I have traditionally maintained O rings by removing them, inspecting and cleaning if warranted, lightly greasing, and replacing.  I have tried to be careful about stretching the o rings or damaging them on nearby screw threads and sharp edges.  In general, this has worked fine for me for many years. Recently, though, I saw a maintenance comment from Retra that suggested leaving the o rings in place on the battery cap, and just greasing the visible portion.  I asked Retra about this and the response that removal or leaving them in place was fine with the caveat not to stretch or damage the o rings during removal.

Similarly, my dive computer mfr warns that in removing o rings from the battery cover, remove the O rings from one side only, avoiding the threaded portion of the battery cap so as to minimize the risk of damaging the O ring.  I also have a couple of lights for which removal of the O rings is difficult and I worry about damage and/or stretching, and I have considered just lubing them in place absent some evidence of grit or dirt.

So, it got me to wondering what other folks do:

Are you a take-it-off person or a leave-it-there to lube it person or does it depend on the O ring and equipment in question for you?

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by JohnD

I am a member of the "hands off the orings" club. 95% of the time if just lightly wipe off and lube the visible surfaces with the orings in place. Only if there is lot of grit visible do i remove them. My Nauticam housing back oring never gets lubrication, but i remove and rinse it in the sink fairly often as it collects fine grit from shore diving. The groove gets wiped out with a qtip.

Every Jan 1st I will do a big maintenance pass of most of my gear. This is a good opportunity to clean out the oring groove on strobes, lights, housing.

Yep, I’m pretty much with Dave on this. I seldom remove them - especially the housing main o-ring - unless there is obvious sand or grit visible. Shore diving can create this. But week diving from a liveaboard rarely requires an o-ring removal with the potential for damage or mis-placing.

I never never never remove the main oring unless I have some good reason to do so.

I'm doing some shore dives and each time I'm forced to remove everything. This is the main o-ring when I open the housing after a thorough wash and 1 hour bath 🤧

I don't typically remove the housing O ring either during dive trips, I was thinking more of dive and focus lights and such, where the o rings are smaller and have to be slid over threads or pinched hard or stretched.

37 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

I never never never remove the main oring unless I have some good reason to do so.

I'm doing some shore dives and each time I'm forced to remove everything. This is the main o-ring when I open the housing after a thorough wash and 1 hour bath 🤧

Did you build a sand castle around your housing?! 😀

24 minutes ago, JohnD said:

I don't typically remove the housing O ring either during dive trips, I was thinking more of dive and focus lights and such, where the o rings are smaller and have to be slid over threads or pinched hard or stretched.

Yeah, don't remove those small orings. Very lightly lube them with each battery change.