Bulkhead Power Tether Connection

[Kyle Newell]

Last year's AUV has a power tether bulkhead connection that allows the sub to be powered for testing using an external power supply without the need for batteries. Does anyone know why this connection is separate from the battery connection? Does the voltage from the power supply need to be regulated differently than the voltage from the battery? I was wondering because it would be nice to combine these connections into a single connection to reduce the number of bulkhead connectors if possible.

[James Irwin]

That connector is no longer used, and I do not think we will need it on the new sub. Its origin stems from when we had an older computer inside that took a rather long time to boot up, so to keep from wasting battery life, the team put a separate power connector so that they could switch from shore power to battery power on the fly. This is a non-issue now though.

[James Irwin]

Sorry realized I didn't actually answer your question haha. No, there is no different voltage regulation going on there. There was just a circuit that switched between that connector and the battery connector for power. I'm not even sure if that switching circuit still exists on the sub. We can plug shore power into the battery connector for testing/debugging. We just reboot when we switch to battery power.