Waterproofing

[ROVEnthusiast]

If I were to put all my electronics on board my ROV in a project book and fill it with wax, how hard would it be to re-melt the wax if I needed to change some wiring. Also, could heating it back up damage the relays, wires, or the plastic box itself?

[CLYON]

I think the melting point is pretty low so you may be OK. When circuit boards are mass produced the are ran through an oven to melt the solder on surface mount boards. I know the temps are high enough to melt wax and the parts survive. You could get the wax soft and peel if off and that would keep the temp lower. I guess you need to find the melting point of the wax first.


Chuck

[KR2_Diving]

I was debating this same thing. I was thinking of wrapping everything in syran wrap or cling film before potting it. the theory being it would be easier to strip the wax back if i wanted to redo anything... but you have to watch out for air pockets...

[dna1990]

isn't there a silicon type spray people suggest using to create a 'film' between the device and the wax or potting? With less chance for air bubble or voids...

[thegadgetguy]

I potted my first control system with wax, and later removed it to make some minor modifications. It did work alright, but I would only plan on removing the wax and changing something once. The melting point of the wax was pretty low, so I used the heat gun on its lower setting and didn't have any problems with stuff melting. There was still a thin waxy film that covered everything after melting out what I could, but it didn't have much effect on anything. Keep in mind that the consistency of hot wax is pretty much like water, so any unsealed components will get wax in them.

In conclusion,
Pros: reliable, no housings to leak, relatively easy to set up the first time

Cons: hard to remove, probably not the greatest for PCBs like Arduino boards, and limited ability to fix or modify the system