Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Water
This includes, but is not limited to, rain, snow, sleet, hail, dew, sprinkler, and animal
… fluids.
Nature
Dirt doesn't hurt children, but it is no friend to electronics. Lots of animals like
warmth, and the Raspberry Pi is an oasis of heat in a cold night. Also, the com-
bination of nature and water means mold and mildew, neither of which is good
for your Pi. Oh, and insects, we can't forget them.
Weather
We're not too worried about a tornado or a hurricane here. If that happens, you've
got bigger problems than a broken or missing $35 Linux PC. That said, we don't
want it to fly away or break in normal weather conditions.
Here's how to build a water-resistant, outdoor-friendly case for your Raspberry Pi.
Start with a water-tight plastic container and lid (or, if you want to really up your game,
get an ammo box with a rubber O-ring seal from an Army-Navy surplus store instead).
We recommend getting a large one, as opposed to the smallest one the Raspberry Pi
will fit completely into.
The plastic container will serve as a general protection from most of the main concerns
highlighted earlier. Using a larger container will allow you to weight it down from the
inside as needed and also gives it a bit more of an air pocket for the heat generated
by the Raspberry Pi to dissipate outward.
You'll probably want to connect cables to the Raspberry Pi, so you'll need to make
some holes in the container. Try to make these as small and as few as possible, but
don't just make one big hole and run all of your cables through it.
The trick is to make a hole, run a cable through it, and then use common silicon sealant
(available at any large hardware store) to permanently seal the cable into the hole and
restore the watertight seal for the plastic container. The trouble with this arrangement
with multiple cables in the same hole is that it can be tricky to completely seal the
gaps that occur between the cables. Also, if you opted for the metal ammunition box,
you'll need to get specialized sealant for metal (and a pretty good drill setup to make
the holes).
Using a large container also gives you the opportunity to connect the USB power plug
directly to a weatherized extension cord
inside
the container. Then, you can seal the
extension cord through the hole, and the USB power plug is not exposed to the ele-
ments at all.
Since this arrangement is good, but not perfect (and it will condense some), go ahead
and toss in several silica gel packets. This can be purchased rather cheaply from a
