I spent quite a bit of time on my fan aspirated radiation shield today.  It consists of threaded aluminum rods, plastic flower pots (UV resistant), plastic spacers made from tubing, some metal brackets I fabricated, and some assorted hardware and PVC fittings.  Not the prettiest thing to look at, but very functional.

One thing that I’m not very happy with is the paint job.  I used a spray can of white paint formulated for painting plastic.  It didn’t spray evenly.  It tended to spit a lot, and paint dripped out of the nozzle onto my hand and down my arm.  I’ve used spray paint successfully on many occasions, so even if my technique was bad, it isn’t that bad.  My assumption is that this plastic paint behaves differently than regular spray paint, and I wasn’t fully prepared to deal with it.

This picture shows the flower pots after I cut the necessary holes in them.  It also shows the base mount, fan and mounting brackets, and a piece of PVC tubing that fits inside the FARS.

FARS Exploded View

I made a small metal bracket to mount the temperature/humidity board.  There is a PVC tube that fits inside the shield, and the bracket positions the board so that it sits at the top of the PVC tubing.

Humidity/Temperature Board Bracket

I made a mount for the base out of some PVC plumbing fittings.

Base Mount

Assembled Base Mount

These are the threaded rods and plastic spacers.  I cut the spacers out of some plastic tubing.  The rods are used, so they don’t look very pretty.

Threaded Rods and Spacers

And here’s what it looks like assembled.

Assembled FARS

Assembled FARS - Another view