A new Challenge... Too much vacuum ?!?!

I have an Isotta housing for the Nikon Z62.
When I assemble the housing with the camera, it works perfectly.
Despite this - when I pump out the air for vacuum - some buttons don't work: the play, delete, and f1 and f2.
Everything else works.
All the buttons work when I open the valve and air gets in. 

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks

Ido 

My guess is that the camera isn’t seated properly in the housing. The vacuum shouldn’t be creating all that much pressure relative to say a moderately deep dive. I suppose one way to determine this for sure would be to skip the vacuum and dive the camera to 100’ or something and see if you have the same problem. It may be your controls need to be tweaked a little to fit your specific camera but I think if that was the case, the symptoms would persist regardless of the vacuum situation.  Camera bodies can have very minor differences in tolerances depending on which plant they come from. 

But my guess is that the camera just isn’t sitting quite right  perhaps take it out, confirm controls are where they need to be and reload it  

I hope this helps!

HI ido

Yeah, I agree with Stoo. I think the vacuum system has given you early warning that something is out of alignment. You have a button being pushed somewhere that shouldn't be. I've seen this happen a good number of times (usually with Ikelite housings) but first time I've heard a vacuum valve activating it. Quite handy!

As Stoo suggests, take the camera out, re-attach to the slide and reseat.

When I do not vacuum the air - All buttons work just fine - So the alignment should be ok ? What am I missing here ? 

It's possible that the housing needs servicing. There could be a borderline condition that the vacuum pushes over the edge.If one button is a little sticky, it may cause others to not activate. I had this happen once with the shutter trigger on my Nauticam.

39 minutes ago, ido said:

When I do not vacuum the air - All buttons work just fine - So the alignment should be ok ? What am I missing here ? 

No, that's the point, ido. If you took the housing underwater (without the vacuum pressure) chances are you'd have that button problem once you got to depth. As Rob suggests, it's a borderline condition and the vacuum (or having the camera at depth) pushiness it over the edge.

It could well be alignment. If it's not that, there is likely to be an activating arm in the housing that needs a very small adjustment. 

Remind me, is it new or second-hand? If new, an arm/control adjustment is the likely thing. If second-hand, it could need a service with a button slightly sticky and pushing on to a control switch without you realising.

It is 

5 minutes ago, TimG said:

No, that's the point, ido. If you took the housing underwater (without the vacuum pressure) chances are you'd have that button problem once you got to depth. As Rob suggests, it's a borderline condition and the vacuum (or having the camera at depth) pushiness it over the edge.

It could well be alignment. If it's not that, there is likely to be an activating arm in the housing that needs a very small adjustment. 

Remind me, is it new or second-hand? If new, an arm/control adjustment is the likely thing. If second-hand, it could need a service with a button slightly sticky and pushing on to a control switch without you realising.

It is brand new. I did not test it in the water yet.

39 minutes ago, ido said:

It is 

It is brand new. I did not test it in the water yet.

OK, so I'd suggest it's either not quite seated right in the housing - or there is a control lever/button which is very slightly out of adjustment.

Try the reseating first.  

There is no really an option to reposition the camera. I tried it several times. I sent an email to Isotta - Maybe - They will have an idea.

11 hours ago, ido said:

There is no really an option to reposition the camera. I tried it several times. I sent an email to Isotta - Maybe - They will have an idea.

 

Yes you need to talk to Isotta.  A vacuum test is no different to diving.  The vacuum you pull is normally about 200 mBar - this is EXACTLY the same as diving the housing to about 2m.  The pressure difference between inside and outside will be the same as diving the housing without vacuum to 2m.  What can happen is the housing back pulls in a bit closer to the camera when vacuum is applied.

Thanks. I am waiting to Isotta's answer.  

Hello

I own something that is not the same maker's housing, but I had a similar problem.

In my housing, the right arrow key AE-L button did not work well, and in a vacuum state, four buttons and the front wheel did not work.

