They say bad things come in threes, so I must expect 2 more bad things to happen! After 3 entire years of flawless performance from my Ikelite gear, this last month was my turn to pay sacrifice to the underwater photo gods.
That's not to say I haven't lost other gear. I had a Canon housing leak, probably due to a broken button, and destroy an older point and shoot. And it's not to say that I haven't avoided other destruction. I have had two separate housing leaks in my current Ikelite housing.
Unfortunately, neither of those leaks was explainable, and I didn't learn a darn thing from either of them, but I'm finding that to be a common theme among underwater losses. One of the housing leaks occurred 5 minutes into a dive in freshwater. The housing had water up to the base of the camera, but after it was poured out, nothing was damaged. A dive the next day was perfect, and I could observe no good reason for the leak.
The second housing leak was noticed before we even submerged, and resulted in less than a tablespoon of water in the housing. Again, once cleaned, I could find no reason for the leak. In both cases, the clear Ikelite housing made the leaks easy to notice. I probably caught the second leak before a leak detector would have, but the first leak was large enough that a leak detector would have caught it first.
What I did change after those leaks is simple: before I submerge, or immediately after, I tilt the housing back and forth and then to the right, and look for water pooling in the front right corner, where I have the best view. I repeat this process several times during the dive.
But this last month started a level of destruction I've never seen! In the process, I have lost a DS125, a DS50, a DS125 battery, and an 8" port cover. After the last broken piece of gear, I sat down and asked myself, was there anything I could learn from it?
I know some people will respond by saying Ikelite gear isn't good enough and that's the cause for the failures. I want to make it clear that I love my Ikelite gear, and don't see myself giving it up anytime in the near future. It's simply the best for what I do. I see far more DS125's in the caves than any other brand or model of strobe. They function nearly flawlessly for everyone I know, and the EV Manual Controllers are just perfect for off camera slave use to light up the cave. The electronic syncing is easy and doesn't drain the camera battery by requiring it to fire the onboard flash. The DS125 battery system is simple, and doesn't require juggling lots of AA's. The DS50 surprised me by filling in quite nicely as a backup when my first DS125 died. Overall, I find their gear to be great, and my luck to be poor.
First: a dead DS125
The first to go was a DS125. It worked fine one dive, refused to fire the next. Thank god it was set as the slave on the dual strobe cord, so I just photographed small stuff that dive. I could see no reason for the strobe to fail, there was not visible water intrusion, so I just assumed a capacitor inside had exploded. This strobe is in the 7000's serial number wise and has the MOD-NC sticker. It has been on approximately 200 dives with me and has never once had even a hiccup.
Cause of Death:
Sending it in to Ikelite, they informed me there was a small crack along the switch cover, and the strobe was flooded and destroyed. I could upgrade to a DS160 for a little more than the going rate for a used DS125, and I opted for that. This was the only failure that cost so much that I made the critical mistake of calculating my per shot cost.
Lesson Learned:
Lessons learned? Absolutely nothing. I cannot recall any treatment that would have cracked the plastic. The other strobes are all fine. The last piece of gear I cracked was a second stage which was stuck between 2 tanks on a car ride, but the camera rig gets special treatment. I'm sad that the plastic cracked, but sadder that all I learned from it is, sometimes stuff breaks for no good reason. Best lesson I learned is, don't you dare add up how much you've spent on photo gear unless people are paying you for your pictures.
Second: Lost Port Cover
Usually, port covers get stuffed down the neck of my wetsuit within moments of entering the water. Odd system, but it works. For cave diving, though, they go into a drysuit pocket. Still, usually within moments of entering, but this was a scooter dive. After scootering a little over half a mile back, I pulled off the 8" dome port cover, rolled it up, and stuffed it into my right pocket. Only...something didn't go right.
Cause of Death:
I'll never know exactly where I lost it. I'm used to sticking things in a pocket, and you just make sure you feel the fabric around your hand. I'm pretty certain I got it in there. But, when I opened it back up, it was gone. We'd only swum for about 40 minutes, and neither of us noticed it disappear, but it is black, and there aren't exactly a lot of lights back there...
Lesson Learned:
For starters, write your name on your port. I had my name on my port, but it hasn't helped yet. Secondly, a brighter color would be nice for port covers! Third, I don't know if there is any good reason for the stiff plastic on the port cover. It means I have to awkwardly roll the cover up to stick it in a pocket. A simpler cover without the plastic stiffener I could just jam into the pocket. Fourth, perhaps zippered pockets are better than velcro ones, but I don't know if the velcro actually made a difference. Fifth and most important, the camera carrying system needs to be setup so the port faces out. This way, an uncovered port won't be rubbing against you the entire scooter ride back. Of course, this means you have to avoid running into anything on the way out...but for experienced scooter divers that is not much of an issue.
