Underwater Drone coming soon $600

[L.Chaney]

From Kickstarter
Fathom One | The Affordable, Modular, HD Underwater Drone

A nice tool for finding a slew of lost Phantoms!


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[RJ_Make]

Great idea, would rather see it untethered; but more importantly I'm not sure of the experience level of those involved.

 

[Erised]

I like it! We have many lakes up here in Northern Ontario that you could go down 100 feet and have crystal clear water. As for the tethered link I don't think you would have mutch choice in order to have control and video in water as H2O will absorb RF signals, the tether will also help getting it up in case of a jam or large pike thinking it was bait. As a matter of fact in many lakes up here that would be a problem!

 

[Cobs]

I was going to do similar with my Neptune Sub but the on/off switch broke and i lost interest lol, would prefer a controller than an app tho looking at the speed it can move around.

Between 40Mhz and 70Mhz works best underwater for a transmitted signal.

 

[zacksomeone]

Great idea, would rather see it untethered; but more importantly I'm not sure of the experience level of those involved.

I'm still trying to understand for sure how the tethering works so correct me if wrong, but the drone tether is just connected to a wifi buoy which would float on the surface.......so the drone is never actually connected to you and could move freely, right? So theoretically it could go as deep as you want if you have a long enough cable to the surface.

 

[N017RW]

That's how I understood it too.
Although there's a practical limit on depth due to design.

 

[N017RW]

I was going to do similar with my Neptune Sub but the on/off switch broke and i lost interest lol, would prefer a controller than an app tho looking at the speed it can move around.

Between 40Mhz and 70Mhz works best underwater for a transmitted signal.

I think it's much lower than that, like less than 30KHz.
Even that is very short range in the order of a few tens of meters.

 

[Cobs]

Im just referring to my Neptunes frequency and others like it, the general concensus on those type forums seem to favour those frequencies for water penetration.
The tethered method is best like these guys are doing, i was going to add a video link buoy to mine for underwater FPV fun, theirs looks good to 150 feet, thats excellent.

Ooh even better ...

We also realize that many of you may prefer using a physical controller (rather than touchscreen piloting via the Fathom mobile app), which is why our app enables integration of Bluetooth gaming controllers to provide a high precision piloting experience.

Seriously considering one

 

[N017RW]

Im just referring to my Neptunes frequency and others like it, the general concensus on those type forums seem to favour those frequencies for water penetration.
The tethered method is best like these guys are doing, i was going to add a video link buoy to mine for underwater FPV fun, theirs looks good to 150 feet, thats excellent.

This is not saltwater I suspect.

 

[Cobs]

No salt water lessens the signal even more, you are correct.

What baffles me is ... if they can explore Lake Michigan with one ... why do we have to wait a year to buy one?

 

[RJ_Make]

I'm still trying to understand for sure how the tethering works so correct me if wrong, but the drone tether is just connected to a wifi buoy which would float on the surface.......so the drone is never actually connected to you and could move freely, right? So theoretically it could go as deep as you want if you have a long enough cable to the surface.

Yes, I think it comes standard with a 100' tether. I don't like the idea of tethers because of getting it caught.

 

[hot11119]

doesnt look like there's any active stabilizer. vids will be shaky. we've been spoiled with DJI gimbal.

 

[Cobs]

Will be worse trying to control it with a tablet too i think - but seems you can use a gaming controller which will give better results, its neutral buoyance will help too but in choppy/strong waters i think i would avoid using it, on the tethering side i think i would add some strong line along it just incase it does get stuck somewhere.

Gimbal mod needed lol