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A customer came to me with a battery housing for underwater lights that had a door that kept leaking, ruining battery packs and internal cables.
We designed and made a replacement door for his Titanium cylinder. Instead of a face seal of the original door onto the edge of the thin wall of the cylinder, we made a double o-ring bore seal to the inside wall of the cylinder. We replaced the power switch with one of a better design, and tested it to 160 feet. The second photo shows the new door on the left and the old one on the right.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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We machined many of the cells for a laboratory that is studying the growth of sea grass root tips. Soil and sea water are placed inside these cells, and the roots are planted there. The ports in the side and bottom are for sampling the water to study the chemical changes as the roots grow. The cells are thin and clear for visual observation and photography of the growth progress.
Photo by Ken Sexton. |
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A transportable frame was needed by a customer to position four hydrophones in a very precise location and orientation to each other.
The materials could have no effect on the reception of the hydrophones, so acrylic was chosen. The customer was very satisfied with the result. We did not have the hydrophones, so the second image is a screen shot of the CAD model, which shows the hydrophones installed with their protective cages.
Photos by Ken Sexton. |
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We produced a model of the shape of the cast Light Circle LED lighting system for Hudnut
Corporation to use as the mold core for their clear
resin encasement of the circuitry and heat sink. |
A large international contracting firm needed to have cameras at several desert construction sites, operating in dust, wind, and heat. They came to The Sexton Company with the idea that if we could keep water out of a housing, we should be able to keep dust out, too. After two prototypes, we eventually built 30 more housings like the ones in the photos below. The first photo shows the housing with a stainless heat deflector in place.
Photo Credit: Ken Sexton. |
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This shows the rear of the housing with the heat shield removed. The housing is made from 6-inch PVC pipe, with o-ring sealed doors at each end. Connectors on the rear door are for AC and DC power, wired Ethernet, WiFi antenna, and spare connector holes, allowing great configuration flexibility. The plywood base is for shipping protection, and not part of the housing.
Photo Credit: Ken Sexton. |
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This shows the front of the housing with an anti-static glass port for the camera lens. These cameras autonomously take photos on a customer-set schedule and send them back to a server, which presents them on demand to authorized users.
Photo Credit: Ken Sexton. |
This is an experiment, designed to see which kinds of
marine organisms are first to colonize new
substrates, and what size and shape openings they
prefer. The unit consists of a base, to which 9-inch
square layers of PVC sheet with a variety of tunnels
and caves are formed. The first 14 of these have
been deployed at reef sites around the Pacific, and
will be retrieved a year later. Scientists will
identify the organisms, clean the substrates, and
re-deploy them for future studies. This work is
being conducted by National Marine Fisheries
Service, Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED). See
their site at
www.pifsc.noaa.gov/cred |
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Another project for same scientist below, this time
for a Canon G5 digital camera in an existing Ikelite
housing and strobe. The clear water tank is sized to
include a glass front port for scratch-resistance.
It also has a mount on the top front edge to hold
the unit steadily against a glass plate embedded in
the ocean floor. The glass is placed at the edge of
sea grass beds, such that the growing root tips
press against the glass. When photos are needed to
document the root tip growth, a hole is scooped out
of the sand in front of the glass, and this system
is placed in contact with the glass plate. Because
the scooping process makes swirls of sand in the
water, the clear water inside the tank allows clear
imaging of the root tips. |
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A soil scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency needed do macro photography with a Nikonos close up kit in zero-visibility water. We devised this system that allowed him to shoot through a tank of distilled water, lighting from outside the tank with the strobe, and use any of the three standard Nikonos lenses, 28, 35, and 80mm. The strobe can be held in place on the triangular mount, or positioned at any angle using the flexible strobe mount. |
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The same scientist needed to study the growth of the roots of seagrass, so he asked us to build an aquarium that would allow him to photograph the roots as they came into contact with 45 degree areas at the bottom of the tank. We built three of these, and received positive feedback on the results of testing. |
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We have also done contract mechanical design work for other companies. In this case,
International Portland Corporation
needed a Class 100 powder containment booth for the pharmaceutical industry.
Drums of various precursor chemicals are brought into the front of this booth on pallets by forklift or pallet jack. There, the drums are opened and samples removed for analysis. It is critical to keep workers from inhaling these powders. A downdraft of filtered air from the perforated ceiling is flowed past the drum, picking up the floating powders, and is drawn into the grated bag filters at the lower quarter of the back wall. Large blowers in the rear draw that air through the bag filters, trapping the powders, and forcing the clean air up and through HEPA filters for final cleaning and back into the flow from the inside top structure.
Headroom inside the unit is 7 feet. This unit is designed in modules, so that many sizes and configurations may be made from the same basic components. |
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A client needed a working model of a commercial trash compactor for use at trade shows. This model provides all functionality of the real compactor for demonstration at trade shows.
The ram assembly is removable and stores inside the large containment, and the whole model fits inside a large wheeled Pelican case for transportation to shows. The hydraulic ram is powered by an automotive windshield washer motor, and actually compresses chunks of foam until it detects that the containment is full. |
A high technology company needed to cut special glass plates in a class 10 cleanroom environment. We designed a 4 x 3 foot acrylic box for the diamond saw with water cooling and HEPA-filtered exhaust system.
It has a gas spring-assisted hinged upper lid and hinged front wall. It also has GFCI-protected outlets and a foot switch for both exhaust and saw control, keeping the operator’s hands free. Shown here during initial testing, we later added glove ports to the front wall. |
A client wanted to control the action of six nail guns, three on each side of a conveyor, each adjustable in position along tracks. The guns are fed from 3,000-nail reels, and have numerous operator safety features. Stock to be laminated is fed through an input gate from a manual conveyor. When the stock is inside the machine, it is moved by a powered conveyor to line up against a closed output gate. When one cycle is ready, the operator pushes two hand switches to initiate a nailing sequence. The machine closes the entry gate, squeezes the nailers tight against the stock, fires the nails, releases nailer pressure on the stock, opens the exit gate, allowing the stock to be powered out of the machine onto a manual conveyor, and resets the machine for the next cycle. All actions are controlled by limit switches and timers, resulting in a very simple and safe machine.
This design effort was supported by Oregon OSHA. |
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A client needed a way to open the cap of a spill-proof, tamper-resistant urine specimen container in the lab. We used a razor blade under the slide mechanism to slice off a thinned portion of the top like a horizontal version of a guillotine. This opener is useful in a laboratory environment where large numbers of vials are to be examined.
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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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