Third: a flooded DS50
By this point I'm on a backup strobe and restricted to the 6" port and the macro port, but that won't stop me from having fun! To Blue Heron Bridge I go, and have a great 2 hour dive photographing macro life. DS50 works fine the entire time, but back in the shallow water, pulling fins off, I notice the clear battery door is brown and black.
Cause of Death:
Unfortunately, I don't quite know. The battery door is perhaps 10 dives old. I tightened it the same as usual, and looked for the flattened seal all the way around. One of the power contacts was completely disintegrated, but it kept working! Still, decided to send it in for service. Less than 25% of the cost of the cracked DS125, but also only a little less than what the strobe cost me used.
Lesson Learned:
I unfortunately don't know exactly what to learn here, other than perhaps tighten the battery door more.
Fourth: more magic smoke out of a DS125
I'm a big fan of the Ikelite ds125/160/161 battery system. The design is so simple, the recharge times are ridiculous, the amount of shots on a full charge is plenty. The oring seals seem well designed, with X rings on the switch, two orings on the big latch, and that simple oring to seal to the body of the strobe. Should be nearly idiotproof. 15 minutes into a dive, the strobe flashed, and I hadn't taken a picture. I assumed the power knob had been bumped, but moving it between settings, it only did anything on the "+light" setting, where the light came on, but the strobe would not fire. Mystified and slightly upset, I finally noticed a tiny bump of oring protruding from the middle, and a whisp of battery acid floating out.
Cause of Death:
This one is probably my own darn fault. Ikelite clearly tells you that you probably don't need to remove the oring, just brush any sand off the face. I usually do that, but occasionally I pull them apart and make sure it's all clean. I did that before this dive, and apparently when I put it all back together, the oring was not full seated, allowing it to be pinched. Fortunately, the strobe head appears fine, and I do have one backup pack, so this one might not hurt the wallet just yet.
Lesson Learned:
Finally, a lesson can be learned, and a darn good one! Simply put, I need to add "look at seam and make sure no oring is sticking out" to my mental checklist. After assembling these strobes perhaps 400 times, this is the first time I've ever seen or done this.
Overall, I'm mostly sad that with so much gear broken, I only have one really good lesson learned.
That's not to say I haven't lost other gear. I had a Canon housing leak, probably due to a broken button, and destroy an older point and shoot. And it's not to say that I haven't avoided other destruction. I have had two separate housing leaks in my current Ikelite housing.
Unfortunately, neither of those leaks was explainable, and I didn't learn a darn thing from either of them, but I'm finding that to be a common theme among underwater losses. One of the housing leaks occurred 5 minutes into a dive in freshwater. The housing had water up to the base of the camera, but after it was poured out, nothing was damaged. A dive the next day was perfect, and I could observe no good reason for the leak.
The second housing leak was noticed before we even submerged, and resulted in less than a tablespoon of water in the housing. Again, once cleaned, I could find no reason for the leak. In both cases, the clear Ikelite housing made the leaks easy to notice. I probably caught the second leak before a leak detector would have, but the first leak was large enough that a leak detector would have caught it first.
What I did change after those leaks is simple: before I submerge, or immediately after, I tilt the housing back and forth and then to the right, and look for water pooling in the front right corner, where I have the best view. I repeat this process several times during the dive.
But this last month started a level of destruction I've never seen! In the process, I have lost a DS125, a DS50, a DS125 battery, and an 8" port cover. After the last broken piece of gear, I sat down and asked myself, was there anything I could learn from it?
I know some people will respond by saying Ikelite gear isn't good enough and that's the cause for the failures. I want to make it clear that I love my Ikelite gear, and don't see myself giving it up anytime in the near future. It's simply the best for what I do. I see far more DS125's in the caves than any other brand or model of strobe. They function nearly flawlessly for everyone I know, and the EV Manual Controllers are just perfect for off camera slave use to light up the cave. The electronic syncing is easy and doesn't drain the camera battery by requiring it to fire the onboard flash. The DS125 battery system is simple, and doesn't require juggling lots of AA's. The DS50 surprised me by filling in quite nicely as a backup when my first DS125 died. Overall, I find their gear to be great, and my luck to be poor.
First: a dead DS125
The first to go was a DS125. It worked fine one dive, refused to fire the next. Thank god it was set as the slave on the dual strobe cord, so I just photographed small stuff that dive. I could see no reason for the strobe to fail, there was not visible water intrusion, so I just assumed a capacitor inside had exploded. This strobe is in the 7000's serial number wise and has the MOD-NC sticker. It has been on approximately 200 dives with me and has never once had even a hiccup.
