How water-proof is the PD? Mine is NOT!

[Aepoc]

I dropped my PD in a puddle this evening and I thought nothing of it... Telling everyone "No need to worry. Its the PD." Soon after I realized that the low mode was no longer working. Frantically, I took the head off the light to find the interior covered in water. The board, battery, and cylinder were wet. I wiped everything down and threw a fresh battery in the light to find that the low mode still did not work. I then inspected all of the O-rings and found nothing unusual. I will wait until tomorrow to let everything dry thoroughly before trying low mode again.

My heart sank when I saw the beads of water on the interior of the light. I hope I didn't ruin my PD. It is currently my EDC and it has surpassed all of my expectations until tonight. $300 is a steep price tag for anyone, especially someone on a college kid's budget, but until tonight, it was worth every penny. The craftsmanship and quality of the light are superior to any other light that I've held in my hands...

I will post the final result tomorrow (whether the low mode works or not)

:mecry::mecry::mecry::mecry:

 

[MorpheusT1]

I actually had the same experience two days ago...
Left the head off for drying overnight and now it works again
Relubed and just hope the next time i will be covered.

Don said the piston O-Ring could be swapped for a tighter one.Thats where i got my water entry.


I hope yours will recover fully aswell.
Benny

 

[McGizmo]

"How waterproof is the PD?"

Well by design, it should be waterproof but this depends on the proper function and condition of the seals and sealing surfaces. Just recently I have been contacted by a couple people who have had some leaking problems.

I believe the piston O-ring is the achilles heel here although I have yet to have a freshly lubed light fail on testing. The PD's were initially assembled using a #016 O-ring on the piston but at the time using silicone grease for a lube, there were issues with sticktion and droping down to a #015 O-ring allowed for easier piston movement but still a viable seal. At least this was my experience and until just recently there have not been any problems?!?! Within the last 6 weeks I believe I have heard of now 4 or 5 cases including Benny's and now yours.

A #016 O-ring will provide more material in compression in the piston seal which should enhance the integrity of the light.

I do want to emphasize the need for a good and clean seal though!! I have flooded a couple very expensive UW cameras (Nikonos) and this year, I experienced a minor flood with a new $3500 UW housing. This last flood was due to an O-ring that sealed the dome port to a spacer ring that in turn mates to the housing. I never take the spacer off and the housing was less than a year old. As it turned out, the O-ring got dry and didn't seal properly. In the past, the floods I experienced were due to pinched O-rings or fibers or grit contaminating the seal.

The O-ring needs to have a good seal against both parts it is sealing. This means both a seal in the groove as well as against the bore surface.

If your light fails to come back in function, let me know and we will get it taken care of.

 

[MorpheusT1]

Thanks for Chiming in Don,
Your customer service is the best


My light is working perfectly now and i have relubed it and its ready for action again


I`ll see if i can find a proper O-Ring that is slightly bigger for the piston.

I dont want anyone to start thinking that the PD is not waterproof.
It actually is VERY Waterproof and the reason why we are seeing this problem now is that Mr Mcleish tryed to improve the piston action by putting a smaller O-Ring in there.No biggie we all make mistakes and i would take my PD over any other light ANY day.
You probably said it better but i wanted to say this too,as i have had 4 PD`s and all have worked perfectly until now.The one that took in water was of the newest Batch of PD`s.

Edit:I had another incident with a PD but that was was a modded light(Not by Don and i dont want to go in details now)





Either way the lights are top notch and so is that guy who makes them.
McFiddleyGiddy is his name i think...:nana:




Benny


Regards,
Benny

 

[chimo]

I had a PD piston seal leak last summer. It didn't harm anything - I just left the components to dry and re-assembled. I haven't gotten around to getting a larger o-ring yet.

Paul

 

[AlecGold]

hmm, this is serious stuff! I hope/think/estimate it wouldn't happen with the C-pack?! I've taken showers with it around my neck and everything went allright. I swimmed with it and everything went aok! But I'm now going to clean it and relube every bit and every o-ring with a nice tiny amount of krytox! that is for certain!

Hope everything works out Aepoc!

 

[Oddjob]

Never had any waterproof issues with mine. It's been run under a tap as well as completely submerged. I don't know what size O ring I have on the piston though. Hope everything workd out for you!

I dropped my PD in a puddle this evening and I thought nothing of it... Telling everyone "No need to worry. Its the PD." Soon after I realized that the low mode was no longer working. Frantically, I took the head off the light to find the interior covered in water. The board, battery, and cylinder were wet. I wiped everything down and threw a fresh battery in the light to find that the low mode still did not work. I then inspected all of the O-rings and found nothing unusual. I will wait until tomorrow to let everything dry thoroughly before trying low mode again.


