Servicing DSLR Housing (UK-Germany)

Hi all,

As some of you might know, I'm in a teenie tiny minority of underwater photographers using a Pentax DSLR. The housing that I purchased for it is a UK-Germany housing, which I fell in love with as soon as I first purchased it, and I still love it. As an added bonus, its small size for a DSLR is the envy of a lot of my dive buddies

Anyway.. the biggest disadvantage I have with it, is that I don't really want to send it back to Germany every year for a service, and there is no-one in Australia that has experience with them. I'd rather do it myself.

Uwe-Kiehl from UK-Germany has sent me a full o-ring kit to do the service myself, but there is one thing that I'm not sure of. I've sent him an email, but there may very well be some instruction lost in google translations between English and Germany, so here's hoping the kind Scubaboard community can offer some input.

So.. onto the problem. All the button and lever o-rings aren't an issue. I'm just unsure how to replace the o-rings for the view-finder, top LCD and rear LCD glass panels. IMGP1361.jpg attached shows a good view of both the state of the o-ring and how it holds the glass in.

If I press outwards on the glass window, it moves slightly. So I can only assume that the housing and the edge of the glass are shaped such that the o-ring holds the glass in place. I assume that if I press harder the glass will pop out without too much difficulty, but how difficult will it be to get it back in, and do I need special tools to do so?

Am I better off trying to find an underwater housing expert in Australia and ship my housing and the o-ring kit off to them, or isn't it that bad?

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.
Mark.

No-one got any suggestions for me?

How about any recommendations for someone in Australia that may be able to help out with servicing? The only two that I know of are Sea Optics in South Australia and Scubapix in Cairns. Has anyone had any good or bad experiences with either of them servicing housings? Any other recommendations?

Aah well, doesn't look like there's too much interest here. Anyway, for the sake of others who may find this thread as a result of a search down the track, I got an email from Uwe from UK-Germany, who was kind enough to take some photos of himself changing o-rings on a housing.

I was fairly close to the mark, except removal is by way not by force, but by using a sharp instrument to pierce the oring and extract it from between the housing and the glass.

Once the o-ring is removed, it is quite obvious how the glass is held in place - a semi-circular groove in the housing where the o-ring sits, jamming the glass in by its beveled edge.

The re-insert the o-ring takes quite a bit of encouragement. Uwe's pictured showed him using a blunt rounded plastic tool to push it in. I found that the rotating plastic cap on the back of my jewelers screwdrivers worked nicely.

I fought quite a bit practicing trying to get the old o-ring back in (not wanting to damage the new one). It took about 45 minutes before I got the technique down pat, but it was pretty easy after that.

Now for the easy part - changing all those 3mm o-rings sealing the 11 push-buttons. Two o-rings per seal. Easy, but extremely fiddly. At 1am this morning I had finished changing all the o-rings on the rear part of the housing (view-finder, back LCD, top LCD, 11 push-buttons, mode dial, multi-function dial) and did the bucket test. No leaks. Yay! tonight will be the dials and levers on the front part of the housing (on/off, Av/Tv, zoom, trigger). At least those o-rings are a little larger! Of course the final step to get myself on a couple of dives to test the seals. I'm thinking maybe a 5-8m pier dive and then get myself on a 30-35m wreck dive. And then I'll put the camera back in it.

I sure am glad to find you! I have made the plunge (no pun intended) to the K10D based on the fact that I shot a lot of film with a Pentax 35mm and still had manual lenses. Now I find that there is ONE housing at the moment to put my camera in and you are doing everything I'm going to have to do in a year or so when I break down and get the housing. Once I decide that I just can't go back underwater without the Pentax I would like to stay in touch for advice.

Any updates on other housings. I need to pick one up but would prefer an Ikelite. Any idea if Ikelite will make one now that the K20D is out.

thanks

Layne