How to buy or make a shock proof enclosure?

Yes it is nice to be able to put your projects INSIDE something isn't it? You know, to hold everything together so it doesn't flop around? Discuss the techniques here!

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ionymous
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How to buy or make a shock proof enclosure?

Post by ionymous » Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:45 pm

I want put a small microcontroller, digital compass pcb, and batteries in a project enclosure, and then attach it to my mountain bike.
I will likely mount it within the bike frame's main triangle on the tube that the seat post slides into.

I ride pretty aggressively on the trails. Some hopping, drops, and I take some falls occasionally.

How can I protect the electronics?
Are there cases that are made for this kind of abuse? Probably too expensive. Can I make my own?
Are there some kind of rubberized standoffs? Can I make my own?

What other ideas do you have?

Thanks for any help
Ion

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WhatULive4
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Re: How to buy or make a shock proof enclosure?

Post by WhatULive4 » Thu Dec 10, 2009 12:41 am

I would probably try to suspend everything inside an enclosure with rubber bands. Should be able to take quite a beating I would think.

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mako321
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Re: How to buy or make a shock proof enclosure?

Post by mako321 » Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:58 am

fill it with floam!

ionymous
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Re: How to buy or make a shock proof enclosure?

Post by ionymous » Thu Dec 10, 2009 7:49 am

WhatULive4 wrote:I would probably try to suspend everything inside an enclosure with rubber bands. Should be able to take quite a beating I would think.
Neat idea. I think it would be quite a feat of engineering to suspend electronics in an enclosure this way. I imagine the distance from the electronics to the enclosure walls would have to be relatively big. And the rubber bands would have to be tensioned just right and in all 3 dimensions.
mako321 wrote:fill it with floam!
At first I thought you just meant foam and made a typo. Then I looked up floam. I guess I skip too many commercials. I don't know anything about that stuff. Looks like it might be messy and get into the nooks and crannies of my circuit.
But foam (not floam) seems like a good idea.

Thanks
Ion

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Rekarp
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Re: How to buy or make a shock proof enclosure?

Post by Rekarp » Fri Dec 11, 2009 12:50 am

Actually one of this semesters senior projects in the ECE department was a GPS unit for bikes. You strapped it to your bike and it would upload the info via the campus wide wifi to a server to track your speed and movement to help design bike routes and crap.

Small water proof Pelican Box and foam was the protection. Worked great for them.

Looked like this one

http://www.pelican.com/cases_detail.php?Case=1010" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The wood master

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