YS-D2 flooded on first use... what next?

[ChyLn]

In preparation for my recent liveaboard to Raja Ampat, I had thought to try out adding some strobes for the first time to my camera rig and ended up purchasing brand-new 2x YS-D2 right before the trip.

I had checked them out at home, hooked them up, and made sure they fired. Everything worked. On the first day of diving, everything went fine but at the end of the day when I went to swap out batteries, one of them looked like they got caked with mud on the inside. This is a flooded light right? I ended up throwing away the batteries and just using the one strobe for the rest of the week-long trip without issues.

What should I do now? I've seen that some people here use Pacific Housing Repair? Do you think this would be covered under Sea and Sea warranty? Especially given that it was essentially the first time that it was used?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I like the strobes a lot and would ideally like to be able to get this one back up and running! Thanks much

 

[budson54]

Sea & Sea will not cover it under warranty but they have offered flood insurance in the past. It had to be purchased within a short period of time and was very reasonable. It was good for a year. I would look into it to see if it still available and if you are within the time window.

It seems odd that one battery was caked with "mud". That sound more like an old battery leaking. Was there water in the compartment? Have you tried the flash with fresh batteries?

I had two D1's and currently use two D2's. They D2's were big improvement in reliability over the D1's.

 

[John Bantin]

Was it a Chinese or a yellow Japanese-made YS-D2?

 

[kevjli]

When the seawater corrodes the batteries, the chemicals leach out and look like mud.

 

[RVBldr]

I've flooded a YS-D1 and have been successful in cleaning the sealed battery compartment with alcohol and a que-tip. You'll need a new cap though, I'm betting the one you have is shot.

 

[Hoag]

This video might help ...

 

[Ardy]

I have flooded 2 SnS strobes, one was before I knew the cap, which I thought I had inserted, floated free because I did not know there is a final 'click' before it is locked in. I did about 30 dives without locking it in place before it floated off. The other was due to a home done repair to a cable.

The battery compartment can be washed out and new batteries put in. It would be important to know what went wrong to make it leak. In my experience SnS have an excellent design to deal with battery compartment floods.

As opposed to Scott G in his video I have used the same cap and did another 200 dives with it.

 

[fmerkel]

I don't see any problem using a brand new O-ring over again, as long as it is checked for any flaws. I'm assuming this was an operator error.
Side note - use UW camera stuff long enough, you will flood something. My wife's floods have generally been obvious. I've not found the reason for any of my floods. Clean up the housing, take for a test dive empty, no problem. Go figure.
You can't do this with a strobe, unless you want to not put batteries in and stuff it with some kind of absorbent liner.

 

[bvanant]

If you can clean out the battery compartment and make it work again, you will still need to buy a new cap. There is a small teflon membrane in the cap that allows gas out but not water in. During a flood it most likely got broken from the pressure of the corroding batteries.

Bill

 

[KeithG]

If you can clean out the battery compartment and make it work again, you will still need to buy a new cap. There is a small teflon membrane in the cap that allows gas out but not water in. During a flood it most likely got broken from the pressure of the corroding batteries.

Bill

Interesting. Is there an easy way to detect this failure? Does a broken cap tend to let water in or prevent extra gas from escaping?

I have severely flooded 1 S&S battery compartment and have used the same cap since. No issues yet, so I assume the failure point is that my cap may no longer allow extra gas to escape?