DIY housing for E-M5

great work~~~~

Any updates on the system ?

What's up for 2016 ?!

Long time no see. I wondered back here to look for ideas on how to make a cheap blue dive light for fluorescence diving and noticed this old thread.

A small update on the camera housing. After the Philippines trip I had the camera with me on another 6-week trip to Indonesia in 2015. The housing worked excellent. If I remember correctly I machined a new even thicker polycarbonate back cover to replace the slightly cracked old one. Next month we are leaving to Mexico and Central America for three months and I am not yet sure if I'll take the housing with me. We may not be diving as much as before and the housing is kinda bulky to carry in my 45 liter backpack. Fortunately I am still using the E-M5 so no need to update the housing due to a new camera.

I did plan to make an optically synced strobe for the housing but never got to it and definitely do not have the time before the next trip. I might buy a decent dive light and fix up an arm to attach it to the camera. That might already improve the photographs a little.

So glad to see this thread revived - I just re-read all of it and enjoyed it as much the second time through. Happy travels!

Awesome work! Saw this a few months ago when I was tinkering with my own diy project and gave me a couple of ideas. Mind if I ask a couple of questions about your Dome? I'm looking at making my own...hopefully avoiding the use of threaded parts...

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Awesome work! Saw this a few months ago when I was tinkering with my own diy project and gave me a couple of ideas. Mind if I ask a couple of questions about your Dome? I'm looking at making my own...hopefully avoiding the use of threaded parts...

 

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Greetings from Honduras!

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

I've had the housing with me now on about ten dives on this trip and it has worked decently. I've had a couple of drops of leakage, probably because I never got to improving the partly DIY latches. They could compress the back cover oring a bit more on the surface. Water pressure takes care of compressing the oring properly when going deeper. Another problem is the shutter button. For some reason it sticks if its oring is not cleaned and greased often. This probably has something to do with the fact that this button has that horizontal 3D printed extension which causes some torque on the button but I am not sure what the problem is exactly.

I did buy a dive light and mounted it to the camera housing. I'll add some pics from the dives and of the dive light arm a bit later.

 

Greetings from Honduras!

 

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

 

I've had the housing with me now on about ten dives on this trip and it has worked decently. I've had a couple of drops of leakage, probably because I never got to improving the partly DIY latches. They could compress the back cover oring a bit more on the surface. Water pressure takes care of compressing the oring properly when going deeper. Another problem is the shutter button. For some reason it sticks if its oring is not cleaned and greased often. This probably has something to do with the fact that this button has that horizontal 3D printed extension which causes some torque on the button but I am not sure what the problem is exactly.

 

I did buy a dive light and mounted it to the camera housing. I'll add some pics from the dives and of the dive light arm a bit later.

Ive had a couple of acrylic domes made up and have a design for a dome with threaded parts and orings to mount th e acrylic to the alumnium parts..but i dont really like it and it adds extra size. Id glue it but i just dont knw what epoxy to use snd the company ive spoken t isnt 100% sure either and u dont want to chance it with my camera.

I was wondering what epoxy you used? And if you glued it to an anodised or raw aluminum surface?

Got a couple of shots of my housing below too.

Thanks

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Very impressive. I've been toying with the idea of building my own dive case for DSLR..
It has been 10 years since I've used CAD/CAM applications, so quite a lot of training needed, but slowly getting there. Also purchased my own CNC router, since I do not have access to university equipment. Hah..

How did you decide the dimensions for the O-rings, springs and where the heck can I purchase aluminum as cheap as you did?
Eventually I will want to have aluminium parts anodised with some professionals rather than start cooking acids at the backyard. Do you have recommendation in Helsinki region?

Thanks for sharing, highly appreciated!

This thread has been really fun to follow from both an engineering and an UW photographer perspective. Have you considered:

- Adding a second latch above the existing one, or centering the single one so that it is distributing the pressure on the "back view port" more evenly to compress the O-ring,

- You also mentioned having acrylic stress cracks where the screws go into your back view port. Have you considered machining the back port out of two parts: an aluminum frame and an acrylic window bonded into the center of the frame. That would help you again distribute the O-ring compression more evenly due to reduced deflection in the aluminum vs. acrylic materials.

- Adding an off the shelf vacuum pressure detection circuit and building in the vacuum port into the top left side of your housing?

Those enhancements could help avoid the minimal leaks that you mentioned above and alleviate your concern over acrylic failure at depth.

Fantastic. Ive had my design made up and have been using it a heap. But im using an aquatica dome with an adapter...and i want to get rid of the adapter so i can move th e done further in so it wll work with shorter lenses and...cause i just want to make all of the parts myself ha.

 

Ive had a couple of acrylic domes made up and have a design for a dome with threaded parts and orings to mount th e acrylic to the alumnium parts..but i dont really like it and it adds extra size. Id glue it but i just dont knw what epoxy to use snd the company ive spoken t isnt 100% sure either and u dont want to chance it with my camera.

