I have a piece of test equipment that needs to stay underwater for days. Normally I would use or make a waterproof case with a lid and a gasket.
Instead, I’m wondering if I could print a box, pause the print just before the top face, put the device inside and then print the top face over it. No openings, no nothing, and the device works by induction so it doesn’t need to physically connect to anything.
But this would only work if 3D-printed PLA walls are really waterproof. After all, 3D-printed features are kind of a bunch of wires more or less loosely attached to each other, so I wouldn’t be surprised if water could leak through under pressure.
Before I spend any time assessing this myself, has anybody tried printing waterproof enclosures?
Of course it can be.
Will it be on your setup though?
Bump temperature to make better adhesion, lower the speed. Then try it out!
Also if you can’t make it perfectly watertight, check out why and try to remedy it. Maybe post printing! You can put glue, paint, depending on why it leaks, chuck it in the owen to melt it a bit…
But first of all, try it out!
Good luck!