Nauticam housing service?

Have you ever had your Nauticam housing serviced?  If so, why, when?   And how much did it cost?

My D810 housing was four years old and nearing 200 dives, both of which are indicators for a service.   Everything worked fine, but I didn't know if the housing really needed servicing or not.  I looked up cost estimates (in the range of $500), but I never got any real details on getting it serviced.

It was a partial excuse for me to just go get a housing for my D850, but that's now 2 years old with about 80 dives on it.

Would love to hear experiences regarding housing maintenance by manufacturers in general, and how to tell when it needs to be done.

HI,

When I used to have an Ikelite housing I would get it serviced once a year or so. I just sent it to them directly. It usually took about 3 weeks including shipping time.

For my Nauticam housing I have had it serviced about once every two years. My understanding for Nauticam USA is that you have to go through a dealer for service rather than sending it directly to them. I have used Backscatter (Monterey) for this. I had Backscatter do a pressure test during the year when I didn't have the Nauticam service.

Last time the Nauticam service was over two times more expensive ($500-600 as I remember) than on previous occasions.

HTH

Jon

I service my Subal and Isotta housings myself, very easy to do. I use an inexpensive digital micrometer from Amazon or eBay, and a student compass and a metric ruler, to measure the O-rings, cross-section and inner diameter in mm, and buy them from The O-Ring Store https://www.theoringstore.com   

The buttons and other controls are easy to disassemble, but it is important to be real careful, put each part in a secure place such as a bottle, to prevent loss.  

However, Nauticam housings I would not recommend that one repair oneself, as they are much too complicated, expert repair is required.  The repair expense is why I sold mine, and went back to Isotta and Subal housings, reliable, simple and rock solid. 

Basically the service is undertaken to replace the control o-rings which don't last forever and deal with any issues with controls.  My understanding from people who have had it done is that it comes back from Nauticam looking like new.  

My Nauticam EM-1 mkiI housing is now 4 years old with 200+ dives on it and it's still going fine.  I think as long as you keep up the long soak after a dive session and exercise the buttons they have quite a long life.  Allowing it dry out while salty allows salt crystals to form and this can abrade o-rings and also damp salt is incredibly corrosive so it can start to corrode control shafts if it happens too much.

Salt won't depart the buttons just from soaking -  there' only a very small driving force to flush out the salty water,  pushing the buttons pumps out water that is in there and allows fresh rinse water to replace it.  I see this on my INON strobes - water between the battery cap rim and the o-ring stays there and is still salty even after a 2 hour soak - yes I have taste tested the water!  So unless you mechanically pump each control it will retain salty water.  If you don't do this the life is potentially significantly shorter.

I never had our NA-EM5II and NA-EM1II housings, that my wife and me bought already second hand,  serviced by a dealer. As stated above the cost would be around 500+ Euros/housing...

Once a year, I put the assembled housings with vacuum in the dishwasher and wash with lowest temperature and without detergent. Afterwards I put a drop of this solution, that is supposed to lubricate the O-rings, on every button: https://www.unterwasserkamera.at/shop/catalog/en/product_info.php?info=p6154_d-d-top-secret-o-ring-fluid.html

I case there is some defective O-ring of a button, I would not hesitate to replace it by myself. I would not send the housing in to a dealer who does the same procedure and it costs many weeks and $$...

Wolfgang