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Hello Hugh. Good to hear from you again. It was quite a while back when I
was contemplating making my own thrusters and the most adaptable ones I had
found were the type used in the chemical industry for use as chemical proof
couplings driving mixing paddles in holding tanks.
One in particular stands out in my memory. it was made so
one end had a standard mating flange for connection to an electric motor,
and there were a couple of different flanges available as options depending on
what motor was being used.
The out-put end had a female hex socket for a shaft and as I remember
it, a set screw arrangement.
Depending on manufacturer, there were some that could handle large horse
power ratings but I discounted those straight off because of cost and/or
complexity.
I had also looked into the feasibility of building a magnetic
coupler. The first couplings I mentioned had a fairly complex seal and bearing
arrangement to align the coupling halves and keep the corrosive chemicals out of
the bearings. My thoughts were that salt water is much less corrosive and the
overly complicated parts could be simplified. A little salt water could be
acceptable if the bearings were rinsed and oiled after a dive.
I searched for magnet suppliers and found some that were very strong
relative to size and came in a variety of shapes. The two that appealed to me
most were the pie shaped magnets and the sectional radius ones.
The only drawback there seemed to be sensitivity to high heat and low
impact resistance which wouldn't affect our application.
My son-in-law owns a machine shop and was willing to fabricate a
housing if I designed one, but alas, the lure of cheap Minnkotas won out.
I was just using a Google image search at the time for magnetic
couplings and it seemed like there were a lot out there.
I don't know if I saved any of that info but I'll dig through my old files
and see if I printed and saved any of it.
Frank D.
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