An extra hole for a Nauticam housing...

[PeteAtkinson 53]

I needed an extra hole for a radio flash trigger cable in my D800 housing. I trigger two Inon Z240s with optical cables but the single flash bulkhead is filled with a Leak Sentinel. I figured I don't really need the control which changes metering from matrix, centre-weighted and spot, so maybe I could use that as a cable entry? But then you run into the problem of running a cable from the back of the housing to the camera in the front. Which is tricky. But the Leak Sentinel can be anywhere in the housing... The metering control gland has a 10mm coarse thread on it.

Remove the control by levering off the plastic disk on top of the control knob which exposes an Allen head machine screw. Remove this, and the knob. If you now remove the gland using circlip pliers, you will be able to remove the control rod inside without removing any of the adjacent control which otherwise gets in the way.
I had an old Leak Sentinel and took this and a 10mm coarse thread hex machine screw to a local workshop. They cut an o-ring groove under the head of the bolt, rounded it off, cut the part from the Leak Sentinet the right length (12mm) and welded the bits together. A hole drilled through the bolt allows the housing to be evacuated through this fitting. It cost ten quid.
I had an old Nikonos socket with the 16mm thread that screws directly into the bulkead hole in the front part of the housing and this is where I will wire a coil cable with a floating box with a radio trigger for topside flashes. Inside the housing I will have a cable running to the hotshoe or the X-sync socket of the camera.

 

The Leak Sentinel seems fine in the new position but the fitting could have been made a bit shorter without the Leak Sentinel interefering with the housing.

[ChrisRoss 150]

Or you could use the fittings Nauticam makes just for this purpose: https://www.nauticam.com/products/m16-offset-connector-with-vacuum-valve-ii-pushbutton-release, they have either an M16 or M14 version

[PeteAtkinson 53]

That's true, but at 20 times the cost. But thanks for making me aware of this option. It seems there is no room in the housing for an X-synch cable plugged into the camera, so I will be using a modified hot shoe to get flash sync to the Nikonos bulkhead connector.

[ChrisRoss 150]

You can also get PC hot shoe adapters to plug in on the hotshoe: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Pixel-TF-322-ITTL-TTL-Hot-Shoe-Converter-Adapter-to-PC-Sync-Socket-for-Nikon/201845640626?epid=6012058108&hash=item2efef00db2:g:dy8AAOSwOgdYv66Y

[PeteAtkinson 53]

One thing to watch out for; a 10mm coarse hex machine screw runs out of thread before the head. So you can't tighten it enough in a Nauticam hole to compress an O-ring sitting in a groove cut under the head of the machine screw. Either use a big fat O-ring or better, run extra thread right up under the head of the machine screw, so it will tighten sufficiently on an O-ring that better fits the groove.

[PeteAtkinson 53]

A problem has arisen! When the pop-up flash is up, the hot shoe doesn't work!! I need both to work at the same time. Anyone know how to resolve this?

[rollin 12]

I believe it is not possible.

 

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=50150

 

Maybe you could use a small optical trigger?

Edited September 24, 2018 by rollin

[PeteAtkinson 53]

I had forgotten about this earlier thread (thanks rollin) from 5 years ago when I was trying the same thing. Neither the X-sync socket nor the hotshoe work if the pop-up flash is elevated enough to fire. Push the flash down a bit and they will work, but the on-board flash will not.

Anyone know if there's a small mechanical switch inside controlling this and if it would be safe to disable it?