My housing solved the problem through dealer service.

The four buttons were adjusted by adding a washer, and the problem was solved by adjusting the position of the front wheel contact.

Maybe you will solve the problem with a little adjustment when you receive the service.

I am using z6mark1. I know that mark2 uses dual memory to have two memory cards on the right side of 2 mm, which is thicker.

Among the housings of several makers, isotta is the only housing that can be used together with mark1 and mark2. Perhaps it will work well if you receive the manufacturer's service and adjust the housing controller.

I hope your problem will be solved well.

Thank you. 

Maybe it is just too much vacuum?

In the beginning I had a similar problem with my Nauticam housing and vacuum system, when I was pumping first like crazy (I believed the more vacuum the better... ). Some buttons stopped to work ...

When I pump just one or  two more strokes more after the blue light has changed to green, I do not have any problems with camera controls...

Wolfgang

13 hours ago, Architeuthis said:

Maybe it is just too much vacuum?

In the beginning I had a similar problem with my Nauticam housing and vacuum system, when I was pumping first like crazy (I believed the more vacuum the better... ). Some buttons stopped to work ...

When I pump just one or  two more strokes more after the blue light has changed to green, I do not have any problems with camera controls...

Wolfgang

I know you are reporting your observations, but it doesn't make much sense to me as when pumping out to create a vacuum inside the housing you develop a force which pushes inwards on all of the buttons and the two halves of the housing as well as the port.  This is no different to the external pressure placed on the housing by water when you dive and that pressure is significantly greater than the pressure differential you can develop via vacuum. 

The biggest pressure differential you can develop by removing 100% of the air is one atmosphere and you get 1 bar differential pressure at 10m on housing with no vacuum and of course gets greater as you dive.  The Nauticam vacuum pump is really not that efficient it has large clearances and as the pressure gets lower more atmospheric air leaks into the pump as you withdraw the piston so I would think you may get 0.5 bar vacuum at the very greatest at a guess. 

Pressure is pressure whether created by vacuum inside or external pressure from diving.  So something else must be happening I think - perhaps the buttons behave differently when immersed in water. 

The pressure forces acting on the buttons is really quite low, most seem to have 3mm dia control shafts - the inward force on those buttons varies with control shaft diameter and for a 3mm shaft at 30m the inward force would 200 gram.  The housing are rated with springs to resist a 700 gram force which is what you get at 100m.   The deflection of the housing itself at 0,5 bar I would expect is minimal. 

Did you ever confirm that all the buttons work at your maximum depth - I don't know how you use your housing, when I dive I very rarely push any of the buttons, just change aperture and ISO occasionally and the review button sometimes

Out of interest I checked my EM-1 MkII Nauti housing at two pumps past green and then again with an additional 10-12 strokes and all the buttons worked, mine is just one sample of course!

Hi, I just had a video call with Isotta. They instructed me very patiently  what to do (One level was pushing a button).

Now everything works great.

What a great service!

4 minutes ago, ido said:

Hi, I just had a video call with Isotta. They instructed me very patiently  what to do (One level was pushing a button).

Now everything works great.

What a great service!

 

 

Terrific! Do you know what the problem was? Was it a button pushing on a camera control?

Yes. The AF level (that push the AF button) needed to be trim a little bit. Apparently it pushed all the time the AF button while the housing was in vacuum.  That was the cause to the problem. 

Great that Isotta were able to pin that down - it can be tricky working out which control is causing a problem.

Good luck now with your pictures!

On 11/5/2021 at 12:25 PM, ido said:

Yes. The AF level (that push the AF button) needed to be trim a little bit. Apparently it pushed all the time the AF button while the housing was in vacuum.  That was the cause to the problem. 

Ido, do you have the Z6 housing or the Z6ii housing? I did a little investigation and found out there is a kit that changes some of the spacing on the buttons to make the Z6 housing more appropriate to the Z6ii. (I now have the Isotta Z6ii housing on my Z6ii.)