3D printed stand for RTL-SDR-V3

I’m in the process of building an outdoor enclosure for my POE powered, Tinkerboard-S/RTL-SDR v3 ADS-B tracker, which I mentioned in a previous post. I was looking for a way to secure the RTL-SDR receiver to the internal mounting plate but found nothing that would work the way I wanted. I did a quick design in Fusion360 and SLA 3d printed it, and it came out great. I uploaded the design to Thingiverse for others who may be interested.

Enjoy

2 Likes

Nice design.
I have thought about something similar for my LNA “free-floating” in a weather sealed box under the antenna, but I’m unsure about long-time durability due to the heat the LNA produces and the sun during summer months…
Printed a mobile holder for the car in PLA and it didn’t last very long. I can’t print in ABS (no enclosure) so I might try something more heat-resistant material than PLA next time.

If I ever get around to design a holder for the LNA I’ll share it here :slight_smile:

If you are worried about the rtl-sdr LNA you could reduce the supply voltage to 4.5 V or maybe 4 V.

For me it reduced the heat production significantly.

To quote the product page:

  • Power: 3.3 - 5V via bias tee only, 150 mA current draw
1 Like

My airspy mini delivers 4.5v to the LNA. But it may be a good idea to supply bias tee via an external feeder to bring it down a bit further.
I’m thinking of mounting a 1-wire temperature sensor in the box on the roof to see how high the temp goes during summer months. I suspect that it can get quite hot in the box (IP66) even though I live in northern parts of Sweden…

I wouldn’t be too worried.

If you are maybe just install something to shade the box a bit.

Probably it will live longer than any holder printed in PLA :wink:
I was thinking of integrating a discarded CPU cooler in the case. Basically mount the cooler on the LNA and make sure that the larger aluminum heatsink was outside the box.
But there are problems with making the box weather proof and I’m quite sure that water finding it’s way into the box will kill the LNA faster than the heat :grin:

Oh now that’s interesting. I’ve hardwired my bias-tee to the 5v rail on the GPIO from my Pi. In theory, I could switch it over to the 3v3 rail and it’ll still work.

I would be careful about loading down the 3.3V rail, it’s generated on the RPi and i don’t know how much extra capacity that converter has.