Cause of Death:
Sending it in to Ikelite, they informed me there was a small crack along the switch cover, and the strobe was flooded and destroyed. I could upgrade to a DS160 for a little more than the going rate for a used DS125, and I opted for that. This was the only failure that cost so much that I made the critical mistake of calculating my per shot cost.
Lesson Learned:
Lessons learned? Absolutely nothing. I cannot recall any treatment that would have cracked the plastic. The other strobes are all fine. The last piece of gear I cracked was a second stage which was stuck between 2 tanks on a car ride, but the camera rig gets special treatment. I'm sad that the plastic cracked, but sadder that all I learned from it is, sometimes stuff breaks for no good reason. Best lesson I learned is, don't you dare add up how much you've spent on photo gear unless people are paying you for your pictures.
Second: Lost Port Cover
Usually, port covers get stuffed down the neck of my wetsuit within moments of entering the water. Odd system, but it works. For cave diving, though, they go into a drysuit pocket. Still, usually within moments of entering, but this was a scooter dive. After scootering a little over half a mile back, I pulled off the 8" dome port cover, rolled it up, and stuffed it into my right pocket. Only...something didn't go right.
Cause of Death:
I'll never know exactly where I lost it. I'm used to sticking things in a pocket, and you just make sure you feel the fabric around your hand. I'm pretty certain I got it in there. But, when I opened it back up, it was gone. We'd only swum for about 40 minutes, and neither of us noticed it disappear, but it is black, and there aren't exactly a lot of lights back there...
Lesson Learned:
For starters, write your name on your port. I had my name on my port, but it hasn't helped yet. Secondly, a brighter color would be nice for port covers! Third, I don't know if there is any good reason for the stiff plastic on the port cover. It means I have to awkwardly roll the cover up to stick it in a pocket. A simpler cover without the plastic stiffener I could just jam into the pocket. Fourth, perhaps zippered pockets are better than velcro ones, but I don't know if the velcro actually made a difference. Fifth and most important, the camera carrying system needs to be setup so the port faces out. This way, an uncovered port won't be rubbing against you the entire scooter ride back. Of course, this means you have to avoid running into anything on the way out...but for experienced scooter divers that is not much of an issue.
Third: a flooded DS50
By this point I'm on a backup strobe and restricted to the 6" port and the macro port, but that won't stop me from having fun! To Blue Heron Bridge I go, and have a great 2 hour dive photographing macro life. DS50 works fine the entire time, but back in the shallow water, pulling fins off, I notice the clear battery door is brown and black.
Cause of Death:
Unfortunately, I don't quite know. The battery door is perhaps 10 dives old. I tightened it the same as usual, and looked for the flattened seal all the way around. One of the power contacts was completely disintegrated, but it kept working! Still, decided to send it in for service. Less than 25% of the cost of the cracked DS125, but also only a little less than what the strobe cost me used.
Lesson Learned:
I unfortunately don't know exactly what to learn here, other than perhaps tighten the battery door more.
Fourth: more magic smoke out of a DS125
I'm a big fan of the Ikelite ds125/160/161 battery system. The design is so simple, the recharge times are ridiculous, the amount of shots on a full charge is plenty. The oring seals seem well designed, with X rings on the switch, two orings on the big latch, and that simple oring to seal to the body of the strobe. Should be nearly idiotproof. 15 minutes into a dive, the strobe flashed, and I hadn't taken a picture. I assumed the power knob had been bumped, but moving it between settings, it only did anything on the "+light" setting, where the light came on, but the strobe would not fire. Mystified and slightly upset, I finally noticed a tiny bump of oring protruding from the middle, and a whisp of battery acid floating out.
Cause of Death:
This one is probably my own darn fault. Ikelite clearly tells you that you probably don't need to remove the oring, just brush any sand off the face. I usually do that, but occasionally I pull them apart and make sure it's all clean. I did that before this dive, and apparently when I put it all back together, the oring was not full seated, allowing it to be pinched. Fortunately, the strobe head appears fine, and I do have one backup pack, so this one might not hurt the wallet just yet.
Lesson Learned:
Finally, a lesson can be learned, and a darn good one! Simply put, I need to add "look at seam and make sure no oring is sticking out" to my mental checklist. After assembling these strobes perhaps 400 times, this is the first time I've ever seen or done this.
Overall, I'm mostly sad that with so much gear broken, I only have one really good lesson learned.
. 
