Cecil:
A friend in Bonaire busted his TTL connector. Any idea where I can get a new one, Olympus has not been alot of help.
I live near the UW camera store in Derry, NH, if anyone remembers their name. I'm thinking they might be able to help.
I leave in two weeks and would really like to take a fix with me.
Thanks.
Buy a replacement housing. You might find a cheaper PT020, and cannibalize the bulkhead on it, it's the same.
There are no spare parts available from Olympus. They want to do a repair, and charge you $180 for a $10 part. You can buy a brand new housing for that money.
This port has a known corrosion problem due to dissimilar metals setting up galvanic action, duhh... The cap and the connector are aluminum, the bulkhead is nickle plated brass, and in salt water the corrosion is immediate. The cap freezes to the bulkhead. Olympus specifies in the manual for the housing that when that happens you must return it to the factory for replacement. They know the metals are effectively welded, and you will break the red plastic base when you try to disconnect them. (Oh, and then it's your fault, user abuse, you were warned). So it's stupid to replace the bulkhead with another just like it that will soon fail again. This is a gross, known problem with the Oly bulkheads on the PT-020 and up.
Want some examples?
Here are some other discussions of this same failure:
http://www.digitaldiver.net/yabbse/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=8919
Here is a website for a guy who replaced his with a fixed one.
http://www.devilgas.com/oly5060/pt020_rebore.php
Long term, you need to replace the bulkhead with a better one from someone else.
You can replace the bulkhead with one from HeinrichsWeikamp that is much more reliable and also converts the housing to Nikonos or Sea&Sea TTL operation, so you can use those strobes if you want. See mine in my Gallery:
http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=1424
Here is the HW website:
http://www.heinrichsweikamp.net/blitz/indexe.htm
Yet another option is to bore the hole for an Ikelite bulkhead, and use the HW converter and bulkhead from Ike. The Ikelite bulkhead is much better designed than the Nikonos or Oly. I may go that route on the next housing I set up.
