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How I Designed a Compact Weatherproof Raspberry Pi Camera Case (tinkererblog.wordpress.com)
78 points by zdw on Aug 5, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 21 comments



That's a nice looking case! I love these posts where someone talks through how they tackle something that's new to them.

I didn't see any silica gel bags in there. Are you going to check it for condensation in a few months?

You may want to consider a suitable grease for the seals. Silicone O rings are nice, and you can get silicone grease for them. If there is a lot of temperature change (night & day; summer and winter) you might want to consider a conformal coating.

(I used to build machinery that would go down coal mines. These devices were in hostile conditions. Each machine was expensive, and the machines they controlled were expensive, and lost production was expensive, and there are human lives involved, so failure was not wanted, so I tend to go a bit over the top with this stuff.)


I'm not sure if it would be enough heat to keep it completely dry but from my experience running motion on a Pi B, the CPU can get up to 70degC on a 30degC day and I haven't seen it below 33degC which occurred on a -5degC night. This is with a standard ebay Pi case, however.


Another good way to deal with condensation is to have a small resistor based heater in the case.


Or the RPi cpu should do, right?


It might take a good bit more power than that to keep a box clean of moisture. One reason is that the day-night cycle will expand and contract the air effectively working as a pump pulling wet air in.


I am glad to know your feedback on the post. I will consider changes in the next version and include longer period testing.


A great case, but I think it's beyond weatherproof and into the realm of waterproof or immersible. A weatherproof enclosure need not be sealed to such an extent.

And there is an upside to not sealing. If you plan that water will somehow get in, say by including a drain hole on the 'down' side, then the inevitable crack or other slow leak won't result in catastrophic flooding.


This is brilliant - you can then pipe the video into say a TK1 and do some "danger recognition" outside your doorstep (or family recognition). The only issue is, it appears the usb cable can be pulled out easily, just a tug downward?


Thank you for the feedback. I will keep this in mind for the next version.


I like it, but one thing stood out to me. Sharp corners in the path of a non-moulded seal can cause leakage and premature failure. I recommend that each of the four walls not terminate in a sharp corner with the round, but a small radius. Then the seal could make more gentle bends in front of the holes, instead of wrapping around them, taking an octagonal path around the part. Also, those deep corners are not readily CNC machinable, if you ever wanted to go that route.


So cool and so clever. It's well explained and it looks so easy. It proves that you don't always need great instruments/material to make something awesome. In your case, you didn't need to get a weatherproof inspection machine, you did your inspection by yourself. Congrats!


Thank you very much for the feedback.


Do good night vision cameras exist for the pi which would work with this? I use a number of cameras with zoneminder but will soon be replacing a few...a pi-based system would be great if night vision support was baked in.


Google "pi noir."


Thanks. It's a shame that there's no built-in infrared leds built in, but I suppose those can be added somewhat easily.


This is really great. I've never actually read up on anyone building something that they had 3D printed. Nice work.


Thank you and I am glad that you liked the post.


I wonder what CAD software they used. It's crazy how easy this is now that 3D printers are so readily available. I guess the other option would have been to have it made on a CNC mill?


Fusion 360


Cool project--I just stuck mine in a Pelican case with a few holes/grommets for the wiring.


Thank you for sharing my post here and all the great feedback.




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