Howdy - we have a project going on where we have several antennas inside a Blue 8” enclosure, and at least one of them is supposed to point through the acrylic end cap on the end without the penetrators.
The Al end cap would have been a non-starter for us, but we are having some antenna tuning issues due to the large Al mass in the o-ring flange rings, so my question: has anyone been successful either 3D printing the existing o-ring flange, or is there some other non-metallic option that is out there that folks have used (e.g. machined Delrin)
You would need to have it laser sintered, and even then it might be too porous, printing it in ABS or nylon will not be strong enough. Having it milled out of Alcatel might be. Check out prevco’s plastic housing line. They are rediculously expensive, but might be what you are looking for.
I would not recommend trying FDM 3D printed flanges. A buddy of mine tried it, and no matter how much acetone smoothing you do they will still leak at very shallow depths.
If you aren’t planning on going too deep, a machined “plastic” flange should work. You could also use acrylic cement and glue the end-cap directly onto the tube. If you use acrylic cement, I would strongly recommend vacuum testing before putting the enclosure into the water and probably picking up a leak detector.