The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
You'll also need a mouthpiece adapter. If you don't want to make one, www.ScubaTools.com has them for @ $21
Why every diver should take a regulator course!
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if you're careful with the soft tubing they come with you can get a seal around a normal mouthpiece. That's what I usually use so I don't have to remove the mouthpiece
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
Different strokes. I find the converse to be true. Again, for me it might be 1 in 20 regs that have to come off of the hose for a minor tweak.
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
It's designed to fit in the mouthpiece as well as use the rubber gasket if you have the mouthpiece off. But again: different strokes. Not that I'm calling you a stroke.
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It's designed to fit in the mouthpiece as well as use the rubber gasket if you have the mouthpiece off. But again: different strokes. Not that I'm calling you a stroke.
doesn't fit the stupid large bore of the Poseidon mouthpieces, that's why I worked around it
My somewhat limited experience with regulator servicing is similar to yours, but we recently had a thread in which one of the participants said that he averaged about 8 minutes for the complete job. I do not see how it is remotely possible, but he insisted it was true, and several other posters said something similar. I have worked side-by-side with two different shop technicians in two different shops, and the time it required was similar to what you are reporting.
That was my thoughts when I learned how to do it and got the necessary tools. Eventually, though, I fully realized the extent of something I have known all my life--I am not a DIY kind of guy.
Oh, I know how to do a lot of DIY stuff, and I do a lot of it, but I generally hate it. Plumbing is the worst. I hate every minute of it, but the plumbers in my area charge about $175 an hour for work any idiot can do, so I do it. I almost never call a plumber.
On the other hand, there are other typical DIY things i know how to do but choose not to. I used to change the oil in my car, but I gave that up decades ago. There is a limit to the electrical work I will do--if I am at all not sure about it, I will call an electrician. Decades ago I bounced off a wall and fell to the floor while working on 220, and that taught me a little caution.
A couple weeks ago I looked at my regulators, realized that a number of them could use servicing, and thought this would be a good time to do it, since I won't be diving for a few weeks. I looked at my regulators and then at my tools. I looked back and forth a few times and then realized how much I really, really, really didn't want to do it.
They are in the shop now. It will cost me more than I want to spend, but it won't be me doing a job I really don't like to do.
So, I do know enough to do field repairs, and I have done them, but at least at this time in my life, I have decided I don't want to do this work because I don't like doing it. If someone is a DIY kind of guy, by all means that person should be doing routine regulator maintenance. As for me....
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
Most 'dirty' regs require 10 minutes in the ultrasonic. I take about a half hour to rebuild a first stage, two seconds and replace all the o-rings on all the hoses, including the ones on the SPG. It takes three to four hours to walk someone through the process and teach them how regs work. I imagine their first 'solo' experience will take a couple of hours, more if they don't take a lot of pics. Perhaps if I rebuilt regs every day, I could quicken the process, but I would rather concentrate on being thorough than quick. I worked as an automotive line tech most of my life. The guys who rushed through their jobs usually found their customers rushing back to have them do it over. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. You save a lot of time by not trying to save time.
It's my humble opinion that all tech divers should have a grasp of what their regs are doing. No one cares more about my regs performance than I do. Just like I don't let someone else measure the oxygen or helium in my tanks, I don't want their mitts on my regs. I had a "professionally rebuilt" reg fail on me at depth just onece, and that was the last time.
"Stupid" is an apt description of Poseidons in general.
. I've been through their class and have to scratch my head at their gratuitous over-engineering. Maybe they used failed engineers from Saab? Maybe it's just a Swedish perspective? I rarely admit that I know how they work as I don't want people foisting their regs at me. Glad to loan you the tools, but I'll walk away while you're piddling with it. I've also taken classes for Atomic, Zeagle & Aqualung and I have yet to meet the reg that is anywhere near complex as an E2SE GM carburetor.
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@The Chairman you'd be surprised how simple they really are. IMO a much better design than the standard diaphragm regulators, people just don't understand them because they're so different
The Chairman
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I understand them just fine. They are anything but simple. The parts cost more too.
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