Any way to check the waterproofness of excal before heading to the beach?

[chillyhiker]

Should i take it apart and check the orings or just try a dunk in the tub...any suggestions?

 

[goodmore]

Never take the Excal apart unless you have problems or it is at least out of warranty. You can do some preventive maintenance on a few things. Make sure that the little rubber washer is on the battery and is coated on both sides with silicone grease. Grease the threads a little too. Use spray silicone lubricant on the coil wire and headphone wire. They will dry rot. Make sure you have the coil wire tied off so that it won't pull on the detector housing.

 

[bootyhoundpa]

i have an old used one that i was not so sure of its water tight integrity either.....i took it tomy back yard pool and with the unit turned off igave it a breif dip and look for bubbles or water seeping into the plastic.. fortunately there was no leakage...i still chest mounted it when i went to the beach...eventually i made my way into deeper water with no real problem.....only thing i noticed is when i would clean the unit after use there was always some moisture on the battery gasket...but this did not seem to effect performance... good luck..... i believe ive read where if you get a little water in the unit but its still turnded off you might be able to dry it out and save the machine but if water gets in while its turned on its probably the last timeyou will get to use it...doa... i was also told if it aint broke dont fix it,,,,,good luck..

 

[chillyhiker]

n/t

 

[Mel Parker]

because if it did leak, fresh water is better than salt water any day. Chances of surviving a fresh water leak are very good not so with salt.

 

[Finderskeeper]

Spray it with your garden hose.....hit it hard with the water and that should tell you if it leaks or not. As Mel says, better to be fresh water than salt. You can actually clean electronic parts with distilled water as it has no minerals in it. Pure distilled water does not conduct electricity. Salt water has tons of minerals in it and that is why it is so hard on electronics and metal. Most fresh water has minerals but to a lesser degree so it is just a bit safer than salt water.

I did the spray method with my battery pack after installing my new 1600 mah batteries and found that the seal was not quite in right. Had a little bit of water in it after spraying. Put some new grease on the O ring and slid it on more carefully and that fixed it.

 

[ZOFCHAK]

I'll be replacing the seals on mine sometime this week. I plan on testing it with five gallon jug of water and adding a compressed air fitting.

 

[otlew]

Careful,

What you are doing testing with air, with even a little bit of air present, is a stored energy pressure test. Be sure of the integrity of you test vessel. It would be better to use city water pressure, usually about 60 psi. If your test vessel bursts under water pressure you might get wet but if air pressure is used and your vessel fails catastrophically you may have some flying shrapnel. You will get just as good a test using 100% water and do so a safer manner.

60 psi of water pressure it is equivalent to 138 feet of fresh water depth (60 psi /.433 psi per vertical foot of height = 138 feet of water depth). If it takes that it certainly will not leak in shallow water. In fact water pressure of 10 psi/.433 = 23 feet of depth

Trust me on this, I deal with this for a living. Think of it as popping a balloon filled with water as opposed to one filled with air.

I'll be replacing the seals on mine sometime this week. I plan on testing it with five gallon jug of water and adding a compressed air fitting.