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Instruments that were designed for use above water often need to be used underwater, but the manufacturers do not often offer a housing for them.
We can design housings that keep the equipment dry, have external controls for operation, and meet the depth requirements of the project. Sometimes, there is
no depth requirement, the only need is to keep the equipment protected from rain, snow, humidity, mud, sand, and other debris.
Shown below are examples of designs we have done, with some notes about the requirements and how they were met.
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This small housing serves as a junction box that contains a device to amplify and extend Power over Ethernet (PoE) cables from 100M to 200M, and multiples of these can be chained together for longer distances. The test plugs are to be replaced by the user with underwater connectors, such as Impulse MCBH-6-MP.
The same housing can be used with different connectors and with different extenders for USB or FireWire. This housing design can be adapted to different diameters and lengths. The present one is based on 2-1/2-inch Schedule 40 PVC, and is rated to 500 feet of depth.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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This small housing is for high quality audio recordings. It uses a SQ26-06 hydrophone and MicroTrack II audio recorder, which writes sound files to a CF card. There are no controls – the user simply starts the recorder before putting it into the housing.
This housing is based on 3-inch Schedule 40 PVC pipe and couplers, and is designed for use up to 250M depth.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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This housing holds two video cameras for use as Digital Video Recorders (DVR) for external video cameras, all mounted on a lander that can be lowered to the sea floor at depths of 500M. The housing also accommodates dual time sync generators and dual custom battery packs. The cylinder is anodized Aluminum, 6.9” OD, 24” long, ½-inch walls and a 1-inch end plate. The Aluminum door is 2-inches thick, with a double o-ring bore seal and string closure. The door has holes for two connectors for feeds from external cameras, as well as a pressure switch to turn it on at depth.
Photo by Ken Sexton. |
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Similar to the above housing, this one is 4-inches inside diameter, and holds one video camera for use as a DVR for an external camera, pressure switch, and two custom battery packs. It is made of ¼” wall Aluminum tube, and is hard black anodized for protection from seawater. Doors on both ends are removable, with double o-ring bore seals and string closures. It is designed for use at depths up to 1000M.
Photo by Jeremy Childress. |
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This small housing is for high quality audio recordings. It uses a SQ26-06 hydrophone and MicroTrack II audio recorder, which writes sound files to a CF card. There are no controls – the user simply starts the recorder before putting it into the housing.
This housing is based on 4-inch Schedule 40 PVC pipe and couplers, and is designed for use up to 250M depth. With larger inside diameter than the Micro Rudar, this one also has room for two large USB battery packs to power the recorder, instead of the recorder’s small internal battery.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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This housing was designed to hold electronics and batteries that would serve as a DVR for deep-ocean cameras. The cylinder is 6-inches inside diameter, with 19-inches of inside room, ½-inch walls, and a 2-inch thick Aluminum door. The door features a 2-inch thick acrylic window, through which a LCD TV monitor is visible.
Photo by Jeremy Childress. |
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This 160-foot depth housing was made for a Fisher M-101 metal detector, for use in locating metal bars embedded in concrete in an underwater tank that was being dismantled. We also made long cables so that surface support personnel could hear the same signals as the diver did. The box was machined out of two PVC blocks that were cemented together with interlocking joints for alignment, and the door was clear cast acrylic. There are controls for On/Off/Volume and Penetration.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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This is another variant of a housing for the Licor Li_1400 datalogger. It has an underwater connector for the light sensor, a thumb trigger for taking readings, and a Lock-Line semi-rigid mount for the sensor, so that it can be deployed under reef overhangs.
The housing is built of ½-inch clear cast acrylic, with a face-sealed ¾-inch acrylic door. It is designed for 160 ft (48M) depth, and was shipped in a custom foam insert for a Pelican case.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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A group that uses captive California Sea Lions operating freely in a lagoon that is connected to the ocean needed to be able to track individual animals by use of a tracking device. The device uses GPS to determine its position (on the surface, not underwater) and transmits that position back to the handler.
