1st or 2nd Stage Reg Failure on Stage/Deco Bottle

[rjack321]

I'm just wondering if there's much risk of introducing a failure into the first or second stage by flooding it and purging it?

When you have a long hang who cares. You gotta do what you gotta do to try and accelerate the deco with the gas you can't access. Most regs seem to tolerate ALOT more crapola than we give them credit for.

 

[JeffG]

I'm just wondering if there's much risk of introducing a failure into the first or second stage by flooding it and purging it?

Short term...not much risk, but its a good idea to get the reg serviced afterwards.

 

[LiteHedded]

i may or may not have seen him bring that wrench on a dive at alexander springs

 

[rjack321]

Short term...not much risk, but its a good idea to get the reg serviced afterwards.

I have some SP regs in warranty still. One MK20/s600 (piston) and one Mk18/g250 (diaphram) Before their next due date I am going to flood them. Then leave them for a week or 2 and see if they still work "good enough"

The tech's gonna hate me

 

[RTodd]

They can handle it. I have brought batches of regs in with HP gauges filled with water (gauges can't handle it). The techs always bitch that the inside of my regs are so wrecked, have no chrome left on them anywhere, etc.

 

[JeffG]

I have some SP regs in warranty still. One MK20/s600 (piston) and one Mk18/g250 (diaphram) Before their next due date I am going to flood them. Then leave them for a week or 2 and see if they still work "good enough"

The tech's gonna hate me

I have a ds4 that I use on one of my stage regs that needs servicing from a flood. Its in a small free flow mode.

 

[mark99]

Short term...not much risk, but its a good idea to get the reg serviced afterwards.

Yes I actually meant was there much risk of immediate failure. I know you'd best have them serviced directly after that. I was looking for more of a risk/reward assessment- as an example in many cases you wouldn't have a stage bottle- so it means switching one deco reg to another; say you have a failure on 50% and use the O2 reg, then you have 2 reg switches (back and forth) and if something happens you might end up doing the whole deco on back gas.

I guess thinking about it from a practical sense- #1 you wouldn't ever switch a reg off a back gas cylinder, so this issue would never apply in a single deco bottle scenario #2 If you had 2 or more deco bottles, you could switch between them and run the risks I just mentioned above and #3 if you had a stage or travel bottle- this is where the switch reg trick would work.

 

[TSandM]

I'm kind of surprised Doc Intrepid hasn't weighed in here. I remember him telling me a story about having one of his buddies turn on his deco gas and have the first stage explode on him -- He calmly turned the tank off and switched regs with one of his other bottles.

I would imagine it's not terribly good for the regulator, but it seems to me that one could live with a regulator that needs to be rebuilt better than living without a deco gas . . .

 

[SparticleBrane]

They can handle it. I have brought batches of regs in with HP gauges filled with water (gauges can't handle it). The techs always bitch that the inside of my regs are so wrecked, have no chrome left on them anywhere, etc.

That's because you actually USE them...

 

[DwayneJ]

Sorry to ask - So is this a defined practice or assuming you were faced with situation, you would take the longer deco option or take the risk of failing a second 1st/2nd stage?

What I did see is you would never touch your primary or secondary back gas 1st or 2nd stages.

What would you do? What does DIR teach to do?