Housing Storage - open or closed?

I have had several UW camera housings over the years, and I have always stored them open. Usually in something that keeps dust off. I make sure the seals/o-rings are dry but usually leave them on. On my larger housing, because I don't dive it as often and because the housing has 'corners', I actually remove the o-ring and store it separately.

BUT... housings come from the manufacturer often with the o-ring installed and with the case CLOSED.

My question is, is it better to store the housing week-to-week open, or closed (sealed).

Sounds like a silly question for someone whose been doing this since 2003, but I recently got a brand new Go-Pro (official) housing and it came all sealed tight. I just wonder if you are supposed to keep them sealed or do as I've always done and leave them open.

-R

They also always come with a spare oring.  It does not really matter.  In my opinion you are less likely damage or lose the oring if it is installed and doing it's job.  

I have always stored housings closed with O ring in place. Never had a problem arising from that.

I guess I was always worried about putting a 'set' into the o-ring if I left it closed. That is, leaving it squished and sealing seemed more likely to cause a leak down the road than letting it expanded with the housing open.

As for spare o-rings, most of my good (i.e. aluminum) housings were bought used and so did not come with a spare. I did buy spares from the manufacturer for those. Go-pro housings do not come with a spare o-ring, though I suppose you could steal the one off the 'skeleton' door. Then again, go-pro housings  are cheap enough to just buy another if they start to weep.

For now my go-pro housing joins all the others being left open. Everything is under cover and protected.

I've been leaving my o-rings in place and some of the current o-rings are 4 years old and still going strong.  I think there's a lot of myth and legend surrounding o-rings, it all sounds somewhat plausible but I doubt there's much science behind it.  Same with cleaning o-rings with claims you'll stretch your o-rings if you take them off too much. 

If you are worried about the housing o-ring getting compression set - what about the o-rings on all the buttons?  I don't think anyone thinks about removing them in storage!

Most housing button seals would be Buna-N or nitrile rubber it is noted to have good compression set resistance   Silicone on the other hand has excellent compression set resistance which is  better than the buttons o-ring material and many housing main o-rings are silicone rubber.

Permanent elongation by being stretched too often does not seem to be an issue that is discussed for o-rings.As long as you don't exceed the elastic limit you are generally fine and this is more of a problem on small diameter o-rings - they need to be stretched more to fit them.

I'm with Chris. 

5 housings, 20+ years and I've never had a housing, strobe or port o-ring problem (says he looking around for wood to touch)

Hey guys, I am quite new to UW housings. So far I only used GoPro in UW housing and I was storing that closed with o ring on it. Didn't care about the o ring in any way.

So based on your opinions above its ok to store my uw housing closed and o rings on it, but do you care about them? Do you clean them and then use some greasing?
Thank you

3 hours ago, Martin_cz said:

Hey guys, I am quite new to UW housings. So far I only used GoPro in UW housing and I was storing that closed with o ring on it. Didn't care about the o ring in any way.

So based on your opinions above its ok to store my uw housing closed and o rings on it, but do you care about them? Do you clean them and then use some greasing?
Thank you

yes you need to service them, I service whenever I change batteries others do it less often, you should always check it closely for grit and hairs which might cause a leak.  You want to make sure there's no water drops on the inside side of the o-ring.  How often you need to clean them depends on where you dive - turbulent water with suspended particles or snady dive sites can be a problem.  It also depends on the design of the o-ring -> o-rings that don't need lube you can just brush off, those with lube, the grit and hairs tend to stick so need more care.  All o-rings need lube unless they are a flat face seal - the lube doesn't seal it just allows the o-ring to slide across the surfaces and seat properly to seal.  There's a thread on this forum on the topic of how often to clean o-rings.

View archived post in: How often to clean orings

Thank you Chris, will have a look at it