January 6, 2024
Description
This is a perfect place to hide a house or even a business key. I got tired of locking myself out of the house so I invented this. It looks just like an LB conduit body that everyone is used to seeing attached to the side of a house about a foot off the ground, so few people would think a key was hidden there.
The front plate just slides out to reveal a key on a hook on the inside of the front plate.
Of course, it will probably be out in the sun and weather, so you should print it in a plastic that can handle that. I used PETg and it has worked fine for years in partial shade. Best to print it in gray, the standard color of these conduit boxes.
I designed this for ½" gray PVC pipe. If you want, a ½" threaded fitting can be epoxied into back plate where a real conduit box would go into the wall, but this means drilling a large hole in the outer wall. Instead, I designed a hole for a long screw that can go through the wall plate and into the outer wall of your house. No one will notice that it is not going into the wall. To complete the fakery, a 12" length of gray ½" PVC pipe is shoved into the lower hole and that is then shoved into the ground.
The front and back plates clearly show the UP orientation. The body is positioned with the pipe connection at the bottom.
Sorry about the mix of Imperial and Metric measurements.
Components
4 - 3D-printed parts
1 - ½" x 12" long piece of gray PVC pipe
4 - M4 8mm long flat-head screws (to attach wall plate to body)
2 - M4 6mm to 10mm long round-head screws (decorative to make front plate look like a real conduit body)
1 - M3 x 4mm long flat-head screw (to attach key hook to inside of front plate)
1 - #6 1 ¼" long round-head screw (to attach conduit body to exterior wall of house)
License:
Creative Commons — Public Domain