DS-125 leaking

Has anybody else had this problem? One of my DS-125s likes to leak just a little bit each dive. Enough to get say about 5 drops of water into the column in the center of the battery compartment where the lock down lever attaches, but none noticable in the battery compartment.

I'm sending it to Ike for a checkup, and the regular O ring is totally fine and I've carefully cleaned and checked it multiple times and before each dive, so I'm thinking it's probably the O ring in the snappy lock mechanism.

Just wondering if this is a common problem. The divemaster on my last liveaboard says he sees alot of DS-125s have this problem, but I can't find anything about it on the forums.

Thanks.

Taxgeek

I have 3 DS-125's and had a couple of flooding issues when I first got them in 2002, but I haven't had any problems since they were replaced by Ikelite. They have been workhorses for many dives ever since.

I occassionally hear about recent DS-125 floods, but not like the early years after they were introduced.

Send it in and Ikelite will fix it.

Karl

I had exactly the same problem, just a trickle of water gets in between the battery and the main body. Initially I though that the battery lever was not putting enough pressure on the o-ring and some water would get in with the pressure [it is so small that you can leave the strobe in the bathtub for a week and there would be no signs but when you go down...]. I exchanged the battery with another one and apparently had nothing to do with the battery, it was always the same strobe, independently of the battery pack.

Strangely the water does not seem to come in through the battery pack lever shaft, neither through the TTL/power dial, there were no traces of water making contact with the tracks in the pcb board where the mode dial makes the contact [and if it was leaking through here there would be], but there was always a minute amount of water trapped inside the main body of the strobe. I honestly do not have a clue where water was coming in, the front assembly was a prime suspect. I removed it, checked the o-ring and re-assemble, I took off the external rubber protection to check if the o-ring was properly seated, it seemed ok, still roughly the same amount of water would get in. There are a couple of things I should mention though, the strobe started leaking some time ago and then it got bumped by the tank of a fellow diver at the surface and the leaking increased substantially until it short circuited the electronics within, no external, visible damage was apparent. I just noticed some airline cracks along the body near the power dial but the dial itself was not damaged... I am not sure what caused them. Also this happened to my most recent strobe, the old ex-1xxx sn was fully working after yaers of service [and I am not that kind to them]. Some pictures attached...

Maybe Ike himself can shed some light on this issue, I am sure they know where the problem lies rather than my ad-hoc assumptions.

You can service the oring on the shaft. Push on the shaft from the inside and the shaft will come out far enough to reveal the oring. Clean it with a qtip, get the lint off, inspect it for damage, lube it.

If you are in a highly silted area like Lembeh, you can get the battery shaft oring pretty f-ed up with fine volcanic silt. I flooded a battery pack that way and Ikelie found that I was right, the battery pack was gunked up with sand. You can see that Ike went back to the screw on cap with his DS200 strobe. I might change just for that reason.

Thanks all, especially RogerC, I"ll check the shaft O-Ring - it might be all gunky.

If that's not it I'll send it in to Ike.

I did not like the screw on ss200 cap. The oring is back in a groove and it's hard to inspect and clean. Also, since it is a bore-sealing design and not a face-sealing design like the ds125, it needs grease, so it gets even gunkier. I think the ds125 design is superior, but I suspect ike stuck with the unmodified ss200 design because it was proven and good enough and backwards compatible.

Okaaaaay, I may have found the problem. RogerC, when I pushed up on the whole 1/2" diameter internal assembly, it won't go up, regardless of which position it is rotated to. So I decided you must have meant to push up on the 1/4" (or so) metal post inside that thing - I pushed up on that (it's pretty stiff, against a spring), expecting to see a little black o ring emerge sometime -- NO O RING!

Am I just doing it wrong, or could my strobe be missing it's durn o-ring? Problem is, I don't even see the spot where the o-ring is supposed to seat.

The inside post will push out about, oh, I don't know, 1/4" or so, and no o-ring visible. Should I see the o'ring around the metal post?

Thanks!

Taxgeek

push up on the whole 1/2" internal assembly. if you latch and unlatch the lever as you look at the inside of the battery, you'll see it move. Push harder. it won't matter how it is rotated.

I often push mine out and carefully rinse it off in the sink to get the sand out of it.

Roger,

Although the DS125 is lighter, at least with the DS200 I have full control and access to the o-ring. With the 125, I don't. I've never had a flood with my SS200's, but I've had two with my DS125's. Can the O-ring on the DS200 be improved? Heck yea. I'd prefer a compression o-ring, but for sake of not getting water in the battery compartment, the DS200 is the winner by far in my eyes (which are getting quite old). With the DS125, however, I love the feature of how the battery clamps to the strobe. I just wish they had a way to remove the shaft o-ring by the user. To remove that shaft, there are a series of ball bearings and it is really quite complicated. Therefore I am stuck with an o-ring that I cannot fully service, leaving me at risk every time I go underwater, except for the bath tub

good points, Joe.

But you're probably at risk in the bath tub, too, those things are dangerous.

I've flooded both 200s and 125s. I like the 125 better and find it more reliable. Both flooded less that Sea and Sea 90s or various Nikon strobes I've owned.

Greetings,

In approx. 2000 dives with my Sea & Sea YS350s and YS120s I have never had a flood.

The O-rings are quite easy to remove, clean and lube if necessary after diving where

the sand is quite fine and tends to migrate to the O-rings.

I am still using the original O rings that were shipped with the strobes in 1998 and have

over 2000 dives between the two sets of strobes. Great strobes and great O rings.

Happy lighting.