Why I will never purchase another Olympus product ...

[Hammerhead]

The port tabs on the pt-023 housing all break off. I am presently trying to find out if Olympus has designed a fix for the design defect. So far I have not received a meaningful response.

Exactly what happened to me. Here's what I posted in the Philippine Paradise Divers Forum: -

Those of you who were there will probably remember when my brand new Olympus 8080 flooded in Anilao on the very first dive.

At the time, I was too pissed off to really wonder about how it had happened, but having found out that there’s no way my insurance is paying out, I decided last night that I should sell all my old Oly kit to help pay for the DSLR bits and bobs I’ll need.

If you know the set-up, the port containing the lens is removable (it’s very large and makes packing easier). Anyway, when I got to Anilao, I unpacked the housing in two parts, removed, cleaned and re-greased both o-rings (housing + port), installed the camera and did a 1 minute water immersion test in the sea by the boat prior to going to the dive site. All this carried out with out hitch.

The camera flooded immediately on hitting the water. Prior to that, I can stake my life that it suffered no knocks, was not re-opened and was passed down to me in the water by hand rather than me just jumping in with it. After flooding, the camera was then removed and (un-repairable) dumped.

The housing was then rinsed in fresh water and left with the port still attached to dry before being stowed away in my gear, packed safely, but still assembled.

While taking out the camera, the o-ring at the housing was fine and I could not work out the leak’s source, a visual check confirmed that both port clips were closed and o-ring ok. Note – I did not remove the port at this point.

Basically I was mystified, but determined not to beat myself up over something that couldn’t be fixed, so I did not involve anyone else,

Either way, last night I took the housing out of the cardboard box with padding that I used to transport it back (lens port intact) from Anilao for the first time since it happened. As I unclipped one of the two port clips, the lens port dropped off onto my bed. A bit odd, I thought – the other clip should have held it in place…I know that I never undid it.

The other clip WAS clipped on! Clipped on to a bit of plastic that formerly was part of the camera housing and had at some point broken off.

Now I’m prepared to swear on any amount of bibles that this could never have broken on the boat as a result of impact (there wasn’t any), and as it was still worth money, I made a point of packing it very carefully to bring it back to HK (in hand luggage only BTW), so I can be virtually certain it did not happen there either.

As the housing did not just leak gently, but was completely flooded in about 30 seconds while still shallow, a pinched o-ring would be unlikely. If, the housing itself was broken around the clip point, the speed of flooding would make more sense.

Long story short, I’m as sure as I can possibly be that this is one of those rare times when the user was actually NOT at fault.

So what do I do? Any similar experiences, anyone?

Olympus contacted me a few weeks back stating that they had examined the housing and will fix it - for a fee - but that the flooding "must have been your fault".

Not sure what avenues are open to me now, but one thing's for sure - I am one very pissed off ex-Olympus customer.

 

[milkathecow]

I have just brought some Mju720 with PT-033 housing... and am begging for not having a problem after reading this .

One sure design flaw already is this little "grip" on the right, with 2 holes on the top & bottom. sand goes in but can't get out... now that's not cool, even if it's external it's surely not great for resale on 2nd hand.

I just hope that the Olympus Europe after sale service is better than this... but i'm really not convinced.

Good luck anyhow with your housing, and i hope that you will get some good service somestage with this housing & camera.

 

[gert7to3]

I have a friend who had that same stinking little pin shear in his PT-023 housing. You definitely do not want to transport this housing with the lens housing attached. I would be tempted to drill the thing out and insert a stainless steel pin. This is a terrible design. Be very careful with it.

There is an alternative and it is Ikelite. The C-8080 camera offers such wonderful possibilities. The extra cost of an Ikelite housing might appear pretty small next to a flooded camera on the first dive of a week long trip.

http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/oly_8080.html

 

[rwe]

I have considered a stainless screw as you suggest but there is not much plastic to hold it in place and a nut on the inside would interfere with the camera and port insertion. Sealing the port to the housing may be the better alternative although cleaning the port will be somewhat more difficult.

