scanner progress

I've been plugging away on building the scanner. It's progressing well and I'm frantically trying to get it together for you to take with you, Nathaniel. All is well though and I just need to keep working. Sculpture was out of Argon (the gas we need to weld the cases) when I went to weld on Sunday night. They ordered some more so I can weld tomorrow when it comes in hopefully.

I have been getting close to integrating switches and was doing some research on push button switches. Apparently push buttons are a BIG problem when you start to dive to great depths. The pressure will actually depress switches leaving your device on all the time. This whole time I was mainly worried about waterproofing, but that is the least of our troubles when you dive deep. To remedy this, I will be using hall effect switches. I just ordered these cool hall effect switches. They will be perfect for our application and I can mount them inside the box and the magnet used to switch them will work through the aluminum case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbYCE7s8lnk

http://www.taskled.com

For more info on problems with regular switches:

http://seaturtlescuba.us/contents/en-us/d44_Push_button_switch_warning.html

I have also read of capacitors and electrical components not being able to take the pressure of deep diving. I am curious if we will have this trouble. Again, I was only worried about waterproofing, but the pressure at this depth effects all components (possibly LCD display as well?). Anyway, I came across some sites that talk about sealing components thoroughly in epoxy (aka potting). I'm not sure if we need to worry about all of this, but I thought I would share and welcome any advice on if we need to worry about this. The scanner board has several capacitors and I was just curious your thoughts on the matter.

http://www.submarineboat.com/waterproofing.htm