Back in the Bad Old Days when we were working from home and trying not to go insane I decided I needed another project to add to the stack of half complete projects I was already working on. This was that project. I felt I needed to add an All Sky camera to my backyard (back garden for you those that don’t speak “American” English) so I could see exactly how wrong the local meteorologists were before I carried all my gear outside and looked at the sky in detail.
I designed it around a section of 4″ PVC sewer pipe (114.4mm outside diameter) from the local hardware store (Lowe’s or Home Depot, I don’t remember) with friction fit caps top and bottom. There was a ZWO camera I had laying around, doing nothing. It was bored so I told it to stare at the sun and the sky for the rest of its life. The cradle that holds the camera sits between the top cap and the pipe. The hanger that holds the Raspberry Pi is glued to that cap as is the lower flange holding a 40mm fan for force air cooling. It isn’t visible in these drawings but I also designed a louver that is screwed to the side of the pipe to give that forced air a way out. There’s a louver in the bottom cap which is opposite the power input port, also not visible in this drawing. The acrylic dome is held down with some stainless steel M3 hardware which is sealed with literally nothing. There are some washers under the bolt heads to avoid crushing the plastic but that’s it. The cohesion of the water and the wide flange have been effective at preventing water intrusion. I sealed the bottom with a bit of aluminum tape, typically used for patching HVAC ducts, also sourced at my local hardware store.
Is this a perfect design for all locations? Nah, absolutely not. But it does what I need it to do in north Texas. It has held up against 90mph (40m/s, 145kph) wind gust, temperatures at and above 100F (43.3C), rainfall at rates high enough to float cars down the road in places, freezing rain and what passes for snow in Texas. If we get snow it’s usually only an inch or two and it lasts a few days. Texans typically think it’s the end of the world, it’s quite hilarious.