WeMos D1 mini case - ESP8266 enclosure for wired sensor

Use-case

Making my first steps in home automation, I started with creating a sensor to read the data from my analogue water meter. This is a combination of a ESP (WeMos D1 mini clone in my case) and a LJ18A3-8Z/BX proximity sensor. While it works, I now have an ESP hanging in that closet dangling on a power wire at one end and the sensor at the other.

It's intended use is for a WeMos D1 mini without headers where the sensor is directly soldered to the board (see image). While I am using it for a proximity sensor, it should work for any others sensor with a similar diameter wire, yes, looking at you DS18B20!

Build your own

While there are plenty of cases around it's always a nice exercise to build something from scratch so here we are.

The aim was:

• friction fit sensor cable

• snap-in lid and base-plate

• hole to screw it to the wall

• printable on my entry level printer with standard settings

So basically I just wanted something I can snap together without further nuts and bolts.

The lettering on both lid and back-plate should be on your (PEI) plate and tells you which faces out. The base enclosure itself I printed vertically with the biggest surface facing downwards. Reason for this was to get a stronger profile for the slits the lid snaps into. See image three as an example.

Using PrusaSlicer with organic supports for this. By default prusa probably wants to build another tree for the reset button hole. Blocked that one since that overhang should be fine.

Printed this in PLA with a 0.4mm nozzle and 0.28mm layer height.