Help! Nauticam lubricant for blue S&S o-ring?

Hi, I've managed to loose my o-ring lubricant for my (new) Sea&Sea YS-D1 strobes. I'm leaving to Indonesia tomorrow, and realised that I might not have the correct lubricant for the blue o-rings. Sea&Sea stresses the user to use their own yellow tube with a blue cap. What I do have is quite a few tubes of Nauticams lubricant. White opaque, with the text "Suitable for Nitrile and Silicone rubber o-rings".

Will it be OK to use Nauticams lubricant on the blue Sea&Sea o-rings, or will they swell and potentially break?

I've tried searching, but mostly found threads talking about Tribolube.

/Best regars, Björn

Bjorn,

Check this thread out and see if it help:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=46968

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=52815

Have you looked at your dive destination to see if there are any dealers there in Indo? You might get them to mail a tube to your dive location before you get there.

Stephen

Thanks Stephen, those were the threads I found before, and it doesn't give me an affirmative answer. I guess I could try to find a Sea&Sea store in KL on my transfer day. The place in Indo is at Pulau Weh, and pretty much everything there is very basic, so I'm somewhat skeptic mail will get there in time before I leave.

/Björn

Hi,

As far as i understand one can use a lubricant made for colored o rings across the board for any other o ring , black or colored. I have used sea and sea lubricant on inon yellow o rings and vice versa. I have not used nauticam on colored o rings but, i think it should work.

Scuba Symphony has o ring lubricants and they are in KL. Maybe you can buy some on line and have it shipped to some place convenient in KL ?

Good luck..BUT i personally think Nauticam lube will do the job without issues.

Cheers,

Diggy

I ended up finding a store that opened before I left Stockholm, so I am now a proud owner of (yet another) tube of Sea&Sea lubricant! Thanks for time and effort though guys!

/Björn

This is one of the questions what confuses people the most. Many underwater camera shops display their greases wrongly also. Here's what I have gathered about O-rings and their greases:

- The coloured O-rings made for underwater camera equipment are made of silicone rubber. Do not use a grease that has silicone in it.

- Most of the O-rings.. plumbing, DIY etc.. in the world are made of Nitrile rubber and are usually black. These can be lubricated even with silicone grease. For a fact I know that all ikelite housing O-rings are Nitrile. (From plumber's merchant you can also buy dark brown O-rings that are actually made of silicone)

- How to recognize the two different materials? If both O-rings are not lubricated the silicone rings feel much more slippery between your fingers. The silicone O-rings also are softer if you squeeze them between your thumb and index finger.

- How to know if O-ring grease has silicone in it or not? This is the hard part as many reputable shops label their O-ring grease as "silicon grease" even when the grease does not contain silicon. Sometimes you hear a word fluorosilicone mentioned when talking about these kinds of greases. Most of the greases in UW-photography world are these types and can be used with all O-rings without fear of swelling. Interestingly Sea & Sea say that their grease includes silicone... when in practice it has been known to work with all O-rings. It could be that their silicone is the fluorosilicone type.

- If you have bought Ikelite products you need to be careful. Their stock grease includes silicone and should not be used with any other brand. Hence my advise for Ikelite users, who mix and match other types of lights for example... is to throw the grease away and use generic O-ring grease.

- Safe greases for all O-rings are at least: Sea & Sea, Inon, Olympus and Nauticam. I'd be wary of grease from a builder's merchant as many of these include silicone

- I'm sure there are all sort of weird exceptions to these rules

- I should add that even Sea&Sea used to do two types of grease. Years back I saw Sea & Sea grease in a white tube with black cap. This grease was somehow different. The current yellow tube the only type I have seen for years.

This has been talked about quite a bit. The nauticam grease is a perfluoro ether based grease like Christolube or Tribolube and is compatible with all types of o-rings including nitrile/buna, silicone, polyurethane, PDMS, and any other that you can find. Some nitrile o-rings can swell a bit with fluorosilicone lubricants so be careful.

Bill

As stated above by Bill, Christolube or Tribolube are compatible with all o-rings. So why carry different greases??

I use Tribolube 71 on the gray Nauticam, black Subal, yellow Inon, blue Sea & Sea and red Olympus o-rings without any problems.

Elmer

Ive used christolube on regs and rebreather o-rings. Problem is it dries out over time leaving a hard white residue. Not sure Id be so keen on using it on camera o-rings.

That is why I use Tribolube 71. Christolube in my hands at least stays "wet" for more than 6 months but it does dry out in a year, so far Tribolube hasn't dried in over 15 months.
Bill

Molykote FS1292 is suitable for all o-rings, I have used it for years.

where is this tribolube 71 available from? to buy

where is this tribolube 71 available from? to buy

I buy it from: http://www.piranhadivemfg.com/category/Lubricants-156 in the States.

But I would think that you have a local dealer since you are on the other side of the pond. I googled it for UK and got: http://www.deeptech.co.uk/Shop/Tribolude.html

where is this tribolube 71 available from? to buy

Tribolube 71 is oxygen-safe. Great for Nitrox regulators, but unnecessary for photographic gear, unless you are in saturation...

Molykote FS1292 is sold by Cameras Underwater, amongst others.

Neither are what you would call cheap...

... but a tube of FS1292 will last for several years of intense photography.

At the Cameras underwater price of 65 pounds for 100 grams the Molykote is a bit more expensive than Tribolube (at least here in the U.S.) which is like 18 pounds for 56 grams.

In any case, either will work for all o-rings.

Bill

Hi folks, would appreciate some advice on this topic too. I'm currently in Egypt and have run out of Nauticam Lubricant. Can I use the sea and sea or inon lubricant on my nauticam o ring?

Hi folks, would appreciate some advice on this topic too. I'm currently in Egypt and have run out of Nauticam Lubricant. Can I use the sea and sea or inon lubricant on my nauticam o ring?