My heart sank when I saw the beads of water on the interior of the light. I hope I didn't ruin my PD. It is currently my EDC and it has surpassed all of my expectations until tonight. $300 is a steep price tag for anyone, especially someone on a college kid's budget, but until tonight, it was worth every penny. The craftsmanship and quality of the light are superior to any other light that I've held in my hands...

I will post the final result tomorrow (whether the low mode works or not)

:mecry::mecry::mecry::mecry:

 

[cy]

don't discount operator error, if PD has been taken apart.

when you insert piston back in and don't use a twisting motion. there's a good chance you will damage oring.

note this comment is only valid for ti PD. first time I took ti PD apart to clean top of piston area, sliced up piston oring going back in.

 

[Aepoc]

First of all, thank you Don for your speedy response. You have alleviated a lot of unnecessary worrying (I tend to catastrophise when something like this happens). You offer customer support like no other... Just as I suspected. I wanted to PM you directly, but I chose to create a thread to see if anyone else has had this problem. I mean no bad publicity, as I still believe the PD is superior to any other light.


As of this morning, the low mode still does not work. When I turn for constant on, the light flashes once as it passes the low position, but does not stay on. High mode still works properly. I will allow this to dry until tomorrow and try one more time... (Could there still be water in there?) I refuse to believe that I have damaged the board.


About the O-rings:
I use Nyo-Gel on the threads fairly regularly, thus the O-ring on the head should be fine. I have never thought to lube the piston and its ring however. It makes sense that this is where the water entered the body, although there are no signs of a cracked or otherwise damaged ring.

Thank you everyone for sharing your stories, and thanks again Don for your support.

 

[greenstuffs]

I regularly lube my pd and put some plumber tape at the end of the piston to further increase the waterproofness. So far so good good luck with your light Aepoc.

 

[Strauss]

Good luck with the light man. If it still won't work, a quick trip to Don and it will be in great shape. Heck, maybe he will feel sorry and drop a Seoul in there for ya while he has it apart

I always make sure I lube the piston o-ring on my PD. Matter of fact, it's the only thing I lube on my PD, my head is nice and smooth without any sort of lube. But after reading this, I think I will make sure all my o-rings are well lubricated.

 

[jch79]

don't discount operator error, if PD has been taken apart.

when you insert piston back in and don't use a twisting motion. there's a good chance you will damage oring.

note this comment is only valid for ti PD. first time I took ti PD apart to clean top of piston area, sliced up piston oring going back in.

cy - great post. I've never really paid that much attention to the piston O-ring! I'm going to make sure all of my piston O-rings are lookin' good!

Also, the twisting note on the Ti-PD's is a nice tip.

 

[McGizmo]

CY brought up a good point about damage to the O-ring. Actually the initial PD was based on EPDM O-rings and these are better suited for abrasive environments. The silicone was introduced later and again to provide a smoother action. Silicone shears easily and should be considered a wear item; actually all seals are a wear item.

I have mentioned before that I believe Ralph Nadar was instrumental in getting the qualification of waterproof to the point that waterproof watches became water resistent. I believe to qualify as waterproof, a device must function even if flooded. That's a tough standard!! I do have some waterproof tools; screw drivers and wrenches come to mind.

I don't and won't claim these lights to be water proof nor do I consider them dive lights. If I were to venture into a light that I would intend for diving, it would not have a piston and it would have minimal possible points of water entry. I have a design in mind that I ponder from time to time that would be a light with no threads anywhere. It's simple yet quite complicated and would require a new converter design with diferent contact points. This is something that I know Wayne wouldn't have time for nor do I, really. The other thing I would want to address in such a light would be a viable conformal coating for the circuitry so that some exposure to water wouldn't necessarily spell disaster. That latest housing flood I mentioned ended up with the only permenant damage being to a circuit that was added as a stand alone leak warning device!! When some contacts get wet, an audible alarm goes off and a red LED flashes for the duration of moisture presence. After the flood, I cleaned the sensor contacts and the LED portion works but the audible alarm part died! Had the PCB been treated to a conformal coating I expect that it would have recovered from the experience.

With my lights, a significan flood is sure death to the reflectors should they encounter salt water! Fresh water is not a problem it seems. One could pot the converter chamber with epoxy which would provide an interior bulkhead protecting the front end from a flood in the battery chamber. The potting would also protect the electronics. However, assembly and disassembly would become problematic and be of a destructive nature.

My Ti lights are not waterproof but the expensive parts are! That being the Ti components themselves.

I don't think any flashlight should be considered waterproof; even a good quality dive light. To me, having a tool flood is sort of like riding a motorcycle. If you ride a motorcycle or bike, the question isn't if you will have a fall but more when and how bad will the fall be. A two wheel vehicle is inherently unstable and with gravity would be more at rest on its side. One must be vigilant at all times to keep it upright. One must be vigilant at all times to insure against a flood. I don't know about you guys but I am not vigilant at all times and it is something I do keep in mind!

