Hi

Can anyone help me how to clean these Nauticam Wet lenses ? We have 4 lenses from our friends with same issue.

I have sent few emails to Nauticam but did not get any reply.

Thanks

Unfortunately this is a case of prevention being better than cure. This happens when salty water is allowed to dry on the surface. The salts concentrate and the pH increases and eventually it etches the glass.

Some people have reported success using optical grade cerium oxide to polish. This risks damage to anti reflective coatings, so use at your own risk, but there are reports of it cleaning the surface up reasonable well.

To prevent keep the glass wet till you can soak it in freshwater. When you remove it it blow it dry and wipe with a microfibre cloth to prevent the droplets evaporating on the surface. Even the rinse water drying repeatedly will eventually etch the glass surface.

Thank You @Chris Ross

We clean these glasses with freshwater same as our dome port, but there's no problem with the dorm port, I found that all our WWL lenses have this issue with less than a year. we usually do around 150-200 dives per year which is I believe very less.

And also this is design for saltwater and it must be more durable?

Thank You

Most dome ports are made of plastic . They don't have the coatings dome glasses have.

The water burn (it's called like that) also depends a lot of where you are diving. Some freshwater attacks harder than other including anodization on aluminum housings. The real limiting thing is to wash in freshwater and blow immediately some dry air to remove any moisture from the glass.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by eocean-eu

Hi guys,
could someone please explain to me why a coating would be applied to the outer surface of a port? We all clean and dry our lenses after every dive. Even if we were to use a super-soft cloth, it still means we are compromising the coating. In my view, an AF coating only makes sense on the inner surface of the lens. But please—I'm open to being corrected. I use Ceroxid to polish all my glass ports and had never a problem.
BR Markus

2 hours ago, KiruKakuni said:

Thank You @Chris Ross

We clean these glasses with freshwater same as our dome port, but there's no problem with the dorm port, I found that all our WWL lenses have this issue with less than a year. we usually do around 150-200 dives per year which is I believe very less.

And also this is design for saltwater and it must be more durable?

Thank You

could be different glass compositions? in any case the cause doesn't change and allowing your rinse water to dry can do this. What is your fresh water like? Is it hard water? This makes things worse as hard water is caused by alkaline salts and they can etch (corrode) the glass if sufficiently concentrated. You can use a blower or a nozzle attached to a tank to blow water off.

As a chemist, without doing any significant review, it seems unusual to me that evaporating sea water would reach a low or high enough pH to dissolve glass. I would expect evaporating sea water to result in precipitation of various solids with calcium and magnesium carbonates probably being the first to precipitate and later calcium and magnesium sulfates and eventually sodium and potassium chloride and maybe magnesium hydroxide. The carbonates and any hydroxides dissolve in acid so you may want to try vinegar or citric acid if the coating is compatible with them. Citric is a stronger acid and also complexes with calcium and magnesium to increase solubility.

I use NOVIS polishing products (mainly the fine product) to remove and polish small scratches or minor deposits (nothing like your pictures) from my plastic ports. I believe the NOVIS components are somewhat less abrasive than cerium oxide but they would probably also damage any coating on the glass.

Or if the lens is coated then maybe there is some reaction of evaporating sea water with the coating?

Here two things you can do to prevent this.

1.     Don’t allow saltwater or freshwater where there is calcium present in the water to dry on the glass.

If you can’t keep your housing in the rinse tank/bucket on the boat, wrap a wet towel around it.

2.     After the dive(s) when it comes time to rinse/soak your gear in freshwater, be sure to dry off the glass with clean dry towel or cloth as soon as that done to prevent water spots from lingering. Even my face-mask gets this treatment

I live in South Florida where our fresh water is loaded with calcium. If you allow them to dry in place they will leave micro deposits where they dry which are total bitch to remove afterward.

My WWL-1 has hundreds and hundreds of dives over six years, going on seven, and not a single spot. I keep the plastic cap on, I rinse both the dome glass and the rear lens element and pat or blot dry them with a microfiber cloth between dives if I cannot keep the rig wet in the rinse tank. Same with my housing port. I do have some damage on my housing port but not enough to affect images yet, probably from forgetting to rinse. I will replace it soon probably, sooner or later maybe. High calcium fresh water can spot also.