If you’ve ever visited Thailand, you may have noticed blue PVC pipes that are for water supplies, and usually visible since most of the time they are not placed underground.
The pipes and fittings are very cheap, easy to find, and one person found out those could be used to make DIY cases for electronics projects.
The two specimen above are a LoRaWAN node & gateway. The former is based on ESP07(ESP8266) module and RFM95W LoRa 868/915Mhz RF transceiver module, together with battery and sensors, while the latter is 1-channel LoRaWAN gateway or repeater, but I could not find the full details of the hardware design.
I find that’s a clever idea, the design is pretty neat, and not everybody owns a 3D printer. An additional benefit is that it should be suitable for waterproof cases by adding some pipe glue to the unmovable parts, and a PVC screw cap to enable the replacement of batteries.
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Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Great idea , thanks for the article.
I wanted to build a nice outdoor wifi based on an Orange Pi, and this solves the weatherproofing problem.
Very clever lateral thinking. I wonder if pipe manufacturer makes and square sections?
“I wonder if pipe manufacturer makes and square sections?”
Good question. I’ve never seen any cylindrical > square > pipe fittings before. But then again, there are pipe fittings that are sealed to mate with square (or other non-cylindrical box type) enclosures of all sizes. Do a Web search for NEMA Enclosure. That might turn something up. But I’d still like to see an off the shelf cylindrical > square > cylindrical section option (the reasons should be obvious, mounting antennas, sensors etc., typical bulkhead type connectors don’t mate well with cylindrical surfaces when it comes to environmental-exclusion seal/integrity).
For square/ squarish cross sections you may want to look at pipes used to build out roof gutters, rain drainage type.