Sneak Peak at our new Enclosure

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We’ve just finished our latest prototype enclosure. Made a quick and dirty video - Have a look and let me know what you think :wink:

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Very cool concept and clean implementation!

A couple of questions: How heavy is it and how long can the unit run the battery alone?

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Thanks!

its 260 x 360 x 49mm and the inbuilt 12v UPS will keep it going for a couple of hours (at idle we saw 3-4hrs on the workbench, but this naturally reduces if the cellular and wifi modules are working hard)- it’s purpose is primarily to keep the Max Transit online during external DC power source change over (ie 12v in car to mains DC power or when swapping battery packs).

If you need longer runtime on battery you would just add onw or more 12V power pack(s) in the bag. Including the laptop bag and external PSU it weighs 5Kg

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Thanks for the info - really great work!

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Hello @MartinLangmaid,
Interesting and cleaver, some constructive thoughts for you:

  • With this being used in vehicles, how do envisage the GPS antenna working or is there an external connector for the GPS to connect onto?
  • How do you go with heat dissipation, we find the Max Transits can run quite warm and are cautious to ensure sure they have good ambient air around them?
  • Would you consider using a power XLR for your future production versions of (instead of an audio XLR connection)? If you use the standard of the four pin XLR for DC power, you will immediately have compatibility with a larger professional base of users.
    XLR connector - Wikipedia

Overall I like what I see with your prototype and look forward to seeing you take it to production.

Happy to Help,
Marcus :slight_smile:

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Thanks Marcus.
GPS - the internal antenna works fine inside a car (the original deployment scenario) when the bag is sat upright on a passenger seat (which is the preferred orientation for best cellular signal acquisition). It also works when wearing the backpack of course out and about. I did think about adding an external GPS antenna connection, and even knocked up a custom antenna RF switching PCB to enable the choice of internal or external gps connections with a latching button press but I ran out of time to thoroughly test this so chickened out.

Heat - yes the Transits run hot. The thermal design includes vents top middle and bottom to encourage convection and multiple internal panels designed to increase surface area and conduct the heat away from the Transit. The preference is to run it with the top of the bag unzipped, but even with it closed - in UK climates at least, the top of the enclosure consistently sits at 19-20 °C (the bottom runs a little warmer). I have a newer prototype with active temperature controlled cooling on the workbench at the moment where I have butchered a laptop cooler to exhaust hot air from the top of the bag with a vent cut into the bottom. However in this initial deployment the customer (a high worth individual) wanted to choose their own bag (I suspect my ‘amazon special’ wasn’t visually appealing enough).

XLR DC power - yes you’re right, it should be 4 pin, had a bunch of 3 pin XLRs kicking about so used those on this build for the sake of speed.

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