craks on the base plate. I need help

[gaudencio]

Hi,
I am using an olympus pt-020 housing for 3 yrs now. Everything was OK. But when I bought an Inon 2000s s with an Epoque slot sltay2 base . After a couple of dives with this rig , one of the 4 screws of the base plate of the housing came of. Upon close inspection, i noticed that the housing screws treads cracked . Can I repair this? Is the PT-020 really this weak , that the screws came off. Am i doing something wrong that my housing got damaged Though I was really very careful in handling the unit above and U/W.
What can you say about the Ikelite housing? Is it stronger ? Will I be able to use my strobe on the ikelite? Does anyone knows where I can buy one?
Sorry for the lot of questions, Hope that you could help.

 

[Eli]

The exact same thing happened to me. The price on the PT-020 has gone down considerably. For $69 I bought a new PT-020 from 17th Street Photo. If it lasts another 3 years I will be happy.

 

[gert7to3]

It's possible that you ran the mounting screw from the Epoque tray too far in. I think the PT-020 is similar to the PT-030, in that there is a flat plate with a punch formed threaded center hole. If the mounting screw of whatever you are attaching to this plate is run too far in, then there is force applied to the plate and the bottom part of the housing.

1) Check how deep you run the Epoque tray's mounting bolt into the housing plate. It should not go all the way past the mounting plate and contact the PT-020 housing.

2) If the Oly housing plate screws simply had the threads stripped, then you could probably fill the screw hole(s) with some epoxy and torque the screw in. The epoxy will restore the threads and hold the screw.

3) If the molded posts that the mounting plate screws go into are broken, you could probably rebuild them by pressing epoxy putty (plumbing supply item) around the broken posts and use the epoxy glue to bed the screws as described in #2. You could even fill much of the space under the housing's mounting plate with the putty.

An Ikelite housing is probably of better quality and design. The question is how much money to spend on an out of production camera?

 

[gaudencio]

Thanks guys,
I covered all of the plate inside and outside with epoxy, I hope this would hold. I am yet to try it out next week at PG. I just noticed before. When I screw in the base plate and if its not too tight, the camera housing seems to move after a while( i'm afraid that it would come off during the dive especially in strong currents in PG canyons.. so i have to screw it in though not too tight.
Eli, I just like to ask what tray did you use that the base plate also came off?

 

[gaudencio]

I wrote to Ikelight and they said that they don't have housing for this camera anymore. I am also quite interested in canon A640. Ikelite said that it is not compatible with Inon 2000s.
Eli, the PT-020 lasted me for 3 yrs without the strobe. But with the strobe its only a couple of dives. I think the housing with the camera is too heavy that its base plate screws cracked.

 

[gert7to3]

If you want to tighten the tray without running the screw into the bottom wall of the housing, you could stack a fender washer or two on top of the tray's mounting plate, over the mounting screw. This way you could tighten the screw without having it contact the bottom part of the camera housing.

Another method would be to replace the tray's mounting screw with a bolt that has a wing nut with the wings facing the bolt head. Run the bolt in just past the mounting plate, then turn the wing nut up to the bottom of the tray to tighten and lock down against the mounting plate.

 

[Eli]

It was a homemade tray, built from aluminun stock that was bent on a vice and holes drilled on a drill press. The housing lasted 3 years attached to it. I broke the base plate when I held the setup by the camera only above water with the strobe on it, pointed parallel to a table. Those little screws on the baseplate couldnt handle the weght of the strobe.

http://www.pbase.com/elif/image/5906706