How to waterproof a device – key considerations and various options

by | Dec 15, 2019

Highly experienced Bill Drislane from Dragon Innovation talks about how to go about waterproofing a device in this video. He covers the topic with a lot of examples, including the waterproofing of the well known Pebble smartwatch to 5 atmospheres. All in all, waterproofing is very complicated even for seasoned designers and manufacturers. You must seek professional help when you want to waterproof your device.

There is a Slideshare deck and a video in this article piece. We recommend you go through the Slideshare deck first and then watch the video which makes it easy to comprehend the topic being talked about in the video. Bill starts off with the explanation of international standard for Ingress Protection (IP) focusing on waterproofing from IPX1 to IPX8. He does not cover dust proofing. He then continues to cover various use cases and explains what waterproofing method such as O-ring or types of permanent welding should be used. He digs deep into each of these methods and explains the nitty-gritties and challenges faced when using these methods including the protection of the underlying Printed Circuit Board (PCB).

Bill mentions a critical point - the design decisions for waterproofing depend on what are key functional requirements of the product such as do you need to open the battery compartment or are there moving parts such as a push button acting as a user interface? Waterproofing is costly and time consuming to design and manufacture. Perhaps, you should reconsider the end user requirements in more detail and go for waterproofing only if it is a must have.
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https://blog.dragoninnovation.com/blog/2015/01/06/dfm-course-13-waterproofing

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