DC800 shutter button sticking - please advise!

[Ayitiplonje]

I send greetings from the Lembeh Straits where I'm on the tailend of a dream vacation to Indonesia. Have so far gone diving in Flores, Komodo, Lombok and Bunaken Sulawesi. The sites and diving are amazing, but the experience is being ruined by my new DC800 which has been malfunctioning from the start....everything from the camera locking up (see other thread for similar problem), to the flash not operating when requested, to the camera cycling through all settings while underwater without me touching any buttons! The main problem I have now is that the shutter button on the housing sticks in the down position after taking the first photo underwater. Works relatively fine on land before diving, and I typically submerge the unit in fresh water and pushed the shutter button numerous times to try and loosen it up so that it returns to its original position (seems like a design flaw to me in that the shutter button on the housing doesn't actually push directly onto the camera's shutter button, rather on to a lever). I can't tell you how many photo opps I've missed as a result. Since I'm stuck in Lembeh with a sticking shutter button, I wonder whether anyone can advise a quick-fix....prior to me returning home and either sending it back to Sealife or tossing it in the bin? I saw on a previous thread that someone shimmed the spring, but I'm not sure I can do that here, nor do I know whether this would void any warranty on the camera housing? Thanks for anyone who can help!

 

[sladerer]

If you have a pair of needle nose pliers and some silicone lubricant try the following.
1) Prepare a work area: clean, flat, and spacious enough to work
2) Open the housing, remove the camera.
3) Depress the button and remove the horseshoe shaped clip retainer
4) Extract button and shaft from housing: DO NOT MISPLACE spacers/o-rings
5) Put a very small amount of silicon lubricant on the shaft of the button
6) Replace button into housing making sure all spacers/o-rings go back in the correct order
(If you've somehow forgotten what this looks like, you can always pull another button to check)
7) Reattach the horseshoe clip

After several years of use my 600 had numerous sticking button issues even with extensive soaking/cleaning/button pushing. The above method has completely eliminated this problem on
my camera.

 

[Ayitiplonje]

Thanks very much for the extremely helpful tips. Tried and didn't completely solve, so I've opted to send it in to the Sealife tech in the States for repair/replacement.

 

[highlandfarmwv]

I have found through th eyears that water-based silicone works well to keep buttons working.