Diving without a Nauticam valve cap.

I somehow misplaced my Nauticam vacuum cap while on a diving trip.  I did not realize it until I finished a dive.  My housing remained dry until I relieved the vacuum and although I tried to remove all the water from the exposed vacuum valve, a light mist got on my camera.  I decided to push it and did around five dives with one at 100 feet with no problems.  Maybe I just got lucky!  Since I could not find any reports of people diving without a cap, I thought I would post about my experience.  But please, do this at your own risk and please do blame me if you housing leaks without a cap!

The biggest issue is going to be water inside the valve mechanism the valve getting inside as you noted.  I imagine it's possible when the pressure differential gets high enough that the water pressure could cause the button to depress - but that depends on the design of the valve/button. 

Hi Hiloboy,

In case it is the "new" Nauticam valve with the (convenient) red push button, this can be very dangerous, better you buy a new cap: you can press the button unintentionally UW and then the entire housing will flood. See here a report, how someone lost his camera by doing so: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64549946

Wolfgang

I "lost" my cap for a few days and then ended up finding it. After that scare, I bought some little square stickers from Amazon and did the following:

That's smart! could you share the amazon link? What did you stick on it?

Thanks! I've used them for quite a few things, actually.

Below is a link to what I bought. The hardest part was just trying to figure out what to search for.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083416L5L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm not sure what you mean by "What did you stick on it?" The zip tie "anchors" that I bought have stickers "built in" on them so I just put it on the vacuum cover and then tied cave line to it.

Let me know if you want more info or pictures.

- brett

8 hours ago, TmxDiver said:

Thanks! I've used them for quite a few things, actually.

Below is a link to what I bought. The hardest part was just trying to figure out what to search for.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083416L5L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm not sure what you mean by "What did you stick on it?" The zip tie "anchors" that I bought have stickers "built in" on them so I just put it on the vacuum cover and then tied cave line to it.

Let me know if you want more info or pictures.

- brett

Very helpful, thanks

Side note: I have the backscatter valve pump. What if I forgot my pump on a trip or lost it on a boat for example... is there a way to manually release the air out of housing?

You can use any a toothpick, matchstick or other similar sized tool to depress the Schrader valve in the Backscatter vacuum valves to release pressure.

On 2/11/2021 at 11:40 AM, adamhanlon said:

You can use any a toothpick, matchstick or other similar sized tool to depress the Schrader valve in the Backscatter vacuum valves to release pressure.

Thanks for the respond Adam. Loving the wetpixel live series