 

I was wondering what epoxy you used? And if you glued it to an anodised or raw aluminum surface?

 

Got a couple of shots of my housing below too.

 

Thanks

 

 

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Nice! Very professional looking. Is that completely self designed and built? Is the body made of aluminum? Is the port on the left hand side some kind on a sync port? Is the tightness of the latches adjustable or how did you ensure correct latch tightness?

Sorry for not answering sooner, I guess its no more a current issue but maybe this will help someone else. Even though epoxy seems to be the best all around glue, I did not use it for the dome. I used windshield adhesive since it provides a strong adhesion but also stays relatively elastic. Therefore, it will not get any cracks and the water pressure will always seal the dome against the soft adhesive layer even though there would be some imperfection in the contact. Downside was that windshield adhesive was difficult to apply cleanly and very difficult to clean from the internal gap between the dome and the port body.

Very impressive. I've been toying with the idea of building my own dive case for DSLR..

It has been 10 years since I've used CAD/CAM applications, so quite a lot of training needed, but slowly getting there. Also purchased my own CNC router, since I do not have access to university equipment. Hah..

 

How did you decide the dimensions for the O-rings, springs and where the heck can I purchase aluminum as cheap as you did?

Eventually I will want to have aluminium parts anodised with some professionals rather than start cooking acids at the backyard. Do you have recommendation in Helsinki region?

 

Thanks for sharing, highly appreciated!

 

You can search for "eriks oring calculator" for o-ring dimensioning. I guess in theory any cross section o-ring would work but with about 1.5-2.5 mm cross section, 0.2 mm of compression is enough for a good seal. That kind of a compression should be easy to maintain reliably even with loose manufacturing tolerances.Of course if you use a smaller cross section, the O-ring groove will use less space in your design. Since for example the O-ring between the port and the body is static, I am using a quite large compression. With the button O-rings you have to remember that a larger compression leads to more friction.

For the button return springs forces, I mainly calculated the pressure force acting on the button shaft cross section area at some depth and then added some safety margin to account for the friction of the O-ring. The first springs I bought were a bit too weak to work reliably when going deeper so I had to change them. I would advise buying too rather too strong than too weak springs. It is not nice to have the shutter button jammed down in the middle of the dive.

The aluminum I bought from Protoshop in Espoo but unfortunately it does not exist anymore. I do not know where in Helsinki area one can buy metals easily in small quantities anymore. It is a bit of a problem for me as well...

For anodizing, I used Alumiinikilpi in Helsinki. The guys are grumpy old farts who do not really care about customer service, especially when calling them. But when I went there and they saw that I had really put some effort in this project, I got really good service with a good price.

This thread has been really fun to follow from both an engineering and an UW photographer perspective. Have you considered:

- Adding a second latch above the existing one, or centering the single one so that it is distributing the pressure on the "back view port" more evenly to compress the O-ring,

- You also mentioned having acrylic stress cracks where the screws go into your back view port. Have you considered machining the back port out of two parts: an aluminum frame and an acrylic window bonded into the center of the frame. That would help you again distribute the O-ring compression more evenly due to reduced deflection in the aluminum vs. acrylic materials.

- Adding an off the shelf vacuum pressure detection circuit and building in the vacuum port into the top left side of your housing?

 

Those enhancements could help avoid the minimal leaks that you mentioned above and alleviate your concern over acrylic failure at depth.

With the new thicker back cover getting a good seal was not an issue anymore. There was not really space to add more latches. The biggest problem with the latches was that their tightness was not adjustable so I basically had to shape the parts attached to the back cover so that I get approximately proper tension.

I think the stress cracks were caused by me using (way) too high a moment for the screws attaching the latch parts to the back cover. The cracks started from the screw threads and never really seemed to compromise the integrity of the whole back cover. Oh and the back cover is polycarbonate, not acrylic. I would be too paranoid of cracking with an acrylic back cover. I did consider using a two-part back cover but that would prevent me from seeing leakage at the edges of the cover.

I never considered using vacuum but I did consider some kind of a leak detector. On the other hand now that the back cover is completely clear, any leaks are easy to spot visually.

Hello, T.J.L.,

Could you share how did you fix the dome to the port aluminium part? with silicon sealant? I am planning to diy a 12" dome port but have not idea how the acrylic dome and aluminium part connect together.

Thanks.

Delphi

On 2/8/2019 at 3:50 PM, delphikwok said:

Hello, T.J.L.,

Could you share how did you fix the dome to the port aluminium part? with silicon sealant? I am planning to diy a 12" dome port but have not idea how the acrylic dome and aluminium part connect together.

 

Thanks.

 

Delphi

This answer likely comes too late but maybe it will be of use for someone else. I used a sealant which is meant for attaching car windscreens. It seals very well and also makes a strong bond. The bond doesn't even have to be that good since the pressure anyway pushes the dome against the seal.