D70 Housing Flood? (Shark Expedition)

First of all, thanks for posting the excellent trip report. Some excellent photography there. Looked like fun.

I read that someone had a D70 Ikelite housing flood. Appearently one of the screws loosend.

Can someone describe in more detail what happenned? Is there something that I should inspect? Any maintanence tips to prevent this?

Also read about Ikelite viewfinders flooding? I don't understand what you mean by this. Isn't the viewfinder just a small magnifying glass glued on? What was it that happenned?

Don't mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with the equipment. I'm sure all housings flood from time to time. I'm just trying to learn how best to care for it.

Thanks for the tips and sorry to hear about the gear failures. I suppose its inevitable with so much hardware being put to good use. I'll make sure my DAN insurance is current.

My Ikelite D70 housing flooded through one of the two bolts that connect the tray to the housing. I can't imagine how it got loose.....the head is contained between two ribs so it can't turn and the nuts inside the housing are surrounded by a rubber gasket that should prevent the nut from turning.....it's a mystery to me, but it was definitely loose. The housing had about 60 dives when this happened. It asked about using Loctite on the threads and was cautioned by Ikelite that it could cause the case to hairline crack.

I would suggest running a magic marker across the nut/bolt head for a visual check to make sure it doesn't come loose after multible dive trips.

The other Ikelite 20D housing had water in the viewfinder.....the viewfinder is constructed of several pieces of glass....this one got water in between the first two pieces.....it didn't cause the housing to flood, but it made composing shots very difficult....I believe this was the first trip for this housing, besides pool testing

Both of these problems are very unusual and they show that things can happen to anybody at anytime....don't forget your insurance and plan for as much redundancy as you can afford...dollar wise or weight wise

Karl

Karl,

Very sorry to hear of your leak. Nevertheless it looks like you went home with some really great shots. A leak detector might be relatively inexpensive insurance and could save a trip.

Tom

How quick was the onset of the leak? Any chance that a leak detector would have helped in this situation?

I use one of the LEEK detectors but I imagine it only helps if the leak is slow enough.

Sorry to hear about the flood Karl. Sounds like you gained some experience though.

I was 15 minutes into the dive and shooting pics when the camera started acting funny....there was about 1/2" of water in the housing...by the time I got on the boat I had a good 2" of water.....even with a clear housing a leak detector might have helped....it's the last thing I expected to happen....

Can't say enough about having redundant gear...it saved my trip

Just a followup, we tried to save Karl's lens by drying it off and putting it in the engine room to bake for a few hours. I think Karl put it back on his other camera, and it worked for maybe a half a dive and crapped out. A lot of water got into his lens externals through the rings during the flood, but the optics were clear and no water got inside. It may be repairable, it seemed like the aperture control was broken and it was stuck at f2.8

Is that about right Karl? Any more to add?

Cheers

James

James, yes the aperture was stuck wide open when I tried to use the lens again after the dive.....Since I've been home I've been playing with the little trip lever and it's working smoothly right now...I might get lucky and a good professional cleaning might save the lens

If this does happen to someone, you can pretty much assume the camera is dead, but tilt the port to collect water and try to save the lens

Also, James had me soak the bulkhead/strobe fitting in alcohol to get the water out and keep it from corroding...once we found the leak and tightened the bolt I was back in service for the remainder of the trip...

Karl

We have been waiting to inspect Dietz housing before commenting. Usual concern is a knob coming loose. We have had several people pull knob and shaft out of their housing leaving a nice hole. Fix has been implemented. The nuts holding the mounting blocks have a die cut neoprene piece installed to prevent coming loose. Obviously idea did not work as intended in this instance. Will know more next week. Simple answer is check all fittings and knob set screws to be certain they remain tight.