Grease for Canon O-ring?

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highdesert

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Greetings -

My wife just got Canon's own housing for her S-110. It comes with a yellow O-ring for the closure. Does this O-ring require a specific type of grease, or is it suited to a "generic" silicone grease?

Thanks!
 
Some years ago--I had a Nikonos cam and Ike strobes and various uw flashlights. I used the silicone grease that Nikon sold on cam, strobes, and lights. Some of the lights--Pelican I think, developed swollen orings and flooded, but the reason was unknown at the time. Quite some time after that, Ikelite said use only our grease on our orings as they might swell if some other silicone grease is used. I did as they suggested and had no problems. It all had to do with the composition of the orings and the materials used in the grease.

That said, I have stayed with Canon oring grease on my Canon housing and Olympus grease on the Oly housing. I use generic dive shop grease on all the lights. I've had no problems with swollen orings or floods in some years.

The equipment tech we use is very knowledgable and says he uses the generic stuff the dive shop sells on everything! The last Canon spec grease I bought was rather high at $11.42, but it will last for a couple of years----small price as far as I'm concerned...............Use a very small amount on the oring--a BB size glob may be too much--certainy use no more than that. A new oring every year or 2 is a good idea as well. You should be able to find all this on ebay.
 
I'm also no expert on this but I believe the Canon housing uses silicone O ring and silicone grease can make the O ring swell, so I would avoid generic silicone grease. For some reason the Canon silicone grease is compatible with the Canon O ring. Perhaps someone can explain how this works.
 
Found this and more Googleing "Canon oring swelling" ScubaBoard - Scuba Diving Forum - Diving Social Network > Underwater Activities and Specialties > Underwater Photography > Housing o-ring growing?!

So, apparently the problem remains as this is from last month!
This was my thread and I'm still not quite certain how or why it happened. I never paid much attention to what kind of silicone grease I was using until then, but I was checking it after the fact. The only open tube of silicone grease I have around is the one that came with this camera housing, so I'm pretty sure that this is what I've been using.

However, I should mention that this isn't a genuine Canon housing but rather the cheaper Meikon knock-off. The housing is identical in almost every respect though and so I assume that the o-ring is also the same as in a genuine Canon housing (it certainly looks and feels the same). I can't speak for the type of silicone grease that came with the housing though, it's a fairly large tube labelled Meikon "water sealing lubricant grease" (doesn't even mention silicone) and so it's quite possible that this grease is actually not compatible with this housing's o-ring.

I have another unopened tube of silicone grease from a genuine Olympus housing, but after this experience I don't know if I'd want to use that one either...
 
I also would like to know why one silicone grease can make a silicone O ring swell while another silicone grease does not? I have generic silicone grease, Canon silicone grease and Ikelite.
 

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