Housing preperations

I just bought a Ikelite housing and I was wondering if there were any important preperations I should make to it before eah dive. I heard you are supposed to lube the o-rings is this correct? If so what works best? thanks!

Myself, I inspect o-rings carefully whenever I remove the back (hsg) or batteries (strobes) -- make sure they are clean, seated, and there's not so much as a scintilla of water behind them. However, they, don't need to be removed, much less lubed, every time. In my opinion you are only asking for trouble if you do it (more chances to mis-seat, get dirt stuck to the lube, etc.). Be very sparing with the use of lube -- it doesn't seal, it just allows the o-ring to easily slide into its proper sealing postion.

If I don't need to download images or change a battery, I just leave the whole kit assembled, and merely rinse it briefly. If I only need to change lenses, I only mess with the port-o-ring -- on Ike ports, this o-ring is a bit loose and you should make sure it's properly positioned before (and after; clear parts!) seating the port.

Oh, and make sure you remove the lens cap before putting the port on...

My 2 cents.

Chris

As I remember the o-ring in the back not supposed to be lube with silicon, only the port's o-ring.

I'll try to search the papers that came with the housing in the evening to ensure that.

thanks for all the advice, I really appreciate it!

I didn't fount the papers in the mess I have but I found this in Ike's site:

Maintenance of Ikelite Housings

I strongly suggest that you test dive the housing first before using it the camera installed. Dive it to about 50ft & work all the controls several times - push/pull/rotate/etc. Sometimes a dynamic pressure test like this will reveal a small leak that the factory static test does not. Have fun.