Again not so much

We tested the ROV again. It did not go well.

OpenROV, so pretty but still broken

At one point our motors wouldn't start at all. For no good reason. The ROV was running fine and a power cycle via the tether would not fix it. We had to pull batteries out of at least one tube, wait and re-power the ROV to get the motors back. Maybe one of the tether-driven 12v switches got stuck off?

AustinROV team troubleshooting

A recurring problem was that the ROV would shut down after some driving in the water. A power cycle via the tether would not bring it back and we had to pull batteries out of the tubes before we could get it to turn on again. We think this is due to the overcurrent protection built into the TrustFire batteries. The limit is 7.5 amps per tube and the ROV motors are rated for 9.5 amps each. This is why the OpenROV folks moved to a different battery type.

ROV reading No Diving sign

The ROV camera gave up near the end of our testing. We're still not sure what is up with that. No combination of battery pulling, rebooting or dashboard restarting would bring it back.

ROV looking ready to dive but no joy today

Thank you David H and Beth for the hospitality. Our tests didn't go very well but our tummies were sure happy!