Wantonmien
Contributor
:depressed:
Last Monday in Boracay, last dive of 8 of my few days there, a night dive, rolled off the boat, had G11 in Canon WP-DC34 housing passed to me, and as soon as decending had a customary quick look at the camera/housing to ensure no sign of water leakage.
Then at max depth 29 m in the blackness - flashed my torch onto housing to turn camera and strobe on and
- there in the housing sat the G11 with about 20mm depth of water in the housing .. :depressed:
The camera and housing had previously made around 100 trouble free dives with me, and seeing the housing failure meant that was the first dive I've taken and not enjoyed !! ... Ah well such is life, and if anyone wants to buy a drowned G11 make me an offer !!!
--
Anyway - causes / reasons ?
Took the housing into the very helpful staff at local diving camera shop here in Taipei on day of return - and it seems all I had done was smear too much silicon on the main o-ring, and not taken the main o-ring out and cleaned it often enough, so a bit of a build up of silicon seems the big stupid mistake :depressed: (or of course might have been a grain of sand or something but excess silicon highly likely).
After cleaning of the main o-ring and lip, the housing was then statically pressure tested by the shop to equivalent of 40m depth, and no sign of a leak/crack or problem. This weekend I'll also take the empty housing diving to depth and twiddle all the buttons to make sure there's no sign of leak also, I'll then try and decide if I invest in another Canon (G12) and use the same case, or go for something different.
Questions though -
- how often do other users of the WP-DC34 -take out the main o-ring and clean it ?
- how often to apply silicon to it ?
- what about the buttons, do other users occasionally find a button sticks in ?
- should oil / grease of any type be applied from inside housing to the button springs ?
- I liked the G11, so pretty sure I'll invest in the G12 - so can anyone recommend an alternative housing less likley to leak ?
The one good point
The SD card from the G11 is fine, so didn't lose my new pics
cheers
Last Monday in Boracay, last dive of 8 of my few days there, a night dive, rolled off the boat, had G11 in Canon WP-DC34 housing passed to me, and as soon as decending had a customary quick look at the camera/housing to ensure no sign of water leakage.
Then at max depth 29 m in the blackness - flashed my torch onto housing to turn camera and strobe on and

The camera and housing had previously made around 100 trouble free dives with me, and seeing the housing failure meant that was the first dive I've taken and not enjoyed !! ... Ah well such is life, and if anyone wants to buy a drowned G11 make me an offer !!!
--
Anyway - causes / reasons ?
Took the housing into the very helpful staff at local diving camera shop here in Taipei on day of return - and it seems all I had done was smear too much silicon on the main o-ring, and not taken the main o-ring out and cleaned it often enough, so a bit of a build up of silicon seems the big stupid mistake :depressed: (or of course might have been a grain of sand or something but excess silicon highly likely).
After cleaning of the main o-ring and lip, the housing was then statically pressure tested by the shop to equivalent of 40m depth, and no sign of a leak/crack or problem. This weekend I'll also take the empty housing diving to depth and twiddle all the buttons to make sure there's no sign of leak also, I'll then try and decide if I invest in another Canon (G12) and use the same case, or go for something different.
Questions though -
- how often do other users of the WP-DC34 -take out the main o-ring and clean it ?
- how often to apply silicon to it ?
- what about the buttons, do other users occasionally find a button sticks in ?
- should oil / grease of any type be applied from inside housing to the button springs ?
- I liked the G11, so pretty sure I'll invest in the G12 - so can anyone recommend an alternative housing less likley to leak ?
The one good point

cheers