Ikelite flooding worries?

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dirtfarmer

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Are my worries about my new Ikelite housing unfounded?

Here's the background. I've had a Canon s-95 for years, only one flood ages ago before I learned my lesson when muck diving clean the oring religiously.

Now I have a Ikelite housing, with a Canon sl1 in it, and I'm a bit concerned, and curious. It has way more surface area to fail then my old housing due to the front lens port, also the lens port is very simple only slipped on and retained by 3 set screws.
Am I going to flood this thing?
Does anyone have any Ikelite housing tips or things to watch out for?

Please if you have any wisdom or lessons learned when using any dslr housing I'd love to hear it.
 
I know 2 weak spots they have:
1. The strobe ports tend to unscrew
2. They use 2 very short pins to hold the door latch instead of single long pin. If one pin falls out, you are flooded.
 
I know 2 weak spots they have:
1. The strobe ports tend to unscrew
2. They use 2 very short pins to hold the door latch instead of single long pin. If one pin falls out, you are flooded.
You're referring to Ikelite Ultracompact housings. He mentioned he has the Canon SL1 newest SLR housing. Totally different animal :)
 
I fit a system on my Nauticam housing that allows me to put a vacuum seal on it. It has a light that turns green when I have a good seal. I believe that Backscatter sells a similar product that can be fit to most housings. Knowing that I have a good seal is really nice. If you are interested, you might give Backscatter a call.
 
My wife and I have both HAD ikelite housings for our G15's. While different size, the housings are similar in manufacture with similar fixings.

Sort answer don't waste your money. We brought ours 3 months apart. 3 years later they both failed 3 months apart. with approx 200 dives on them. Sell it quick and buy something else

While seals on the buttons needed a replacement and the TTL strobe connector needed checking and sorting, that wasn't the issue. both ours failed due to micro cracking of the acrylic housing around the attachments of the metal clips. Both housings flooded and one camera got flooded.

Had it just been one housing I may have considered us to be unlucky. but 2 with the same failure mode. Nope that's just crap design. Certainly for my next camera I'll be going to nauticam
 
Sorry, I thought he's talking about the Ikelite s95 housing.
 
I've been abusing Ikelite housings for 6 years now. I drag the thing around in caves, toss it under boat benches, and giant stride into the water with them.

Acrylic can craze, but that's a very slow failure mode and I've never personally seen it. When I have heard of it, it was repaired during annual service included in the ~$150 service fee.

Your port is different than the larger SLR housings, which are held on by 4 flimsy plastic sliding latches. I have broken a latch once, but those are only really providing any support at the surface. Underwater, you have tons of pressure on the dome port that is holding it shut, you could probably take all of the set screws out, and try to pry the housing open, and never succeed...I say probably, because it depends on depth and your strength...but it's a lot of pressure!

In your case, the set screws are not directly holding the port on. They go into a "trench," such that even loosening them so one or two entire threads is visible, should still leave a portion of the screw in the "trench" and then it won't come out. That is, the ability of the port to come off is a "yes or no" type of question, it's not like loosening it somewhat, will allow it to come off with some amount of force, and loosening more, will allow it to come off with a little less force. There will be a very small range where it could be removed, and then just past that, the force to remove it will grow exponentially to be equivalent to the amount of force required to break the plastic.

Surface area is not really important when it comes to flooding. Having more buttons is a risk, but that is typically a slow failure point. Get the housing serviced and it should be fine. I've never had a button leak and I've never gotten a housing serviced.

The two latches on the back are again only for the surface. Once underwater, the water pressure provides more closing force than the latches by orders of magnitude, and the housing is going to be fine until the rated depth, and then some.

The vacuum systems are nifty, way, way way nifty...but expensive. Then again, DAN insurance on the housing is expensive too, and you have that, right??? But these are cheap, and they'll catch a leak within seconds of being underwater. I've seen them save 2 cameras! Underwater Camera Housing Leak Detector - Home Page

Personally, I've had my Ikelite housing leak 3 times. Every time was due to me not sealing the rear seal properly. Never damaged anything in the housing because I caught it at the surface within moments of the housing seeing water. I've only seen one housing fail underwater, and it was in 5 feet of water when the user bumped a latch. Their Nauticam latches don't work like ours and while they are easier to use, they are also easier to bump and unlatch, and in 5 feet of water, you can do that. And their built in leak detector failed from the water, so the housing required $500 servicing. Your Ikelite housing likely would not have flooded in that way because the latch design is different, nf it did then it probably would have been fine, and the leak detector is $36 instead of $500...

Can you tell that I like my Ikelite equipment?!? Now I've had one DS125 head flood due to a crack in the plastic, one DS125 battery pack flood due to mis installed oring (my fault), and one DS51 battery compartment flood (probably my fault), and one EV Manual Controller flood (those things are pretty old, just it's time, I dragged it through a lot of caves). Ikelite has taken a lot of my money, and atleast one product design idea. But they are awesome.
 
What JahJahwarrior said :)

Ikelite has produced thousands of housings over 52 + years. Modern acrylic is super tough and any crazing is usually the result of people getting things on the housing specifically mentioned to NOT do so in the manuals.

Stuff like SuperGlue which can start crazing to cracking.......

The dome port mount on the Canon SL1 housing (disclaimer: I wrote the 1st article using this housing still on the Ikelite web site in May 2014) has as JahJahwarrior mentioned the newest bulletproof port design. This is also what has created the DL (DryLock) port system coming on the newest full size SLR housings.

A well greased o-ring to prevent it from rolling or twisting on the Canon SL1 (and their mirrorless housings) port installation is then secured as he described by the 3 screws into a groove makes this port impossible to knock off or leak. I and the more than 30 customers using their Ikelite Canon SL1 housing have proven this to be a super tough design.

The small simple leak detectors JahJah describes work fine if you want some additional piece of mind compared to the cost of a vacuum system. Your choice....

Just one old guy's opinion from decades of many many manufacturer's housings.

David Haas
www.haasimages.com
 
stupid question: Are Ikelite housings acrylic or polycarbonate?
 
Ikelite housing bodies are ABS-PC a strong polycarbonate blend. The newest light gray models (compact, mirrorless and new model SLR housings) are a new material although the time tested clear polycarbonate bodies have been great watertight housings for over 5 decades.

Optical dome ports for SLR housings and Mirrorless housings are Optical grade acrylic. Full sized SLR ports are available in fixed length optical acrylic or Modular series with a glass lens.

Compact camera housings with flat ports all have GLASS lenses.

Hope this helps!

David Haas
Haas Photography Inc.
www.haasimages.com
 
Last edited:
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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