adamhanlon 0 Posted September 21, 2020 In this episode of Wetpixel Live, Adam and @Alex_Mustard share some essential ideas for dealing with the stressful event of a housing or system flood. We chat about minimizing damage while still in the water and what to do to try and resurrect the camera and housing once it has got wet. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Humu797 20 Posted September 22, 2020 All good advice. Thanks much. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TimG 62 Posted September 23, 2020 Terrific episode. Thanks guys! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
trimix125 73 Posted September 23, 2020 (edited) Thank you two, had not been so lucky, so some floodings during the years... And thoughts that are not 100% on your line... My first was a S&S DX1 on my first asia trip. Third day of 3 weeks.... My fault, catched the secure ribbon of the front cap between oring and back door... Exact behind the lock buckle... Didn see it, murphy was on board, was a dive there you had to swim 10 minutes from boat to site, national park... When i started decenting, i saw it, small bubbles inside, so much too late... Did the dive, as soon as back on the boat rinsed everything in sweet water, but much too late. So back in the hotel, i through everything in sweetwater again, but camera was gone, battery corroded and it was 2008, no laptop or storage device with us, the 2 days before gone... Somehow i keept the SD card, and back home, it was dead. But it was laying in the shelf, and after 8 or 9 months, mistakly was used again. And there were pics on it. More the 90& were ok! So as Alex said, keep your dead gear and keep trying!!! As a Hugyfot user of the older generations, using one of the first Nikon D300 housing, i had 3 floods. One was a broken snap ring, during a dive, again 3rd day, in Thailand, during the dive suddenly one of the buttons came out... Catched it, and pressed my thumb on the hole until the end of the dive .... The button i put in a jacket pocket with zipper, was easy to repair afterwards at home. Was only a minor water entry, but because i kept the camera horizontal, it was too much.. Some water came to the card slot, and it quitted working. All camera was ok, but no card accepted... Dont ask... So, thank Alex for that, will help! The two others have been a construction issue of Hugyfot, that ended in introducing vaccum systems. The old housing generation was desinged to be a front and back part, holded together with two screws. No snap locks like other companies, only two screws with an allen key. What was great, because the housing was round shaped and so easy to hold... No unwiedly edges where you hold it. Backside was, that both times it was the second dive of the day, on boats, so my idea was that the temperature difference and the boat shaking startet loosing the screws... And thats the point against Alex theory, the problem appeared at the end of the dive. Starting was easy, everything worked fine. At the end of the dive, last meter to surface, after the safety stop, suddenly a curtain of bubbles came out of the seal area on top. Pressure that keept the two housing parts together was lost. So getting up was important, but with a dslr rigg, and not much air in the jacket because you want to be slow, it was a kicking event, until another diver came close enought to blew up my jacket. and as Alex said, keep the port downside. It was once a wide angle, these ports can take a lot of water, and the other was a macro, but with my Nikon 70 to 180mm micro zoom. There is some space to the port from the front element, since it is a old lens that neds it... Both times no losses. After that i thought about leaving Hugyfot, 3 times issues is not the best recommandation, and i got a new camera, Nikon D500, and from that model they changed to snap locks... But from history, the brought vaccum systems on the market, simply because they had a construction problem... So there couldbe a lot of different problems, its only important to know how to deal with them! And thanks for explaining that very good! So wish you allways a dry housing, Wolfgang Edited September 23, 2020 by trimix125 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChrisRoss 150 Posted September 23, 2020 4 hours ago, trimix125 said: At the end of the dive, last meter to surface, after the safety stop, suddenly a curtain of bubbles came out of the seal area on top. Pressure that keept the two housing parts together was lost. This demonstrates a real benefit of the vacuum systems - o-rings need to be loaded to seal properly and without that loading it is much easier to disturb the seal and let water in. This is the cause of the observation that floods are very likely in the rinse tank comes from - the o-rings are not loaded. I would also think that it would be a significant advantage in shore diving where you are dealing with swells trying to get in/out of the water. I always make sure I have my vacuum pump with me when diving so I can pull the vacuum again before hopping in the water. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TimG 62 Posted September 24, 2020 13 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said: I always make sure I have my vacuum pump with me when diving so I can pull the vacuum again before hopping in the water. Yeah, I'm with you on that one, Chris. I've found a few times that I have had solid Green lights on the vacuum for a good 12 hours+ but after 20 minutes or so on the dive boat I've occasionally has the alternating Red/Green. I was certain there wasn't a leak so a couple of pumps - and good to go. Definitely worth having the hand pump out on the boat. I've never been sure whether it was jolts from the boat journey or maybe a change in ambient temperature. But I'm always careful to move my assembled and vacuumed gear from it's home with AC at around 24 degrees into ambient temperature of about 31 degrees the night before diving. So I'm concluding it's the jolts from the boat ride. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChrisRoss 150 Posted September 24, 2020 1 hour ago, TimG said: Yeah, I'm with you on that one, Chris. I've found a few times that I have had solid Green lights on the vacuum for a good 12 hours+ but after 20 minutes or so on the dive boat I've occasionally has the alternating Red/Green. I was certain there wasn't a leak so a couple of pumps - and good to go. Definitely worth having the hand pump out on the boat. I've never been sure whether it was jolts from the boat journey or maybe a change in ambient temperature. But I'm always careful to move my assembled and vacuumed gear from it's home with AC at around 24 degrees into ambient temperature of about 31 degrees the night before diving. So I'm concluding it's the jolts from the boat ride. I've never seen that with my system - once it is pumped down so far it has stayed that way. For me it's a just in case - for example once I needed to re-position my little accessory flash as it had lost contact and wasn't firing. I generally do 2-3 pumps after solid green. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
adamhanlon 0 Posted September 24, 2020 I should state that I am not against having a vacuum in the housing...as others have said, it keeps ports and housings closed. What I am (somewhat) against is continuous monitoring of that vacuum. False positives are a thing! I have had it with several systems, and they are a significant problem when on assignment. I should point out that my experiences were some time ago, however. Some vacuum systems state that they are temperature compensated, but my experience is that this tends to work better going from warm to cold, rather than the reverse. Once the vacuum has held for a period and hence confirmed that you have correctly assembled your housing, there is no real advantage in having continuous monitoring. The reassurance of having a colored light continuously telling that the vacuum is constant is purely psychological! If the vacuum has held for a period, the only way the housing can flood is some kind of catastrophic failure (port implosion or similar), which a vacuum will not prevent. I think @TimG and @ChrisRoss's posts both sort of demonstrate this. If the vacuum has held for 5-10 minutes and then starts to flash, and you do not have your pump...do you (a) not dive or (b) assume that this is an issue with the vacuum system and that you have correctly assembled your housing and dive? If the answer is (a), the addiction is too strong! As (a possibly irrelevant) aside, in the ROV and offshore engineering industry, vacuums have been used since (at least) the '50s to ensure that instrument pods are sealed, and once this is proven the pods are (often) then pressurized with an inert gas to reduce fire risks and to maximize crush resistance. Obviously, they are working at much greater depths than we normally do and the pods are bolted together, so the chance of them coming apart underwater are slim... Historically, as Alex points out in the video, Peter Scoones was definitely adding vacuum systems to his housings long before any of the commercial manufacturers were (or possible even existed!) John Ellerbrock traces their use to the '60s at least: https://wetpixel.com/articles/john-ellerbrock-the-origins-of-seal-check So they are not a new idea Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
