Home : Video course : Module 2: Video Housings : Flooded Video Housings

Whenever the topic of equipment comes up so do the horror stories of floods the size of which Noah couldn't build an ark for. There are even T-shirts that people buy to celebrate this character-forming event! Floods are an occupational hazard to the underwater videographer and you should take them in your stride, there is no point in agonising over why they happen; if you'll excuse the double negative - they happen because it is not natural for them not to happen!

Flood Prevention

Nearly all floods are attributable to operator error anyway i.e. you, forgetting to double-check everything. Of course floods are best avoided than cured, but maintenance may not always be the best preventative action however.

There are two categories of flood

• Severe housing floods: these are usually terminal. They happen within the first ten feet at the beginning of a dive, never mid-dive. Severe floods happen fast and there's very little you can do to alleviate the situation except get your backup out.
• Minor housing Floods: These can be retrievable. They either happen continuously throughout the dive or (with some compression sealed ports) on decreasing pressure of ascent (if momentarily knocked).

Severe floods can be avoided only by paying attention at the most dangerous time - i.e. when you first get in. Because they happen fast, by the time you realise you have one it can be too late. However, because they happen in such a limited time frame they should be the most avoidable. It all boils down to visual inspection. Do not rely on a leak detector; by the time you hear it the damage may already be done.

Minor floods are harder to detect. The damage they cause is usually due to the accumulated water sloshing about when you change the orientation of camera (or housing) often when you hand it up to the boat, which then takes the electronics out. Most camcorder housings have a nice sump as a first line of defence. Leak detectors are ideal to detect minor floods that take time to fill the sump.

1. the deeper you go the better the o-ring seal because of increased compression and
2. Once you have a good seal, why risk compromising it by opening it up?

The only o-rings you need to maintain daily are the ones you open up. This means the main o-ring that keeps the camera body (or housing) watertight every time you change film, and those on flash plugs you need to remove regularly for cleaning. Any more than that is asking for trouble.

If you must grease o-rings habitually, remember, do it lightly so they shine - this keeps them supple. Excess grease does not keep out water; it just picks up dirt. Once you have greased o-rings put them on the part and offer the part up - then disassemble and inspect; anything likely to bridge a seal (such as a hair) will probably have been picked up.

The Cure!

Some emergency actions are worth trying in the event of a flood. Soaking a flooded camera in freshwater is the usually recommended advice (and probably won't do any more harm in the event of a severe flood but minor floods are best just dried).

With camcorders, successful reinstatement rather depends on degree of flood. You can still never be sure that any such repair has taken until you run a tape through and even then, you can still experience problems later.

Many lights may operate quite happily after a flood, as long as you switch them off as soon as it happens to prevent internal shorting. The important thing is to dry it out completely before switching on again.

Soaking in pure alcohol is recommended treatment by some to displace moisture in hard to get at places (and you can always drown your sorrows if it hasn't worked) but is actually a fallacy. One owner I know who did that found that all the glued parts in his camera came apart. If you do have a small flood, Silica crystals can help, they absorb moisture very effectively.

If you do have some knowledge of electronics you may be able to repair a light's printed circuit board after immersion in saltwater. The first step is to disassemble it, taking care not to lose any parts, and dry the circuit board as far as you can. Moving parts such as switches should be sprayed with contact cleaner lubricant and manipulated, the board should be sprayed with printed circuit board cleaner.

The salts may have attacked the soldered joints and so you should wire brush the back of the board, down to the tracks if necessary. Dry joints are recognised by a dull appearance of the solder. Any suspected dry joints should be re-soldered (some components are damaged by heat so do not leave the iron on them too long). Unfortunately microchips aren't too happy about anything touching them, let alone a bath, so you will be very lucky to revive a dead bit of kit!

However it won't harm to visually inspect components for burning, and examine tracks for shorting. If you do get it going again, spray with clear protective lacquer which will keep the water away the next time you have a flood! Isn't it a shame that the manufacturer didn't do that in the first place?

It should go without saying that you should cure the cause of any flood before taking the repaired equipment underwater again!

It is unlikely that you would want to carry all the sprays, soldering irons, spare parts etc. that you need to cure a flood with you on location. So, unless you are an expert camera repairer, after a flood you use your back-up camcorder and get the insurance policy out when you get home!