Two years, $4,385, and some homemade ingenuity can get you this underwater ride

Diving Stations Taking recycling and oil barrels to a new level China Daily

Chinese locals have already demonstrated a knack for knocking together homemade flying contraptions and robots. Now one amateur inventor has created a full-fledged submarine built primarily from discarded oil barrels and tools bought at a second-hand market.

China Daily says that Tao Xiangli made his underwater debut in a lake outside Beijing on September 3, 2009. The inventor outfitted his vehicle with a periscope, depth control tanks and electric motors, after spending two years and roughly $4,385 on the project.

Tin Can Submarine: An oil-barrel submarine heads out for a spin  China Daily

Perhaps it's a hair less audacious than the farmer who wanted to test-fly his wooden copter. But then again, we don't see any escape system if the sub happened to go belly-up, figuratively speaking.

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8 Comments

That is awesome.

--GTO--

Made something cool and has a great time with less then $5k. Creative and budget minded, just like myself.

I think 3" iron water pipes would make good torpedo tubes.

Having actually piloted a minisub of a tested design (K-250), you would not get me in that thing... not deeper than 10' at least.

LoLzz... Now thats a sub for ya.... I like his invention and bearly 4K. Mad creative.

ALIEN NATION

Pictures of this with Iranian colors will be appearing in the Iranian press in 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.

Tao has a counterpart on the other side in Texas. I did the same thing 25 years ago. My pressure hull was a used earth mover muffler tank and my ballast tanks were indeed 55 gallon drums. Glad to know I'm not the only nut in the world!

I think it needs a bicycle pedal, and a really long chain. And I wouldn't take it down too deep.



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