Hi everyone,
Looking at the Pibow Zero Case (version 1.3 in my case), you can see quite clearly that there are holes designed to help mount it to a surface and the product page even touts that “This case is lightweight and ideal for mounting to any surface.”
Well by an incredible turn of events i’ve been trying to do just that and mount my pi zero and the night vision camera module onto a single piece of wood, to be able to then place that wherever i want using one of these:
but so, so far i’ve not had much success. No screws in my (admittedly limited) box did the trick and then there’s the inconvenience of the little nylon “feet” of the Pibow Zero poking out. I was able to drill tiny holes for the feet to rest in, but haven’t managed to secure the rest.
So, what screws would you recommend? Bonus points for a good solution to mount the night vision camera too.
Thanks!
@alphanumeric thanks, but it’s a completely different camera, with two IR LEDs protruding from each side :)
The bolts could work, but i’m not a fan of the idea of using plastic/nylon screws into hard wood. Not convinced it will really hold. But if i can figure out the size of those extended bolts/screws, i can try and find the same made of metal!
Ah, OK. I have seven Pi Camera setups here. Most are in Pibow Cases and use the Official camera, V2 or HQ. Two are pan tilt. My one Night Vision uses the Pi NOIR V2 camera that is just mounted to a Pibow diffuser that is bolted to the Pibow case with the long bolts. My HQ camera with a Telephoto lens is mounted to a metal frame.
I know the camera your talking about. I missed the link you posted some how though?
for mounting machine screws into wood the most common tactic I’ve seen are: screw “inserts”: they act as a nut. can be a bit pricey sometimes, and not always the best alignment on small things like electronics, but they screw directly into the wood and hold well, avoid the hammer in type
Through hole and washer: should work for both nylon and metal, but metal wold be preferred if there’s any jarring movement likely. you can countersink a washer sized hole to get it below the surface.
DIY superglue/epoxy: either the screw or a long spacer nut into a pre-drilled hole. should work for nylon or metal. Grease the threads first. If gluing in the screw make sure the head is fully encased. if gluing in the nut, do it with the screw already threaded in. and obviously check alignment before it dries.
DIY Direct: if you don’t intend to demount it, a longer metal screw into a slightly undersized hole gives enough grip to be near permanent.
For screw/nut sources (since I don’t know the size you need) the keywords are the screw size (M3, M5, etc), “screw” and specialty words like “standoff” (on electronics sites) and “inserts” (on general hardware sites)
Newark, Digikey, and Mouser, are all good sources for electronic mounting hardware that isn’t commonly stocked on the more specialized electronics sites