I have fallen and I have flooded and expect to experience more of the same with my time left remaining here.

 

[LED Zeppelin]

Nice analogy Don. I've fallen more times than I care to admit, but fortunately only at the track. It's not a question of if, but rather when. Slide along a 100 mph asphalt beltsander enough times and you learn to prep for each and every ride like it could be your last. Read "drop your light in water a few times and you'll prep your light like you're going to dive".

In this age of miniscule fine print, your handshake still rules.

 

[Oddjob]

In my first post in this thread I was talking about my original PD and I realized I had not tested my PD-S. I just tested it by running it under the bathtub faucet on full for about 15 seconds and then I completely submerged it for about 3 minutes. When I took it apart, there were no signs of water anywhere and it worked like normal after being reassembled. The O-ring on my piston is a #16. I know some PD's have been put through more but I subjected it to way more water than I probably ever will in future use so I'm happy. Don't know what has happened to Aepoc's but I hope it gets resolved. I know I wouldn't want to go without mine.

 

[Aepoc]

An end to the PD down saga:

I got tired of waiting for the light to dry completely (a whole day without my PD), so I decided to take the head apart. There was still some water on the other side of the board so I blasted it with some dust-off and I'm back in business. Today was a very tense day for my. I'm glad to have this ordeal done with.

In the near future I will be upgrading my PD with a Seoul. I think I will upgrade the O-ring as well.

Thanks again everyone

 

[AlecGold]

Don, what kind of stuff could waterproof the pcb?
Als a question is if the xr19-C is more waterproof?
I've been swimming and showering with my XR19-C and I've read that this light could withstand 180 feet of water pressure. that doesnt make it necesarly a dive light, but I considered it to be fairly waterproof!
Is the clickie, ofcourse when clean and used with proper seals, to be considered more waterproof than the PD's?

 

[McGizmo]

Alec,

There are all kinds of conformal coatings and I am no expert or even competent in knowledge about them. With the x2 converters, once the LED lead wires have been soldered on, one could "paint" both sides with some type of coating that would protect the components and trace circuit from unwanted exposure to moisture. For all I know, a good nail poiish would be a good improvement here.

As to water resistant integrity, one first must have a seal that is effective in low or non pressure situations. Further, as external pressure increases, ideally this seal improves due to compression. If the design is good, you only need to subject an item to a few feet of submersion to test its seal. In many cases, an object is most prone to leak in lack of external pressure if there is not sufficient and complete compression of the seal at "rest".

I have no idea if the C pak is inherently more likely to seal than the piston pak. You have the boot and two O-rings all inter mated and it would take one schooled in engineering to evaluate the system under pressure to determine if it would improve as pressure is increased or not. :shrug:

 

[AlecGold]

hmmm, where are my engineering skills...... I'm sure I left them in that box in the garage

nah, I've worked in several projects where sensors under the waterline of ships where destroyed time after time after time. The sensorpots where capable (designing wise) of withstanding presures of 50 or in later versions even up 120 bar! Even so the L-shaped lipseals gave way under *normal* use of the vessels. After much testing it was concluded that temperature differences where to blame in combination with highly erosive environments (the vessels being dredgers and hoppers).

In my mind the C-pack seals are very watertight: the waterpressure of the whole boot rest on a relative small ring against the titanium and is pre-pressed against the titanium with the use of two o-rings, one preventing displacement, one giving the starting pressure.
Both o-rings are a tiny bit to large and I think it is needed to get the compression, but I also wonder if that could get a space between ti and first o-ring. And a thin coat of krytox would make it harder for water to enter the light, nothing as useless as a dry o-ring.

Just a small side-jump, is there a specific reason for choosing EPDM-rings? I now know you've chosen silicon for smooth operations. I myself often have petrol and gasoline, whitespirit etc. around, so I choose to have a full Viton o-ring replacement as they thend to have less negative effects from these liquids. That has given the head a slighty less smooth turning, but gave me a lot less worring about the o-rings. And the cost where "marginal" at around 5 Euro's.

In real life, ive been swimming in the river, the xr19-c in a Surefire holster, clickie sticking a bit out, velcro flap over the boot, but even with some occasional diving, it went perfectly. I thrust the light more than enough to do it again, but if there was to be a grain of sand in the wrong place, it could mess up the seal and give me a water filled titanium tube.
And when I'm putting it "deliberatly at risk", I could take some preventive measures to protect the pcb and it's electronics?!

 

[cy]

I'm using HNBR orings on my ti PD.
seems a little smoother, hard to tell..