YOKE vs DIN

[Celt]

I won't be changing my scubapro yoke firsts any time soon. Solid lumps of metal. Never had a problem with them. Bomb proof. I can use any tank I have with them including old pillar valves sidemount as I can bungie to the knob. I can swop out a yoke reg in 20 seconds with gloves. There very versatile. Diving today I noticed a little fizzle of air on one of my 7ltr tanks. The oring has been in constant use for 3 years. All this dangerous yoke oring or entanglement hazard talk is just what it is, talk.

 

[Subcooled]

They are much more robust and resistant to damage by mishandling.

Yoke is more robust??? How?

They are also the most common tank available for rental.

Valid point.

They have been used for a long time.

I can only say that

 

[The Chairman]

You omitted it because your pride doesn't allow you to state the obvious:

So, I'm an arrogant monster for suggesting that you've way overstated the safety aspect.

Le sigh.

It's my opinion that the best tank and the best reg are the ones I'm breathing off ofn

I adopted the DIN as a mission specific solution for cave diving. Fortunately, anything that works in a cave will also work in OW. Sure, it might be overkill for puttering on a reef, but that's OK.

But the yoke is just fine. Ask yourself why it's more popular? It's not because people are dying in droves on the yoke. In reality, I've never heard anyone dying or being injured because they had a yoke reg, have you? Meh, it's safe enough for the majority of tanks and dove.

 

[Gareth J]

I won't be changing my scubapro yoke firsts any time soon. Solid lumps of metal. Never had a problem with them. Bomb proof. I can use any tank I have with them including old pillar valves sidemount as I can bungie to the knob. I can swop out a yoke reg in 20 seconds with gloves. There very versatile. Diving today I noticed a little fizzle of air on one of my 7ltr tanks. The oring has been in constant use for 3 years. All this dangerous yoke oring or entanglement hazard talk is just what it is, talk.

In my personal experience I have witnessed two cases of the O-ring excruding on A-Clamps, and one case of the A clamp being dislodged when the cylinder hit the roof inside a wreck, all of these in water incidents. Funnily enough, on all occasions when in the Red Sea.

The big advantage of DIN is that the O-ring is trapped within the valve. Which makes it almost impossible to extrude the O-ring and the valve particularly resistance to lateral force dislodging it.

I have seen one DIN first stage shear off, the cylinder was dropped off the deck onto the quay from about 6 feet, and hit a rail on the way down. Very lucky the accident wasn't more serious. If the rail had been in a slightly different position, there was potential for shearing the cylinder valve off the cylinder or the handle off the valve.

The A-clamp was originally designed with much lower operating pressures in mind.
The DIN valve was designed for operating at higher operating pressures, 300bar. For the lower 232bar, only five complete threads are required, at the higher 300bar, all seven threads need to be engaged.
Equipment that is only suited for 232bar operation has the thread section reduced to only 5 threads to ensure its not fitted to 300bar cylinders.

By any engineering criteria, the DIN design is better.
Hardly a significant criticism the original A-clamp design is quite old (the 50's I think). At that time, twin hose regulators where the norm and the cylinder pressures where considerably lower.
Demand valves have evolved from the original twin hose single valve design to the two valve design we (generally) use now, with the first stage and second stage. With the advent of the two stage valve, cylinder pressures could increase. With the DIN design, cylinder pressures have further increased to a maximum of 300bar. Although, generally (at least in Europe), the low pressure 232 bar is the general norm.

 

[Centrals]

Yes Centrals, Asia has adopted the YOKE standard as well and YES, there's a good reason:
US tourism in Asia made Dive Centers equip their tanks with YOKE valves, that's why you don't have any issues diving with your regs. You won't have any issues in EU also, we take care of all divers as we use valve inserts to accommodate YOKE & DIN regulators.

We already agreed that IF we want to dive in Asia, we will bring our 30-50$ adapter. Problem solved.
The whole thread was about DIN connection being SAFER and some markets like the US still using YOKE because of habit and Dive Operators having YOKE tanks as well. Gosh.

Most foreign divers I met in Asia were NOT from USA.
All the operators in Asia are using Yoke as standard.
DIN is NOT safer!
Are you suggesting that all the operators/divers in the world are using unsafe equipment?

 

[tursiops]

Lot of concern in this thread about what is "best" and little discussion about what is "good enough." For the vast majority of divers, on the vast majority of dives, Yoke is good enough. Yes, rare, and easily solvable o-ring issues; and valves that are sturdier than DIN valves. Special-purpose and/or high-risk diving may require special equipment, for example DIN valves/regs; sidemount; or full-facemasks. But that does not make that equipment mandatory for ALL divers and dives. It might be better, but it is not necessary. Kind of like how BetaMax lost out to VHS. BetaMax was better; but VHF was good enough.

 

[lexvil]

Well this has evolved into one of the more inane threads on SB, someone in Asia/Caribbean has done several dives with their yoke reg not knowing how close to death they were since this nonsense started.

 

[BoltSnap]

witnessed two cases of the O-ring excruding on A-Clamps, and one case of the A clamp being dislodged when the cylinder hit the roof inside a wreck, all of these in water incidents. Funnily enough, on all occasions when in the Red Sea.

I have personally witnessed several of o'ring extrusions with Yoke connector in the past 5 years or so when tanks had more than 220bar pressure. ALL instances happened in water, above and below surface. the higher the pressure in the tank, the higher the chance for o'ring extrusion for Yoke connector.

 

[BoltSnap]

Well this has evolved into one of the more inane threads on SB, someone in Asia/Caribbean has done several dives with their yoke reg not knowing how close to death they were since this nonsense started.

You were walking on a sword's a very sharp edge and didn't even know it

 

[Centrals]

We already agreed that IF we want to dive in Asia, we will bring our 30-50$ adapter. Problem solved.

Solved no problem by your argument.
To use an adapter you are using Yoke configuration ie. less safe!
Bring your own tank.