Rugged/Sturdy case thread

I want to make enclosures for my projects that will stand the test of time. Toughbooks and Model Ms come to mind. Post material ideas and assembly techniques for durable cases, enclosures, shells, etc. I want to make a mechanical keyboard case (the box around all of the electronics in a keyboard) because all of the keyboard cases on the market look like they would shatter from a 5 foot drop or are obscenely expensive. I want to make a cost effective case thqt will stand the test of time. I've considered wood and sheet metal, both of which degrade too quickly for what I want. I haven't really thought of plastics because it looks like I would have to cast it, meaning I would have to aquire a mold, plastic, and a well ventilated area that won't distub others, none of which I have the money to aquire.

There is a trucktone of "industrial enclosing" aka "prototype enclosing" etc. which some are rugged and used for enclosing military computers. They come with blank sides you have to drill holes in or you can order in some cases units with holes drilled according to your design.

>>5841 Ammunition cans with lots of shielding and shock dampening and water resistance added. Be sure to ground and waterproof everything. If you use a larger can from 20mm 25mm or 30mm, you can probably build the entire computer into it and leave cuttouts for a keyboard, and then use a rubber keyboard affixed to it. The only issue will be cooling.

Not to prick your balloon but cases will need to be adapted to the conditions, therefor the location is more important than casing. As an idea for long term storage, have you considered using sand as an external shielding.

What are you building? Would live some more electronics discussion on lainchan

You take an old mitsumi membrane keyboard from a dumpster, toss out all the electronics and put your mechanical stuff inside.

How can I make my raspberry pi drop and water proof? Are there any cheap diy solutions?

>>5864 Yes.

>>5864 I think there was a thread in DIY a year or two ago where there were a lot of resources for hardening electronics. You can either create a container to protect them, or apply bedding or epoxy to keep components intact. If you use epoxy, you might have a hard time getting the components out if they go bad. On the other hand as long as the components are good, the device is pretty solid. Another option would be to make a waterproof container and fill it with oil which also makes it rugged and able to withstand high g-force due to the hydraulic characteristics of fluid.

>>5864 >put in ziplock bag >wrap in towel >put use rubber band to keep towel on or tie shoe strings around it, paracord, etc Seriously though you could use latex. People buy cans of latex that dries and make it into dildos and stuff, so you could make whatever shapes you want that mold into the outside plugs, usbs and such, to cover them. I have a camping power bank that has rubber coverings that flap close on it, one could use a hot glue gun to position the flaps you make. You could use broken hardware to make the molds. Molds are a simple concept. I'd also use the glue gun to attach a thin cheap plastic panel on the front of the thing and make a sqaure or cube shape of latex to give it corners so it will bounce if it falls. However, by the time it's water proof it can no longer vent air, so you're over heating the pi, unless it's at least the kind that does not demand a fan, such as the pi zero, of which is dogshit and all to put this much effort into. But latex paint, mold techniques, hot glue guns, spare panes of plastic, scissors, maybe a 3d printer to make a cool/convenient skeletal structure, I don't see why it'd be very hard, but it can't breath. Then again, you could have a latex vent flap, so I'm being dumb. Just close it later. You'd want to make that one really dangly. Image related shows the rather unwise idea of making electronics water resistant, I own it, but the bumpers are not so bumpy unfortunately. I have no example of gluing on a pane of plastic to the front of a square though to protect an lcd, assuming it's some mobile device. Why else go tiny? Or make a clear plastic box to go over the tiny hdmi screen you've got I guess, with rubber around the holes to prevent leakage where the wires go into the thing. Yeah....

>>5864 Or if you don't want to do that powerbank stuff idea this is a thing you could try, just screw some bowls together, plenty of room for the heat to get out now. And there's an actual link to find I guess rather than being creative.

>>5890 >solid platform it rests on No inertial dampening, it should be attached to the sides by rubber bands to where the bowls are screwed together, if you ask me. Drop it and it wiggles around. Just get clear bowls and use two rings that you can screw together, glue the rings to the bowls, use rubber sealing between them like an o-ring, use bungee net or rubber bands to hold it into the center. I imagine one could sew strings into bungee cords you cut into shape, glue them to the discs, use the strings sewed to tie where the screw holes are for the pi chip in the center. Or on it's frame wherever if it weren't naked, it'd have a battery in there and all. Then just get a waterpoof keyboard.

>>5841 I've been trying to get a Briefcase build together, but Every hard case I find has wood paneling.

You could make a hard case with room inside for electronics held in place with some sort of shock absorbers like springs or elastic to move around. That would possibly absorb the force of impact.

>>5906 What even is the point of this thread? Everyone already knows that the best solution is my picrelated, a Pelican case or similar knock off brand. Just take note, that if you are traveling with such a case full of electronics you WILL be stopped by customs and they will ask you bullshit questions. Remember to detach your your luks headers folks! They can determine that there is encrypted data by the entropy, but you still have plausible deniability!

>>5919 >tfw customs in most countries did not bat an eye with me having a literal jansport backpack full of hard drives and cell phones. All they did was swab them for explosives and drugs

>>5920 Why where you traveling with a bag full of hard drives and cellphones?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_Compass https://gpd.hk/gpdmicropc

>>6137 Because he is too dumb to upload everything encrypted to cloud/selfhost it all, and he is too dumb to find local dumbphone market duh doi

>>6153 >giving your power away to computers that are not owned by you personally >not even p2p technology Foolish. For one it takes away plausible deniability of copyright infringement. Even if the encryption strategy is foolproof they have held people indefinitely in lockup over an encrypted hard drive. Is it child porn? It's for the children they will say as they force it open to the FBI, then the FBI can get ya for copyright infringing. OR, you could just keep the drives to yourself, having downloaded everything over time rather than suddenly at a whim online, via more than one ISP, more than one IP, more than one mac address or computer, more than one name even these things can lead to, hence plausible deniability. Do they look through your physical drives? why would they? If it's indeed not cp then they're not motivated, but if detected online by the cyber police it COULD be, they target it as such. Off-line apparently it never triggers any such radar. Even if it did you're retarded to use a plane in this day and age. >>6152 That's sexy.

>>6154 keep a spare encrypted hard drive that contains nothing but pictures of cats. Never give the spooks the password.

>>6153 >making huge assumptions Dumb one is you, bucko. There's plenty of reasons one might not want to transport data over the internet/carry weird burner phones, you just can't imagine them

>>6425 Good luck spending time in TSA detention instead of summer vacation over encrypted hard drive with cat pictures while I download my archive of terrorist manuals that would help me destroy your country over gigabit channel from file server left at home on another continent.

>>7142 >gigabit channel lol sure, let's just pretend that exists everywhere

>>7142 this makes me think there should be an RP board...

>>7143 Technically gigabit connections are available in a lot of nations. The question of whether the ISPs in-between and the peering is good-enough to maintain a full link at such capacity reliably is a good one though.

>>7143 It sure does in every place worthy doing terrorist acts on. Silicon Valley, datacenters, financial districts, US military bases. Not only "fast" ping speeds on local ISP net, but low-latency links to international transit lines. Ain't no heckin' Bumsville, Alabama or where you live is worth doing terrorism in for sure, you can go to school tomorrow safely xD. While I enjoy 10 euro gigabit optics in small village town with my own seedbox server supporting international copyright infringing network. Damn it's good to be European!