Flooded GATES EX1 housing

I love a tight gland as much as the next underwater video housing owner but before you all go off swinging on your wrenches, 2 thoughts...

 

1. Those little threads strip easily, especially if aluminium is in the equation, and then you'll have a new nightmare. So go easy.

 

2. Tightening a loctited gland might actually break the loctite, increasing the chances of the gland coming loose in the long run. As the actress said to the bishop, better to give your glands a thorough visual inspection and check them firmly with the fingers.

Completely agree, the only reason to use the spanner is to tighten something that the loctite has given up on. Occasionaly its easier to use a spanner to check, not to crank on the pressure, but to hold the hex head in a positive manner and apply no more torque than you would with your fingers. In fact with a spanner you can apply even less pressure and be more accurate because your not trying to get a good grip with your fingers. Very handy if the hex head is recessed into the housing wall in anyway. A tiny movement in the nut/gland is very visible because of the length of the spanner. It was only a tip.

Dont forget that using loctite is not mandatory for a gland fitting on a housing. Most fittings I've worked with dont have it. They work perfectly fine with out it. I'm more concerned with the O-ring and not the loctite when it comes to prepping a housing.

....and followed by

 

Olympus replaced a housing for me last year for free because of a similar issue. I was able to save the camera because I notice the leak early.

The only similarity here is that the both housings leaked around a control. How they leaked is a different matter, and thats down to being a completely different type of housing with different methods and materials used. On a molded polycarbonate housing, unless its the o-ring on the control rod thats been damaged, there is nothing really that can be replaced or re-machined. If the problem lies in the hole of the control then the whole housing has to be replaced. Relatively cheap option for a mass produced plastic housing, compared with a large machined aluminium housing.

The end use is different too, Gates housings are rated to and will work at 130m+, a depth were the fittings on, say your Olympus housing, really wont remain water tight, if the housing hadnt already imploded at 90m. To achieve such high depth ratings requires fittings which are subtly different from ones on mass produced housings, and require a subtly different level and type of care from the end user.

Completely agree, the only reason to use the spanner is to tighten something that the loctite has given up on. Occasionaly its easier to use a spanner to check, not to crank on the pressure, but to hold the hex head in a positive manner and apply no more torque than you would with your fingers. In fact with a spanner you can apply even less pressure and be more accurate because your not trying to get a good grip with your fingers. Very handy if the hex head is recessed into the housing wall in anyway. A tiny movement in the nut/gland is very visible because of the length of the spanner. It was only a tip.

 

Dont forget that using loctite is not mandatory for a gland fitting on a housing. Most fittings I've worked with dont have it. They work perfectly fine with out it. I'm more concerned with the O-ring and not the loctite when it comes to prepping a housing.

There you go ... Get this written in the manual ... Under 'important to check' hopefully others can learn off of Brumpsters misfortune ...

Dive safe

DeanB

If it was a design/manufacturing fault then you would be correct. However, in the UK it is the car driver's responsibility to ensure roadworthiness of the vehicle being driven and "it shouldn't have come undone" would not be an acceptable reason for not being prosecuted if a vehicle is stopped and checked. To be accepted as an excuse you would have to prove either a design or manufacturing fault.

 

What Brumpy is arguing is that a loctited gland should not have unscrewed and that this might have been a manufacturer's problem. Unfortunately for Brumpy, a careful inspection of the housing should have revealed the problem (especially important after it had been in transit) and I would suggest that the same argument would apply. It may not be palatable but .....

 

In my experience, virtually all floods I have seen are down to:

 

poor pre-dive assembly, or

 

insufficient pre-dive housing checks

 

As I have said before, I have had housings damaged in transit (I remember having to straighten out a control rod in a hotel room in New Zealand, the night before the first dive, unfortunately I couldn't fix the strobe which was as dead as can be - both damaged in transit) and have found the problems during reassembly and checking prior to diving.

The housing was in handlugage the whole trip!

The housing was in handlugage the whole trip!

Hey Brumpy,

Can you post the pictures of the glad, were you just supposed to have checked the main nut or were you supposed to have pulled the thing apart and then tightened something up inside?

J

I wonder if any housing manufacturer has ever replaced a camera or compensated a customer for camera damage caused by a flood.

Only in your dreams Nick. And even then there'd be a shipping charge plus tax plus a boxing fee and wrapping paper fee

Steve

The complet housing with the new Wide angle port

Most of the controls on 1 side

The basterd!

like you see it is not easy to to reach the glands

Thanks Brumpy,

I have actually had Ikelite pay for a camera repair for the exact same same as what happened to Brump's, the housing was probably 20 dives old and a gland had come loose and caused a flood. I sent to back to Ikelite the fixed the problem and paid the camera repair bill. I wasn't a huge bill as I noticed early on but it still was a few hundred AUD's.

The only similarity here is that the both housings leaked around a control. How they leaked is a different matter, and thats down to being a completely different type of housing with different methods and materials used. On a molded polycarbonate housing, unless its the o-ring on the control rod thats been damaged, there is nothing really that can be replaced or re-machined. If the problem lies in the hole of the control then the whole housing has to be replaced. Relatively cheap option for a mass produced plastic housing, compared with a large machined aluminium housing.

