Flooded sealife mini II

[wrybosome]

My mini flooded a few weeks ago on a freshwater dive. It wasn't just damp inside, the lens was visibly half full of water. On opening it about 10-20 mL of water drained from the case.

Not having anything to lose I removed the back panel and placed it and the body in a one gallon paint can half filled with Drierite. I had a layer of porous tissue between the camera and the drying agent to prevent dusting the camera interior.

After a week of drying in the sealed can i reassembled the camera and loaded batteries. The camera turned and would take pictures but they were overexposed unless the light was low.

Thinking that maybe some contaminants from the quarry were on the ccd I took the camera apart again and soaked it for about 6 hoours in deionized water. I repeated the same drying procedure and the camera seems to be working normally now.

Just an FYI for anyone who runs into this problem.

 

[ScubaSam]

Tim, bummer about the flooding. Exactly how did it flood in the first place?

 

[wrybosome]

Tim, bummer about the flooding. Exactly how did it flood in the first place?

I don't know. Everything was closed properly, noticed it was flooded at 15' at the start of the dive. Maybe there was a hair across the o-ring or something?

I've tested it since in a bucket since then and no problems. We'll see how it does on Sunday on the Algol.

 

[Arubandi07]

Hey, congrats on getting Humpty Dumpty back together, ingenious!!

In order to prevent that problem, I actually use an infant toothbrush(very soft), going over the O-ring and counter face, and double checking with a magnifying glass before closing my Mini(4 yrs and still going strong), little extra work, but so far it's paid off.

 

[wrybosome]

Thanks, I think I'll adopt your procedure!