The Armjet - a new microscooter

[bmazin]

Hello all.

We're introducing a new underwater propulsion device, and I thought I'd give you guys a heads up. This new scooter, named the Armjet, is a derivative of our Jetboots (J-DPS) product line but aimed more at the recreational diver.

We basically took the guts of a single Jetboot thruster and half of a standard Jetboot battery (14.8V, 16 Ah) and put them into a 5" diameter aluminum cylinder. You use the resulting DPV as a one-handed scooter, with your arm either straight out in front of you, or bent and below you (imagine the arm position of bicep curl but with your palm perpendicular to your body).

The resulting DPV has about 25 lbs of thrust but only weighs 9 lbs. It is pretty close to neutral in salt water. Now the best part - we made the front a dome port, so we can stick some interesting things in there - like a 10 or 21 Watt LED or HID light running off the main battery, or a video camera.

This little unit is really fun. It is hard to believe something so small can put out this much thrust, especially since the battery lasts almost an hour at 75% throttle. This isn't designed for a tech diver in doubles and a drysuit, but it moves a skin diver or a person in a compact tropical rig around really well, probably 2.5-3 knots.

I think this is really a new class of scooter –a microscooter. It is extremely small and portable so it easy to travel with. Doubling as a bright light is also nice. We're taking orders now with the first units being delivered in a couple of months.

More information is available at www.jetboots.com. I’ll check back here to answer any questions.

Hopefully we'll have some more pictures and video up soon!

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Yeh 25 lbs of thrust is going to move a scuba diver at 3 kts.... Sure it will..

 

[Mr.X]

I think it's a very interesting product. I look forward to some video clips of the unit in action. I could easily some well-to-do diver wanting something like this for a dive trip to a resort.

X

p.s. I watched the video of the leg-mounted units. The divers are really ripping on these things!

 

[Don Wray]

 

[bmazin]

I think it's a very interesting product. I look forward to some video clips of the unit in action. I could easily some well-to-do diver wanting something like this for a dive trip to a resort.

X

p.s. I watched the video of the leg-mounted units. The divers are really ripping on these things!

That is with our older model with 40 lbs of thrust - the current J-DPS is 50 lbs+ and even faster.

Speed totally depends on the drag of the user. A very well streamlined diver in a tropical rig will be around 3 knots. A skin diver might even see more. A drysuit diver with poor trim would be below 2. I estimate this 9 lb unit is pretty close to a Mako with the prop at around 5 - the lithium polymer battery is extremely powerful. It has 75% of the battery capacity of the Mako - 24 volts, 14 Ah for the Mako, 15 volts, 16 Ah for the Armjet.

We're hoping to have some videos soon - some of it shot with an HD camcorder (Sony HDR-SR7) in the nose of the Armjet.

 

[Mr.X]

That is with our older model with 40 lbs of thrust - the current J-DPS is 50 lbs+ and even faster.

We're hoping to have some videos soon - some of it shot with an HD camcorder (Sony HDR-SR7) in the nose of the Armjet.

Very cool! Look forward to seeing video. A strong mini-scooter/video unit would be the perfect tool for a diver traveling and filming. Recently I had to take a scooter and video on several planes...everything was subject to ++50 charges and TSA bungling around with my checked luggage.

X

 

[Meng_Tze]

That is with our older model with 40 lbs of thrust - the current J-DPS is 50 lbs+ and even faster.

Speed totally depends on the drag of the user. A very well streamlined diver in a tropical rig will be around 3 knots. A skin diver might even see more. A drysuit diver with poor trim would be below 2. I estimate this 9 lb unit is pretty close to a Mako with the prop at around 5 - the lithium polymer battery is extremely powerful. It has 75% of the battery capacity of the Mako - 24 volts, 14 Ah for the Mako, 15 volts, 16 Ah for the Armjet.

We're hoping to have some videos soon - some of it shot with an HD camcorder (Sony HDR-SR7) in the nose of the Armjet.

Send me one, I'll test it in real life for you: upstream in a high flow cave system. Let's see how this puppy faires at that. If it can cut it there, it can cut it everywhere.

 

[robertarak]

Damn! You beat me to it..I was going to offer to be a tester! LOL

It does look cool. I would worry about arm fatigue. I love the X, cliped to the scooter ring on my c-strap.

Oh what the hell, go ahead and send it to me and I test that too.

(what am I talking about?? last time I offered to test something *flipfins*, I liked them so much I bought them)

 

[Nemrod]

There is no way that a 25 pound thrust mini scooter is going to pull a scuba diver at 3 knots sustained. That is faster than even some of the most powerful scooters (50 to 75 pounds of thrust) can sustain and 3 knots is very uncomfortable from the aspect of water pressure tugging on hoses and mask. To sustain that level of power to pull a diver at three knots is not something that could be held in a "bicep curl" for very long single handed.

Now, to be sure, it looks like a clever idea, but, 3 knots, nah.

The claim is that it will run for an hour. I normally swim a mile in 30 minutes easy, I don't go hard anymore--lol. I betcha I could beat that mini scooter for a mile, me swimming and it pulling a scuba diver submerged. Really good swimmers, including myself 20 years ago, swim the mile much faster than 30 minutes BTW. A mile in 30 minutes is 2 MPH. A knot is 1.15 statute miles. Three knots is 3.45 MPH, that is cook'n fast.

Put it in the water in a pool and run it back and forth against the clock dragging a diver. My guess is that it will measure out at something less than 1 MPH which is a significant speed for a scuba diver and considerably faster than the average diver could comfortably sustain for any length of time.

I got your 3 knots here:

N

 

[liberato]

Clever concept! That non-adjustable forearm ring is painful though...