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Hi Frank, What did you find for the magnetic couplings. I’d
like to have a look at them. Regards, Hugh From:
owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org
[mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org] On Behalf Of ShellyDalg@aol.com Hi Cliff. Wish I had a BIG check book to get a few of those $20K
thrusters. Remember Phil saying the 6 horse ones he is using run into the
many thousands. A while back I was investigating the idea of making my own, based
on off the shelf parts and using magnetic couplings. Although I dropped that
idea as too expensive and time consuming in favor of the $240.00 Minnkota
motors, I still think it should be possible to build a reliable deep water
thruster for a figure closer to $1500 including the mag coupling. It's not too
complicated to machine a housing, motors are pretty easy to get, and for the
couplings, some off the shelf units are available. It should be pretty easy to
make your own couplings too. The Neo-dime (sp?) magnets come in many shapes and
as I remember I saw some that would work quite well if a guy had
machining skills to make the housings to hold them. I think one of the big advantages to the Minnkotas is the total
package which includes the solid state controller. The Minnkota guys have spent
years and $$$ on developing an efficient thruster package and all we need to do
is make them more waterproof. Not as powerful as a Sea-eye or Technadyne but
for the money a good buy. I paid just $240-motor/$129-controller/$39-prop
for a well engineered and pretty dependable package. I can carry spares and do
a quick change-out in minutes. With 4 equal motors the replacement costs are
very low to carry a couple of spares on a dive expedition. Still, it would be nice to find some $20K thrusters. Frank D.
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