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11/12/09
O-Ring Care and Maintenance
If you’re like many owners of underwater video or camera equipment, you may wonder:
just how does one provide proper care to the o-ring seals that keep water safely away
from my expensive electronics? This is an excellent question. The answer seems to
pervade the world of SCUBA, passing from mouth to mouth, but there seems lacking a
consolidation that brings all that useful advice together. This brief guide will help de-
mystify o-rings, provide instructions for their proper care, and provide good useful
summary information.
What is an O-Ring?
An o-ring is really quite simple, resembling a thick rubber band. They are almost always
round or “O”-shaped, but can be rectangular, oval, trapezoidal, or any shape required to
establish a watertight seal. In all cases, O-rings are manufactured to precision
tolerances required to hold a pressure seal on your housing. O-Rings are made of an
elastomeric material, which is a fancy way of saying they can stretch and deform. They
can be made of natural rubber, latex, silicone, viton, buna, or many other stretchy
materials. This is an important feature of o-rings as it provides the means by which a
watertight seal is formed.
How Do I Care for O-Rings?
As you may have reasoned, o-rings must be free of dirt and debris to work. Any foreign
material that compromises the o-ring being squeezed into the o-ring groove will allow
water to enter.
This is bad
. Fortunately, it’s very easy to maintain the integrity of this
seal by simply inspecting, cleaning and lubricating the o-rings when required.
Caution
:
Your Gates housing contains
two types
of o-rings: one large
orange
o-ring
and one or more
black
o-rings. The following instructions apply to both types of o-rings
except for lubrication—
Do Not Lubricate
the orange o-ring
! It is a special silicone o-
ring and can be damaged by petroleum based lubricants.
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