You must be one of those guys that can look at both gauges at once.
I could never do it.
Servicing your own regulators
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I could never do it.
TheScubaPanda
Contributor
Might be a stupid question, but how do you guys source service manuals ? I have been looking for the Scubapro S620Ti service instructions absolutely everywhere and it's absolutely impossible to find anything ...
Because I travel with it. I actually have one that has interchangeable nipples because I'm always asked to look at someone's regs when I'm out. It never fails. Also sold by ScubaTools. You can buy them from anywhere... I have an 8" one on my wall at my reg rebuild bench. The inline adjustment tool is just another gadget I don't really need. I own two, and I never ever use them. I've even loaned one out and am kinda OK if it doesn't return. Every now and then, you get that one reg that you'll benefit from it. But it's heavy and I won't travel with it. KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. It should say keep it light too!
DGX is fine and you'll get what you pay for. I have well over a $100,000.00 dollar investment in tools that I've been collecting since 1969. Ask T-Bone if that's an exaggeration. I want the right tool at a fair price. I can and have worked with crap, but it's not fun. I've also worked with over-engineered tools as well. They're not fun either. I want to buy a tool once and have it around for the rest of my life. I have a lot of tools from the 70s when I first started buying them in earnest. Some say I hoard them, but they're horrible people and I don't need that kind of negativism in my life!
This is what I actually travel with, but I don't have a release valve on it. That would have been nice a time or two!
But in the long run, if buying the inline tool makes you happy: do it. I really mean that. It's not bad, it's just not for me.
Yeah, I was curious about the inline unit because I took the equipment class through DRIS last fall and the reg tech suggested that unit (they don’t carry it and he did not mention DGX by name). They were mentioning it in terms of verifying that a free flow was not creep and adjusting the 2nd stage orifice (if I’m remembering correctly) but I wasn’t sure if it was worth the $65.
So, I just got my head wrapped around the much shorter than expected list of tools that @The Chairman put out and you go and throw in a magnetized helix! But seriously, is a magnehelic a must have, should have or comes in handy type of gauge? I’ll do a search for what it is so that you don’t have to explain.
Thanks
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
It is not. It can be easily replaced with a bucket of water. That's all I have when I set up a reg in the field and it's what I teach my students to use. Crude? Perhaps. Effective? Oh my, yes! Easy to find on a remote island? Incredibly.
Using a bucket of water is like using a rope to measure ship speed. Lol
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
They're analog! I found a picture of them in a pic I took of my sharpening station. They're side by side to the left.You must be one of those guys that can look at both gauges at once.
View attachment 643687
I could never do it.
I never needed one. Usually, I can find a blow-up of a reg online through a simple Google Search. Often it takes me right back here. Scubapro Schematics diagrams - free download
As @The Chairman points out, the sink test works perfectly for folks on a budget.
Here's a D400 cracking (starting to hiss) at 0.8" on a magnehelic.
Magically, the diaphragm disc is now 0.8" under the surface of the water at the moment the reg starts to hiss.
In other words, 0.8" of pressure (or 0.8" Water Column of "suck" on the mouthpiece) will open the valve. Most standard shaped regs work perfectly at a cracking effort of 1.1".
On the other hand, a scratched old HVAC magnehelic for $60 on eBay was one of the nicest addons as I built out my tool list. But you can also use a piece of 1/4" clear tubing from Home Depot. Shape it into a "U", and tack it to a slanted board at a 19.5 degree angle (if you've got a table saw and some time) and add some water (or vodka if you want better responsiveness). Since sin (19.45) is 0.33, when the difference between the two meniscus' is 3" on the slanted board, your vertical rise of that water column is 1". Nice way to have a precise way to measure cracking when you can't quite tell how far the diaphragm is into the sink. Google "inclined water manometer".
Scuba Lawyer
Contributor
I use my Magnahelic all the time. It's pretty easy to tell if you have a decent cracking pressure by just breathing in off your reg, but many times I've found the cracking pressure adjusted too low and I get free-flow problems on the dive if i haven't detuned it somewhat. Nice optional gauge to have.
Had to make my own DH mouthpiece attachment for the vacuum line.
Had to make my own DH mouthpiece attachment for the vacuum line.
Yet the entire world was mapped and navigated centuries ago by ships using ropes with knots in them. It may not have the precision of GPS but it was good enough to find small islands across thousands of miles of ocean. Crude does not mean ineffective.
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