Aqua-Explorer - Waterproofing Project

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Here are some pics of the waterproof housing I'm making for my Explorer. I have built a couple of the Otterbox type conversions but just don't like them. They are bulky and you have this coil wire hanging out there in the breeze. I wanted the control box on the shaft although balanced better than the stock configuration. This will be going on an ultra-light Whites S-shaft.

Here you can see the housing bulkhead machined out of billet aluminum. The rear and front of the housing will bolt to this.






Here's another shot...



Here's the rear housing vacuum formed in Lexan with an aluminum clamping ring.



Here's a side view. Stay tuned!

[Largesarge]

A boy and his toys. Looks real nice and robust, can't wait for upcoming chapters.

[David Di]

Aqua Explorer ...........Waterproofing..

Charles,

Very good.

So will the Lexan front face be flexible enough to allow control to the push buttons of the Explorer control box externally or will you use some sort of flexible PVC or acrylic material for that purpose?

I think if you were to make a solid mould of an Explorer control box and sucked a thick flexible acrylic or pvc shell out of it in the vacume machine you would not have to worry about using any other material. I am sure you've considered this idea.
Thought I would mention it as it could mean you would do away with having to deal with any screws. I've partially achieved this by making a solid mould of the Explorer control box out of plaster of paris and wood(it works).
I have not used a vacum moulding machine to achieve the resulting shell, but with some heat from a hot air blower paint stripping gun (very hot hair dryer type), thick welding gloves clamps and quite a bit of time and effort (sweat and blood included) and a bucket of iced water for dunking and setting) ,I managed to achieve a two piece shell that fits snugly over the control box and allows one to gain a large degree of water proofing by also using a limited amount of silicone or polyurathene to seal any joints on a stock Explorer set up. The rest of the Explorer including the battery compartment/handle needs a seprate job for it to be water proff as well but as you may be well aware, again, you could use a sparingly and limited amout of silicone or polyurathe filler/glue to achieve a fairly secure water proofing result. I'll email or post a picture of this when I've managed to make it look a little cleaner.

You've seen my vesrion of a chest mounted Explorer control box that only has the front control face covered with flexibale and mould acrylic cover over and sealed with a small amout of silicone so as to seal the split of the front face and the rear seaction of the control box and where this cover attches. All else is sealed with a polurathene to achieve a water proofing. It MAY not survive a very deep emersion in water BUT that's my presumption as I have not yet pressure tested it.



David di

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

David there are a multitude of materials out there these days for fabricating and what I selected for the front cover is a sheet of clear silicone, .060 thick. Its quite flexible, excellent in salt water, yet pretty thick and rugged. Just what the doctor ordered.

Its not optically clear like glass but its fairly clear, I can easily see all the controls and screen. In fact I kind of like the fact that its not glossy like glass and clear plastics because the sun reflecting off those gets to be annoying. I'm building this for wading not diving pressure is not an issue with the silicone sheet.

With the aluminum bulkhead I could make front/rear hard covers that would handle the pressure, I would need another bulkhead machined for o-rings. I already tried vacuum forming the entire shell, the draft was too deep resulting in too much thinning of the sheet and it was nearly impossible to demold. Now I could have made a front and rear, clamshell them together without the aluminum bulkhead but thats not really what I was aiming for on this project.

Charles