4" PVC Pipe Allsky Camera

To preface, what you see is the finished product of my personal project. This build is not in an ideal state to be a one size fits all solution and does need some tinkering to make right for any particular build of this style. The hopes of uploading this is to provide reference, parts and the general thoughts and reasonings of this kind of build.



Previous Allsky camera builds SD Card bit the dust, decided to redesign the Allsky build to fit inside of a PVC pipe. A major consideration for this project is to remove the need of having exposed screws on the outside and still have the dome be easily replaceable in the event it gets scratched, all while using gaskets minimally to prevent water or moisture ingress into the enclosure. 

Running on Raspbian Bookworm headless, software used for this Allsky project is: https://github.com/AllskyTeam/allsky/



The main body enclosure uses standard US Schedule 40 4" PVC piping and PETG for all parts. Camera dome mount has 2 vents to allow the heat generated from the Raspberry PI 5, PoE+/M.2 SSD hat to reach the acrylic dome and to circulate around and between the printed RPi carriage and PVC pipe for heat dissipation, thus(hopefully) preventing the need for a dew heater. Any LED lights inside of the enclosure are turned off in software and physically taped over to prevent light bleeding past the ventilation holes, the particular PoE+ hat included in the parts list has 2 LEDs that cannot be turned off. The inner caddy design has a lot of wiggle room inside of the pipe as to allow the hot air to flow around and dissipate into and out of the acrylic dome and outer PVC pipe.


All parts are connected and sealed except for the dome and cleanout plug using silicone adhesive/sealant as PVC cement is not compatible with PETG. Enclosure fan is connected to the listed PoE+/M.2 hat on its provided 5v rail pins for its power.



Parts list

All parts in total have cost about $350 USD

RPi 5 4gb: https://a.co/d/4mUZf59
PoE+ & M.2 SSD hat: https://a.co/d/5cC2AU2
SSD: https://a.co/d/9rmoqpS
Camera dome: https://a.co/d/04tIyw5
PVC cleanout gasket: https://a.co/d/9hEiRgQ 
Dome gasket: https://a.co/d/cLsdcn9
Enclosure fan: https://a.co/d/eR6iGMb
Arducam HQ camera: https://a.co/d/iC9owYO
180° Fisheye lens: https://a.co/d/84tiVXz
Sealant: https://a.co/d/j7YXqLL
Cable gland: https://a.co/d/dL33jDh


Schedule PVC 40 4" piping: 
1x 10ft pipe (cut to final size)
1x Coupler
1x Cleanout & plug

All screws are intended to be screwed into the plastic itself. Primarily due to my skill of using threaded inserts.

8x M3x10+ hex screws (for carriage)
4x m2x4-10 hex screws (for Arducam HQ Camera)
4x m2.5x6 hex screws (for RPi5 mounting)
6x m3x20 stainless steel hex screws (for outer gutter mount)