I have no doubt that the Ikelite housing is much better designed. My only problem with Ikelite is that their housings are set up to only provide TTL with Ikelite DS strobes. I assume this is a marketing issue for their strobes but it certainly results to turning some of us to other directions. Since I already had a new strobe at the time I purchased the C-8080 (purchased for a Nikonos V) I decided to go with the Olympus housing and a Heinrichs adaptor rather than purchase the Ikelite housing and also have to purchase an Ikelite strobe, cord, and strobe bracket/arm. This allowed me to put together the entire system (camera, housing, arm/bracket, TTL strobe, cord) for approximately $800 since I was able to use the arm/bracket, strobe, and cord from my Nikonos V system. If I were going to spend the money to purchase an Ikelite housing, strobe, cord, arm/bracket I probably would have decided to go to a digital SLR and I didn't have the money available to do that at the time. Maybe next time! (although I still find the Ikelite philosphy of not providing TTL for other strobes annoying).

 

[Larry C]

There have been posts on similar threads regarding repairs to Olympus bulkheads and lens port tabs. I think Matthias was the poster on this. You might check the links to prior threads on the bottom or do a key word search with Olympus bulkhead.

 

[gert7to3]

Rwe,

I was not suggesting a screw and nut inserted through the housing wall. Just a small pin made of stainless steel (or bronze) rod stock or piece of a screw made of the same material. This would require drilling a shallow socket hole into the camera housing, where the original cast (now broken off) plastic pin was. Then gluing in a metal pin of the same dimensions as the broken plastic pin.

I would have to look at my friend's housing again, but as I recall there seemed to be sufficient material in the housing bezel. You would absolutely not want to drill a hole all the way through the housing body.

Stainless steel rodstock is available at some hardware or hobby shops. Stainless steel or bronze screws could also be adapted. You might get lucky and find the exact same diameter rodstock as the plastic pin. Otherwise you could chuck up the rodstock in a drill, drillpress or lathe and polish it down to the right diameter.

It might be worthwhile setting up a small kit with a couple of pins, glue and the right sized drillbit ahead of time. Then if the housing pin fails, you could make a repair. You can find a drill somewhere at most resorts or dive boats, but having the right sized drillbit is the key factor.

 

[AndyT]

Have a look here for a solution to the port latches - http://www.mike-dive.de/html/content/kameras/olympus/pt2xport.htm .

Just for the record , I had a problem with the mode dial on my 5060 - Oly over here replaced my camera 4 times till I got a non-defective one.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Just a follow-up ... I requested that they either expedite the shipment so that I receive it by the 24th, or hold onto it until after Labor Day. I explained that I'm leaving for Bonaire on the 25th, and won't be home until Sept. 03 ... and that I do not want the housing delivered to my house while I'm gone.

I just got the notification that my housing shipped today ... UPS ground. It's scheduled to be delivered on the 28th ... which means it'll sit on my doorstep for a week until I return. There's a high probability that it won't still be there when I get home.

So I've contacted UPS with a request that they expedite delivery, and that I'll pay whatever it takes to get the damn thing here by Thursday. Otherwise, don't deliver it until Sept. 05.

Once again, the folks at Olympus demonstrate their utter disregard for their customers ... the guy on the phone really did give me the impression that this was my problem, not theirs. Their complete disregard for my request in this matter ... which I made both verbally and in writing in the letter that accompanied the shipment ... demonstrates that they really don't give a crap about their customers.

At this point, there is nothing they could possibly do to regain my confidence in their product or service ... Olympus simply doesn't deserve my business. They go high on the list of worst companies I've ever had the misfortune to deal with.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Sasquatch]

Unbelievably poor performance.

Condolences for having to suffer fools.

 

[djanni]

I know how mad one can get in these situations. I have too. I had a go with Toyota recently and swore I'd never buy another one. But, I might as they're good cars.

As we speak my son's 6 month old Canon S80 (he's not a diver) is having intermittent LCD problems which Canon said could only be the result of dropping the camera. He's never dropped it.

I have a PT-023 and one of the pins that holds the lens port on broke off. I sent it in for warranty repair. Ended up talking to a supervisor. I described how it happened as I was removing the port when it broke and she agreed to have the technition look at it again with this new information.

Three days later they called to say Olympus would replace the PT-023 at no charge and the new housing was being shipped that day. I had good luck on my side for this one.

Regarding the services we get from companies such as these, I often think the quality of the service is substantially based on which side of the bed the technicain and/or supervisor got out of that morning, how bad the traffic was for their drive to work and how many times they've been insulted or chewed out by the time one gets them on the telephone. Then consider how relaxed and friendly we are once we get them on the phone.

I've had various Canon and Olympus cameras for years and on the very few occations I've had a problem with any of them, at the end of the day, you can't tell any difference between their product quality or their service and support. At least in my opinion.