t going very deep.
The Bar02 comes in our standard penetrator form factor and uses the same I2C communication. It’s already supported in our MS5837 Arduino library.
That’s all we’ve got for today. Stay tuned for some more new products next month!