The housing was made out of 1.5-inch PVC pipe with an acrylic door that is attached to a Nylon harness on the animal. The PVC door uses a single o-ring bore seal and employs a string closure.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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This housing is made from two machined Polycarbonate blocks, with o-ring seal between them, and stainless spring latches to hold them together. The customer used commercial GPS circuitry on his own circuit boards with large display, and the controls are tiny reed switches embedded in a circuit board. A tethered wand with a magnet in its tip is used to activate each switch. The connector externalizes a coax cable that leads to the antenna in a float at the surface. The business card in the photo is there to illustrate the clarity of the polishing of the inside surface of the door. We made many of these housings for this customer.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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This housing was designed to allow a JAZ spectrophotometer to be used underwater. It consists of a 5-inch Schedule 40 PVC cap and coupler joined by pipe. The door is clear cast acrylic with a double o-ring bore seal, and a tray for mounting the instrument.
This device has a tiny fiber-optic connector to the outside, for attachment of probes. The FO is in a rigid passthrough that goes through the housing door, and then to a semi-rigid 90 degree elbow, and into the instrument. There is a control in the door to tell the instrument when to take a reading.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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These large housings were made from 12-inch Schedule 40 PVC pipe couplers, which were cut to the required length, and cemented to thick PVC bases. The doors were 2-inch thick clear cast acrylic with double o-ring bore seals against the inside of the couplers. The customer designed their own door closure as part of their mounting system. The electronics unit has 12 connector ports in the base, which tunnel under the coupler joint and come up inside the housing. The battery unit is similar, but with only three connector locations. The photo is a screen capture from CAD because we did not have time to photograph the real units before they were shipped. |
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These housings were designed to hold instruments and to be buried under many feet of gravel in high mountains for geological studies. The housings were made of 3-inch PVC pipe, couplers, and caps, and had acrylic doors with double o-ring bore seals. The connectors were supplied by the customer.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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This is an adaptation of the Shallow EAR with the MicroTrack II audio Recorder. Starting with a Shallow EAR design for the cylinder of PVC pipe, and we substituted this recorder for the more sophisticated electronics of the original to make a low-cost device. It uses the same battery packs, a similar hydrophone, but a much less expensive audio system, with a different delay and interval timer, much like we used in the Elephant Seal Acoustic Tag from 2007.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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This housing is based on the Shallow EAR design, modified for use with an Aanderaa DO and temperature sensor, a commercial datalogger, and standard EAR battery packs. It is designed for a working depth of 850 feet, achieved by making double thickness walls of 4-inch Schedule 40 PVC pipe and couplers.
These units are installed into crab pots, and are deployed by fishermen in the waters off the Oregon Coast. Data from these instruments are helpful in understanding the Oxygen-depleted zones in many coastal areas.
These units have to return to shore to download data and prepare the sensors for the next deployment. Future plans include adding Bluetooth to the units to quickly pair with a computer aboard the crab vessels, download their data automatically, and prepare the sensors for the next duty cycle in minutes, so they can be deployed many times on the same trip.
A dummy unit was also made for a display of OSU research projects at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon. Photos by Ken Sexton.
Display photo courtesy HMSC. |
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This housing was the second generation design for the i-Lab spectrophotometer. It uses a custom-fabricated fiber-optic flexible probe to place the sensor at an exact location on coral reef for taking readings. It is made from ½-inch clear cast acrylic with a machined door that makes a single o-ring face seal to the edges of the box. It is designed for a working depth of 160 ft (48M).
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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See More Examples of
Underwater Instrument Housings
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Underwater Housings for Still Cameras |
Underwater Housings for Video Cameras
Surf Housings for Still Cameras |
Surf Housings for Video Cameras
Instrument Housings |
Telemetry Housings |
Other types of Housings
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