The end use is different too, Gates housings are rated to and will work at 130m+, a depth were the fittings on, say your Olympus housing, really wont remain water tight, if the housing hadnt already imploded at 90m. To achieve such high depth ratings requires fittings which are subtly different from ones on mass produced housings, and require a subtly different level and type of care from the end user.

No the similarity is that both housings leaked after being used on previous dives without opening them between dives. The housing I had was for a DSLR with a facing oring seal that simply breached after two previous dives the same day. Enough folks had experienced the same issue that Olympus not only responded by replacing the housing for free and the camera bodies extremely cheap. They also made corrections to the faulty design partly due to feedback from their customers. Personally I think it was a good thing I just didn't throw my hands up in the air and decide to go bowling. I had enough folks like you who were kind enough to blame me and tell me to just do a better job in the future. My perserverance paid off. I also think the gland in question is something that probably occurs often enough to warrant a different design. Especially if there's no notice in the operators manual. But hey, if you're satisfied with dysfunctional equipment and handy enough with a spanner then why bother...right?

Aside from the gland problem, I see some white powdery deposits. Possibly the start of some galvanic corrosion. Gates housings should be washed really really really really REALLY REALLY well AND dried afterwards, especially around the controls. Once galvanic corrosion starts it's likely to get worse and if it doesn't cause a functional problem in the longterm, it will certainly knacker your resale value.

Also, I don't know if current housings have a zinc washer on the bottom like my VX2000 housing does, but it should be kept nice and tight. It's supposed to stop galvanic corrosion.

Hi Brumpy

Well it truly is a nightmare scenario and one that I'm sure everyone here dreads, especially those of us with no budget to carry a back up system. It's certainly made me go and recheck the glands on my Gates housing and I'll make a point of checking them no on a regular basis.

Cheers, Simon

Forgive my ignorance. Is the gland aka nut ? If it is, is a spanner aka wrench ? Seriously. I have a Gates FX7 housing with the same type of controls shown in the picture. Is everyone saying I should check the tightness of what I'm calling the nut ? Hand tight check or should I get a special wrench called a spanner ?

Forgive my ignorance. Is the gland aka nut ? If it is, is a spanner aka wrench ? Seriously. I have a Gates FX7 housing with the same type of controls shown in the picture. Is everyone saying I should check the tightness of what I'm calling the nut ? Hand tight check or should I get a special wrench called a spanner ?

Yeah Ron, Spanner is a wrench and the nut is the outside part of the gland. I have just checked with my fingers as I didn't want to break the lock tight seal... someone correct me if I should have used a spanner / wrench

Jon

Same here Johnny - I checked with my fingers. If there is a solvent used to seal them then I certainly didn't want to be breaking that with a spanner/wrench/tool or anything else.

Okay, I'll be brutaly honest. If he takes a spanner and tightens this thing after finding it loose and the housing floods it is his fault again. Gates will simply reply, you should have sent it in for tightening instead of doing it yourself. Your argument here is ridiculous. Loctite is used on automobiles, aircraft and the like and to be brutally honest I've yet to see a head bolt fly off after 200,000 miles of driving. I would think an auto would be subjected to much more "vibration" than a camera housing in transit. The users only fault was trusting a piece of equipment to do what it was designed to do. We do this in everyday life.

I agree 100% with ce4jesus. There are parts of a housing we should not have to fiddle with. Gates housings are very expensive and the company should stand by it's products. We are buying housing to protect very expensive video gear we put inside. This is called "customer respect".

Pierre

We have to remember that Brumpy used the housing for about 50 dives before his flood and had used it for several dives just prior to his incident. Gates has always enjoyed a good customer service reputation and there is nothing to show that there was an internal problem, not checkable by Brumpy. It is very possible that the housing and internal gland could have been dislodged by airport personnel, another diver bumping his housing on the cam table, or inadvertently and unknowingly being dislodged by Brumpy himself. Of course this is all inconclusive and speculative at best and without prove of the housing itself being at fault, not sure how anyone could hold Gates, or any housing manufacturer, to be responsible.

Steve

All that white crud would suggest lack of cleansing post dive, which if i were Gates would suggest lack of maintenance.

Stew

Anyone got a free gift voucher or lunch invite from Gates yet ... ???

Dive safe

DeanB

We have to remember that Brumpy used the housing for about 50 dives before his flood and had used it for several dives just prior to his incident. Gates has always enjoyed a good customer service reputation and there is nothing to show that there was an internal problem, not checkable by Brumpy. It is very possible that the housing and internal gland could have been dislodged by airport personnel, another diver bumping his housing on the cam table, or inadvertently and unknowingly being dislodged by Brumpy himself. Of course this is all inconclusive and speculative at best and without prove of the housing itself being at fault, not sure how anyone could hold Gates, or any housing manufacturer, to be responsible.

Steve

Steve,

I would think that abuse of the housing..ie rough knocks during transport or use, would be highly visible. 50 dives is nothing. If this were a port or an oring, I'd be more inclined to side with gates but this is a control that is made for use. While they might have a great reputation, I think if I were in the video market right now I'd have to consider someone else.