Stone Caught in Gladius Mini Propellers

[Eternal Angler]

I recently commented on this Ireland video how it's better to own some sort of small boat like a kayak or inflatable pontoon boat with your underwater drone so you can cover more ground, reach fish and plant life that tends to be in deeper parts of the lake or whatever body of water you're navigating for that matter. Well one of the other major benefits of launching from a small boat too is less contact with the sea bottom where you're more likely to pickup a stone stuck in your propellers or other material that may chew up your propellers like gravel or tangle your motors up in left over fishing lures and fishing line.

As you can see in this picture here, the hobbyist that's launching the Gladius Mini is doing so where it's very shallow and gets gradually deeper. I mean he may not have any choice due to the shoreline not having any deep sloping drop off points from the shore, along with not having some sort of transportable boat. With the Chasing M2 now having 8 thrusters, I sure hope that Chasing Innovations considers some sort of screen protection around the propellers.

 

[El_caballo]

Was the motor ok afterwards? Got a rag caught in there, ripped it out didn’t see any damage but wasn’t sure if these motors hold up to any trouble!!

 

[Eternal Angler]

He didn't say anything about damage to the motor, but he did say in order to remove the stone had he had to take apart the propeller blade in order to remove the stone, he said it was the largest stone he every got caught in the Gladius Mini thruster. Why I'm going to stick to mainly launching my ROV from my boat or a kayak, rather than the shoreline.

Too many things you come in contact with when starting from a gradual slope at the shoreline, bigger risk launching there.

With the new Chasing M2 having 8 thrusters, the M2 may be more prone to damage like this if you launch from the shoreline, even if you launch from the boat considering things like fishing line and other stuff. I'm still weary of purchasing the M2 for that reason, 8 thrusters is a lot, more maintenance and concern running that many thrusters. If the Gladius Mini had replaceable batteries and a removable sd card slot, I would honestly go with that. Truly would be the perfect little underwater drone if the run time was just improved!

Check out this beast of an underwater drone, imagine the responsibility of having all these thrusters exposed. Probably incredible handling, but there's probably a drawback to having that many thrusters. This awesome underwater drone which is made out of solid alloy blocks was posted on Blue Robotics facebook page.

I know everyone's not into facebook, just like some aren't into forums, but you can join the Official Gladius Facebook group here if ya want.