Custom housing for Canon D30/D60

I just love my D30, that’s why I decided to build a housing for it, and it came out really nice.

This housing is made out a solid block of aircraft grade aluminum. All controls have Quad Seal rings and are spring loaded to withstand pressure up to 150 feet. The sight glasses are made of 1/8 inch Lexan. The housing was made to accept Ikelite ports, which are quite inexpensive and are available for a great variety of lenses. For corrosion protection the housing was anodized and powder coated. There is one strobe connector on top of the housing. I am currently using two Ikelite 200 Substrobes with a dual cord, which are working only in manual mode, but are very powerful and have a short recycle time. The controls on the camera housing operate the following:

Main Dial,

Shutter Button,

Metering mode/Flash compensation Button,

AF mode/WB button,

AE/FE lock button,

Quick control Dial,

Mode Dial

Menu Button.

Those are the most common controls used and I did not see a need to cram the housing full of controls, which are unnecessary. I am currently using a 1 Gigabyte Micro drive, with a capacity of up to 800 high-resolution images.

The housing with two Ikelite 200 Strobes weighs about 20 lbs on land, and is about 1 lb negative in salt water -- depending on the port chosen.

In case there are enough people interested, I am considering to expand my hobby into a small scale production.

If you have any interest in a housing like this, please send an email to kbachlmayr@aol.com

Pretty cool!

Very nice job!

Just out of curiosity, and without revealing anything that would hamper your pending production business, can you share a few more details? I'm assuming that you're a machinist by trade.

What does a block of aluminum like that cost? Did you machine it by hand, or with a computer controlled machine?

How many hours does something like t his take to manufacture? (I know the first one takes many more hours due to the trial & error.)

Any other production tidbits you would like to share would be fascinating. Inquiring minds want to know!

Richard

Richard,

You are right, I used to be a Tool & Die maker, which is of course very helpful.

To answer your questions:

The cost for the raw materials was about $300 and most of the work was done on a CNC (Computer Numeric Controlled) milling machine, but there are a lot of details that could only be done on a manual mill. As to the time it took to finish the whole project, I don’t really know, but it was a very long time.

First I started by measuring the camera and creating a 3D image with a CAD program. After that I designed the housing around it until I had the complete model including the controls in 3D.

The machining part itself took about 4 weekends (Saturday & Sunday). After the housing was machined I started assembling the controls, which of course needed to be adjusted and covered with rubber protectors to avoid damage to the camera. I designed a base plate, which screws on to the camera and can be easily inserted into the housing.

After all the controls were in place and adjusted, I disassembled the whole thing and got it ready for anodizing and powder coating, which was done by a local company. Unfortunately, they had a minimum charge for the anodizing and the powder coating process and they charged me about $200. (I could have had 10 housings anodized for the same price).

It took about 2 ½ weeks for them to get the housing back to me (backlog). After that came the fun part – TESTING. At first I submerged the housing in a barrel full of water over the weekend – without the camera, then it was off to the Puget sound first without the camera and then with the whole setup and that was it.

I hope that answers some of your questions. If you need any further information, I will gladly answer them.

Thanks for your interest,

Kurt

Thanks Kurt! That is fascinating! That kind of project is almost beyond comprehension for me (and I suspect most of us), and is quite intriquing.

Did you build all of the controls yourself? I guess most important, did you save the program?

Thanks again for your insights. Maybe next time you can get some pictures of the process. Good luck if you decide to make it a venture!

Richard

Hi Kurt, way cool! I've related skills, but would not know where to get appropriate switches and the like. Could you reveal your "sources" please?

In the mean time, i'll probably go with a PT010 or similar, since it fits my experience level not to mention postdoc salary.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Some of the controls on my first housing are from an old Ikelite housing, and some I bought new from Ikelite (Part #9251.5) Most of the knobs and the shafts I made myself. I am currently in the process of designing a completely new kind of controls for my next housing. The following link gets you directly to the Ikelite website with their controls.

http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/control_parts.html

Hope that helps.

Kurt

That looks like a first rate housing. Your effort really inspires me to do my own housing. I am looking to house a Sony F707 but I am not quite happy with my choices on the market. I am an Industrial Designer and I work on CAD all day long. So if you don't mind I would like to ask for advice when I get started. Post some pics soon. Thanks again for the inspiration!

Hi Kurt, thanks for the link. please keep us posted on your custom rigs. Mike

What is the deepest dive you have made with the camera in the housing?

The deepest I had the housing so far was 75 feet. However, the most critical depth is between 20 and 40 feet, especially when ascending, since the pressure pushing on the O-rings gets less and then it starts to leak. Since, at least in my opinion, the controls are the weakest spot (and they are rated to 300 feet) on the housing I have no doubt that it will work just fine down to 150 feet. If you go any deeper the springs on the controls have to be replaced, otherwise the water pressure is going to push the controls for you.

Kurt

Hi Kurt,

speculation: since alot of cameras seem to be remotely operable via their usb port, have you thought of making a "universal" control pad that would be mounted externally? it could be linked with either a hard wire or an optical usb coupler?

Mike

No I have not, but it's food for thought

Thanks for the idea