Nauticam Housing - Issue with rear buttons at Depth

[Vagabond 0]

Hi all,

 

I am experiencing a frustrating problem with my Nauticam NA-EM1 MII housing back buttons, this include the Play, Menu, and the arrow buttons. The issue manifest itself only below 26-27m depth, where they basically become irresponsive to my commands, forcing me to shoot blind without feedback at depth. The whole system and all buttons work well at surface when testing and throughout the dives above these I am wondering if anyone else has seen this issue? is it perhaps related to the vacuum system? anyone fixed it?

 

Thank you.

 

Pier

[TimG 62]

Sounds more like a pressure issue I'd have thought, Piers. I wonder if the springs on those controls aren't sufficiently hard? Or maybe there's an alignment problem going on with the camera in the housing?

[Vagabond 0]

Ttm, thank you for your prompt reply, i ruled out alignment as i thin the issue would not be depth dependent it would show all the time and at the surfce, i checked today out of the wateer and this buttons hardness to press seems the same as the one that do work...i wonder if could be a camera issue othe than a housing issue, perhaps it sees pressure en though is in the housing? Or inside the housing i always 1atm - vacuum pull?

[TimG 62]

Hey Pier

Alignment issues could be at depth. I’ve certainly had an issue in the past that only appeared at depth and it was a control alignment issue that required slight adjustment. I wouldn’t rule it out just because it’s not a problem at the surface.

If it was just a camera issue wouldn’t it happen most of the time in or out of the housing?

I don’t think a vacuum valve would have much impact if its pressure on a button which is slightly out of perfect alignment.

It might be worth trying to recreate the problem at the surface by putting additional pressure on random buttons and see what happens.

Other than that, do you have local Nauticam dealer who you could send the housing and camera to so that they can check it?

[Draq 118]

FWIW, I had the same problems when housing was new. I found if I only pumped enough to cause the green light to go on, everything was fine. A few more strokes on the pump and I risked some buttons becoming inoperable at depth. I guess it might not make any sense, technically, but now only operate the hand pump until the light goes on or maybe one more stroke on the pump, and I have no problems.

[inflex 3]

Probably a spring strength issue. It won't really be noticeable by pressing each button and trying to feel for the resistance.

 

What's likely happening is one button is getting held down by the pressure, which locks out your other buttons. So, press and hold one button, then try the buttons that don't work to try and reproduce the problem you experience at depth. Do this until you find the button that reproduces this behavior. You can then replace the corresponding problem housing button/spring.

Edited February 19, 2019 by inflex

[Vagabond 0]

Thank you all very helpful...i think u are right that is a button that locks out everythig, i think is the shutter button, i tried on surface and it has that effect, so likely could be that spring that at depth doest push the lever all the way out, if i will do a deeper dive tomorrow will test this theory. Thank you.

[BRIAN_SCUBA 0]

I recommend going down to 30 meters or so and pressing every button a couple times.

 

I had the same issue with my Sea and Sea MDX-D810...pressure was causing the button to hold down the AE-L button which made all the other buttons unusable. So I went down and pressed every button a few times to work them at depth....and it solved the issue. Hope that helps!