How To's

Another Simple Housings


This is another Simple Housing, it's not as easy as the last one but it's still pretty easy. This one is made from 2" PVC Fittings, It uses a Plug, Female Adaptor, Coupler, O-ring, and a piece of Plexiglas.

Start with the Female Adaptor, there are a few different kinds but this one fits inside the Coupler. The first thing I do is sand the bottom edge (see picture) with 1500 grit wet sand paper (the black type) Just lay the sand paper on something flat, I use a granite block but a piece of Plexiglas works great too. Add a little water on the sandpaper and rub the fitting across it evenly. This will be one of the matting surfaces for the O-ring so it needs to be as smooth as possible.

Next take your Coupler and find which edge of the middle flange is larger, sometimes one side of it is beveled, you want the larger side up. This flanged edge will apply the matting pressure to the window.

Now you need to cut out your Window from a piece of Plexiglas, this Window has to have a pretty close fit because the flanged edge isn't that big. (I won't go into particulars on how to cut it out this time.) After you have your Window cut out place the Coupler on a flat hard surface and press the Window into the Coupler until it sits evenly across the flanged edge.

Next place your O-ring on top of the Window, making sure it sits flat and is not twisted in any way.

This step is the hardest part and it can make or break your housing (so to speak) You need to apply PVC glue to the mating surfaces of both the Coupler and the Female Adaptor while being careful not to get any on the Window or the O-Ring. Then you need to quickly place the Female Adaptor into the Coupler and using a hammer evenly hit the Adaptor into the Coupler. This should seal the Window by sandwiching the O-ring between the Window and the Female Adaptor.

Then just screw in your Plug and you have your Finished Housing. If you did everything right and got a good seal with the O-ring it should be good to a few hundred feet. The weakest part is the Plug, the first time I tested this in my Pressure Chamber I had a leak and figured it was a bad seal on the O-ring (which is not fixable in this design) but I tried again and this time I stuffed the housing full of paper towels and after this test I only had a little wet spot on the towels in the rear, the front was completely dry so the O-ring wasn't the problem. I used Teflon tape on the plug but next time I might try some of that liquid thread sealer and see what happens.

I'm going to use these housings as a light pods so the next thing I did was solder my wire leads directly to my bulb and drill a hole through the Plug for the wires exit. (Sometimes theres a coating on the post that has to be sanded off before solder will stick to them) The Bulbs are 12 volt 20 watt halogen type and draw 1.75 amps.

For these light pods I am gluing the bulb right to the back of the plug, this will allow me to screw in the plug without having to worry about the wires twisting or how to secure the bulb in the housing. I position the bulb where I want it and just fill the bottom of the plug with epoxy, this will hold the bulb in place as well as seal the wire exit hole.

Here is my completed light housing pod, the bulbs sits a little farther back from the window than I though it would but it still has a wide swath of light.

I did a test in the kitchen sink and everything worked great so far. I had some fears that the bulbs would get too hot and melt the housing or the Plexiglas but after an hour the housing didn't even feel that warm.

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