Enclouser Ideas for DirkCheapSSR

[kychristmas]

is it one DCSSR per channel? For eg: my mini trees will be 3 colors each at 100ct strings. Would that be 3 DCSSR's per tree?

No. Like other SSRs, it's 4 channels per cheap SSR board. I have one unused channel in each of my trees.

[CDN_Diesel]

thanks.

[CaptKirk]

My 9 year old drinks a vitamin/protein shake like Ensure everyday (he is a picky eater). The bottle is white or clear depending on brand, has a wide enough opening to slip the DirkCheap in and then plug with a removable styrofoam plug. Open side down and zip-tied to the element and away we go. I'll post a picture when I can.

[dirknerkle]

My 9 year old drinks a vitamin/protein shake like Ensure everyday...

That's what we need! A "senior" version of the DirkCheap! One for those of us who can't remember which side to put the chips on, or which way they go, or even where we put it after we finish assembling it! I can see the board now... no holes, no silkscreen markings.... no.... waitaminute... this is sounding like a fantastic companion to the DIGWDF Wireless Extension cord!

Hmmm... Lemmethinkonthis.... DirkCheapSrSSR ... hmmm..... where are those engineers when you really need 'em......

[TomL8345]

I have taken a similar approach to some others in this thread, but I have refined it some more. First, I am adding a right angle RJ-45 jack to the board and bringing all the power cables down towards that end of the board. In this configuration the SSR will no longer fit inside a piece of 1" Sched 40 PVC pipe, but still fits nicely inside a 1" Tee fitting.

For the enclosure I cut two pieces of the 1" pipe approx 1" long, one is glued in one end of the Tee to connect and glue a cap, while the second piece I fit over the power cables before I attach my vampire plugs. I also attach a 1/2" elbow to the side outlet of the Tee and a length of 1/2" pipe to slip over rebar I pound into the ground.

When I am ready to set up the SSR, I slip my Cat-5 cable through the piece of pipe on power cables, and attach it to the SSR. I then slide the SSR into my enclosure and slide the loose piece of pipe into the bottom of the Tee without glue. The friction fit of this piece holds the SSR securely in the enclosure while allowing removal for servicing or storage.

I figure I have about $1.65 invested in each one of these enclosures, and a total of less than $9.00 per completed SSR.

[CaptKirk]

That is pretty cool. I use a slightly different approach. I use these:

medco-bottle.jc.top.jpg

Discard the cap (recycle), use upside down, stuff in the SSR, and just zip-tie them to an element. Stuff some Styrofoam in the opening around the wires and you have a cheap, water resistant enclosure. I have $0 in the container (I was recycling but now I reuse) and a few cents in the large zip-tie.

Also, because these are low power, the use of SPT core is a bit overkill, so I use the female plug end off old light strings (Home Depot gets a bunch of strings when they do the recycle thing), and/or cheap extension cords from the dollar store.

[timon]

Nice idea and I have a twist for you. If someone is building mini or small mega trees out of 1/2 or 3/4 pipe you can take a snap/saddle "T" and glue it to the the full "T". Now you can snap the controllers to the vertical of the tree. Same for any other vertical piece of PCV pipe for any other display element, just snap the snap "T" to the side. You can also get a few sizes at most Lowes stores.

I have taken a similar approach to some others in this thread, but I have refined it some more. First, I am adding a right angle RJ-45 jack to the board and bringing all the power cables down towards that end of the board. In this configuration the SSR will no longer fit inside a piece of 1" Sched 40 PVC pipe, but still fits nicely inside a 1" Tee fitting.

For the enclosure I cut two pieces of the 1" pipe approx 1" long, one is glued in one end of the Tee to connect and glue a cap, while the second piece I fit over the power cables before I attach my vampire plugs. I also attach a 1/2" elbow to the side outlet of the Tee and a length of 1/2" pipe to slip over rebar I pound into the ground.

When I am ready to set up the SSR, I slip my Cat-5 cable through the piece of pipe on power cables, and attach it to the SSR. I then slide the SSR into my enclosure and slide the loose piece of pipe into the bottom of the Tee without glue. The friction fit of this piece holds the SSR securely in the enclosure while allowing removal for servicing or storage.

I figure I have about $1.65 invested in each one of these enclosures, and a total of less than $9.00 per completed SSR.