A
Anonymous
Guest
Now you can make a whole camera box for fairly cheap if you're good with acrylic, however I wanted to go ultra ghetto on this project, so here's what I did! 
I originally started with a plastic "dixie cup" type container, but I had these glad containers sitting around (frag swap spoils) and it has a much more reinforced lip so there's less likely to be any "crushing" damage which sheers the cup from the acrylic, also more surface area for the adhesive to grab onto, so I did this. The acrylic? Small piece I had sitting around, 1/16th of an inch thick, I wouldn't make it too much bigger than the cup since that'll give you more to grab onto to potentially torque off accidently if you caught it wrong on your tank trim or something.
Next step, chop off the top.. er bottom of the cup, this is a very important step, not only for how it gets mounted but also for the gluing stage. Now how much you cut off is entirely up to you, first you want to be able to get the barrel to fit though there, but you also should cut it to fit how long it is so the lens will rest up against the acrylic, or come very close.
Here's a test fitting, and I see all is good lens is at perfect length, and the size of this container is absolutely perfect since it actually grabs around the camera a bit, not that this is important but it is convenient, the water pressure when you submerge this thing will be enough to push it back against the camera so don't worry about it falling into the water and your lens is still beneath the surface
Next I traced the outside of the cup on the acrylic, as you can see very tight fit. But it's good enough. This is basically to give you an idea of where to scuff up the acrylic.
Here we scuff up the acrylic, the reason for this is you need to have a little something for your adhesive to bite into, if you don't the acrylic will be too smooth and you could potentially have your stuff coming off. I also scuffed up the edge of the cup, since those can be quite smooth as well. Simply used a dremel with the sanding attachment, however a piece of low grit sand paper works by hand as well.
Now the gluing part. What you use is important. You might think, I can use weldon (goopie stuff #16) however while it will bond nicely with the acrylic it won't even dent the cup material, and you won't get any sort of connection. You might use a silicone, however that doesn't bond too well to plastic/acrylic either, but if you scuffed it up enough it might work. I chose some super glue gel (IC Gel to be specific), hey I have the stuff to mount frags why not use it?
Now why did I say chopping the bottom off is important? Simply put the fumes! If you've ever seen CSI or Beverely Hills Cop 2, you know you can lift finger prints this way.. and anything else! You'll literally get a haze over the acrylic if you don't allow it to air out, also having it next to a window so you get a constant movement of air is useful as well.
Great thing about acrylic, is once you smoosh the gel in, you can check your work to see if you have enough coverage. I would wait a while before you test it out, however after it tacks up a bit pour some water inside the thing since the gel will harden in contact with water and you're less likely to get any super glue vapors clinging to where you don't want them.
And the next morning and voila! A nice little camera cover to take pictures of, you can see some of the pictures here, http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=105795 Sure it might look messy, but I believe I did use the word ghetto earlier, and besides, you're not going to be taking pictures of how ugly this thing looks, but the stuff in the tank!
Now if your camera lens can't feasibly get to the acrylic, you might want to paint the cup black to block out light and reduce the glare.. Enjoy!
I originally started with a plastic "dixie cup" type container, but I had these glad containers sitting around (frag swap spoils) and it has a much more reinforced lip so there's less likely to be any "crushing" damage which sheers the cup from the acrylic, also more surface area for the adhesive to grab onto, so I did this. The acrylic? Small piece I had sitting around, 1/16th of an inch thick, I wouldn't make it too much bigger than the cup since that'll give you more to grab onto to potentially torque off accidently if you caught it wrong on your tank trim or something.
Next step, chop off the top.. er bottom of the cup, this is a very important step, not only for how it gets mounted but also for the gluing stage. Now how much you cut off is entirely up to you, first you want to be able to get the barrel to fit though there, but you also should cut it to fit how long it is so the lens will rest up against the acrylic, or come very close.
Here's a test fitting, and I see all is good lens is at perfect length, and the size of this container is absolutely perfect since it actually grabs around the camera a bit, not that this is important but it is convenient, the water pressure when you submerge this thing will be enough to push it back against the camera so don't worry about it falling into the water and your lens is still beneath the surface
Next I traced the outside of the cup on the acrylic, as you can see very tight fit. But it's good enough. This is basically to give you an idea of where to scuff up the acrylic.
Here we scuff up the acrylic, the reason for this is you need to have a little something for your adhesive to bite into, if you don't the acrylic will be too smooth and you could potentially have your stuff coming off. I also scuffed up the edge of the cup, since those can be quite smooth as well. Simply used a dremel with the sanding attachment, however a piece of low grit sand paper works by hand as well.
Now the gluing part. What you use is important. You might think, I can use weldon (goopie stuff #16) however while it will bond nicely with the acrylic it won't even dent the cup material, and you won't get any sort of connection. You might use a silicone, however that doesn't bond too well to plastic/acrylic either, but if you scuffed it up enough it might work. I chose some super glue gel (IC Gel to be specific), hey I have the stuff to mount frags why not use it?
Now why did I say chopping the bottom off is important? Simply put the fumes! If you've ever seen CSI or Beverely Hills Cop 2, you know you can lift finger prints this way.. and anything else! You'll literally get a haze over the acrylic if you don't allow it to air out, also having it next to a window so you get a constant movement of air is useful as well.
Great thing about acrylic, is once you smoosh the gel in, you can check your work to see if you have enough coverage. I would wait a while before you test it out, however after it tacks up a bit pour some water inside the thing since the gel will harden in contact with water and you're less likely to get any super glue vapors clinging to where you don't want them.
And the next morning and voila! A nice little camera cover to take pictures of, you can see some of the pictures here, http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=105795 Sure it might look messy, but I believe I did use the word ghetto earlier, and besides, you're not going to be taking pictures of how ugly this thing looks, but the stuff in the tank!
Now if your camera lens can't feasibly get to the acrylic, you might want to paint the cup black to block out light and reduce the glare.. Enjoy!
