Hi to all,

we are just planning our trip to North-Sulawesi in April and as my housing now is 6 years old and has about 230 dives I intended to make a complete revision at our local shop. Surprisingly they recommended a revision after 500 dives and as long as everything works it is not necessary yet. Now Im torn back an forth if I should wait a little bit longer or do it right now for my peace of mind. By the way: Shouldnt equipment like viewfinders also be serviced?

Would be great to hear other opinions about servicing.

Tanks in advance,

Oliver

Edited Sunday at 02:39 PM2 days by Olli

The cost of servicing most housings is quite expensive now, and it does take quite a lot of work. Maybe look up the recommended service intervals for your brand @Olli ?

Nauticam generally recommends 200 dives or two years, or longer for select housings. I’d be quite happy if my usual servicing company said to wait for 500!

I've never had a housing serviced and a couple have done close to 1000 dives over a period of several years. If it works smoothly and. for example, they are not frequently in sandy environments, I'd suggest leaving well alone......

The only thing that could be serviced on my viewfinder (a Subal) would be the o-rings that mate with the housing. Again, unless they show any sign of wear, I would't change them.

Interesting.

Isotta also recommends 200 dives or 2 years.

And how often do you change the o-ring of the housing? My last S&S D300 housing it had like 15 years and didn’t change it even once.

Same here, I have not had a housing serviced as yet, my Em-1 MkII was 6 years old and not serviced in that time, My local dealer said it was needed unless you had issues.

Thanks a lot for the answers,

of course Isotta recommends a shorter service interval but honestly one or two years, which mens less than 100 dives for me, is not sensible to me.

I change main o Rins every 2-3 years or until I notice any damage.

Regards

It really depends on how well you treat your housing and keep it clean. If you are meticulous about soaking and drying most housings can go a long time before needed a full service.

However, in some areas the water available is very hard and full of minerals. This can leave ugly residues and calcium build up that probably is not great for the o-ring channels. If you have this situation, make sure to blow dry your housing to get as much of that water off before it dries.

Just like with regulators, be wary of post-service hijinks. A buddy recently sent their housing to Ikelite for service, and it came back completely unusable. Controls installed improperly, broken hot shoe, etc. Years ago, I sent my Nauticam D800 housing to Reef Photo for service and while they did a good job, they missed fully inserting a c-clip. The error nearly cost me the use of my camera during a trip. The c-clip popped off and came inches from being lost forever. I called them up and asked for a supply of spare clips and parts to make up for it!

Thanks Dave,

I truly agree with your objections. Its like "never change a running system", I really dont want a post-revision error.

Im quite miticulous when it comes to equipment maintenance and as we indeed have water with high calcium content, I routinely blow my housing dry after soaking. Some knobs are a little bit stiffer than others, the front dial is also a little bit harder to turn. But to be honest, this was the case from the beginning and hasnt really worsened since then. I always thougt that maybe the lubrication was not intense ex factory.

We have an old similar thread here:

https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/729-having-a-housing-serviced/