I have a funny idea about using a pelican case as a buoy. I’m curious how they do over the medium-long run in the ocean. Have you ever (mis)used one in this way? Have you ever had a pelican case accidentally flood in rough, wet conditions? Have you ever had one degrade in UV light to the point of failure?
Of course, I can just buy a buoy, build a frame, and stick the pelican case on the frame, but since the pelican case is already plenty buoyant, even with all the stuff I have inside it, I’m thinking about cutting out the middleman.
Let me know your experiences with failures or successes. What’s the gnarliest thing you’ve ever put your hard case through?
had an emergency first aid kid outside our house for 4 years here in gamboa. was sitting in a thing that would get rained on and flood and sit in a puddle for a while. For a year or two was alright. The UV cooked the outside and changed its color, but no plastic failure that way. I think the O ring degraded and started letting water in.
Moved it to where it wouldn’t sit in water, but just being near all the water seemed to let the humidity in which would pool inside.
One key suggestion is to design whatever sits inside as if there might be 1cm of water that could pool in the bottom. So in the case of humidity being trapped, or small amounts of leakage, the stuff could still survive a bit.
Bonus question/thinking out loud – what’s more waterproof than a pelican case, but can still be opened/closed? I took a deeper look on their site, and not all Pelican cases have an IP rating. Some of them, like their original ‘protector’ line, have an IP67 rating – it’ll keep things dry in <5m of water for ~30 mins, but they’re not designed to be immersed for any length of time (I don’t need things to be immersed).
If I’m going by IP ratings, I suppose I’m looking for an IP68-rated case, which is designed for long-term immersion. A quick look on amazon didn’t find any – no surprise, it’s not a practical consumer item. One interesting place to find true IP68 ratings is electrical junction boxes – they use them for outdoor wiring, and it makes sense that, if your junction box goes underwater, you want the water to stay out of the box. Something like this polycase box is comparable in size to the briefcase-sized pelican 1160, but is IP68 rated and costs $45. It’s hard to find a box with the nice pelican-style latches and an IP68 rating, but a screw-on lid is good enough for my purposes.
Those little weatherproof boxes have little dinky o-rings. they are good at being on the side of a building and getting rained on, but i wouldn’t float them in water.
I might put one IN a pelican case, but def not raw.
I think that could be a pretty reliable buoy, big pelican like outer box, with key things inside cheaper boxes
I’ve used buoys made of DWV PVC 4" pipe with fittings, and they stand up well in sea water. But beware of the cleanout fittings, they seal ok, but one of my buoys got run over by a boat and the O-ring seal leaked a few drops. Not too surprised, they were designed to keep bad smells in, not seawater out.
One advantage is that if these are weighted to float upright, they (presumably) pose less of a collision/damage hazard to jetskis etc, since a collision is never square on. It’s not like hitting a submerged log broadside.