Apeks Manta 5000

[Joris Vd]

Hello everyone,

while watching the Thai cave rescue documentary I saw something quite funny:
one of the british divers extracting the boys used two apeks Manta 5000 regulators.
Not the poseidon cyklons or the apeks mtx-r's you see alot on British cave divers, but this peculiar thingy....

These do not seem to be a Jetstream copy, but an oldschool tilt valve based regulator?
Has anyone ever dove them? If so, how did they perform / compare to let's say a modern jetstream?

I know technically the jet streams and xstreams could be seen as tilt valve regs, but I'm talking legit oldschool, vintage Nemrod type tilt valves, where you have a needle the size of a small pinky controlling the upstream valve.

Except maybe Nostalgia, is there anything to these regs?

As a reg fanatic I'm not bashing my skull for not buying one I saw for 20 dollars a while ago, but yeah, the question is basically: 'are' or 'were' these ever any good?

 

[dbrock]

A classic valve used by members of the Cave Diving Group in the UK in the 80s and 90s. Being ambidextrous and with a swivel turret (hence 5000ST), it offered the advantage that it could be used on either side of a sidemount rig, was much cheaper than a Cyklon, had DIN fitting and was produced in Northern UK, so spares were readily available. It was easy to maintain, and could be stripped down underground with just an Allen key and a screw driver. The first stage was simply unscrewed by hand. Breathing dynamics were pretty good and it was fairly reliable. It seemed as a good as a Jetstream to me, especially at depth. One design flaw was that the first stage filter got soggy when wet, and could rupture upon initial pressurization sending fibers throughout the valve resulting in leaks across both valve seats. This meant that the filter had to be kept dry during transit unless modified filters were fitted. The second stage was plastic on a metal frame. The plastic did tend to crack, but that failure mode was obvious and could be spotted well before it caused a problem. A spot of epoxy resin stopped the crack spreading. The picture above looks like that fix has been implemented. Not really a valve for people who just send it to the shop for a service once a year, then expect it to perform flawlessly for the next 12 months without attention. I have several of these that are coming up to 40 years old now and still being used today. Not perfect, but better the devil you know. I used to prefer them to my Cyklon 300s (model 2305), but getting spares is an issue, whereas spares for my 40 year old Cyklons are still being made and they are still going strong, so I am thinking I will retire my Mantas soon.

 

[Captain Salty-Bones]

Hello everyone,

while watching the Thai cave rescue documentary I saw something quite funny:
one of the british divers extracting the boys used two apeks Manta 5000 regulators.
Not the poseidon cyklons or the apeks mtx-r's you see alot on British cave divers, but this peculiar thingy....

View attachment 695924



These do not seem to be a Jetstream copy, but an oldschool tilt valve based regulator?
Has anyone ever dove them? If so, how did they perform / compare to let's say a modern jetstream?

I know technically the jet streams and xstreams could be seen as tilt valve regs, but I'm talking legit oldschool, vintage Nemrod type tilt valves, where you have a needle the size of a small pinky controlling the upstream valve.
View attachment 695930

Except maybe Nostalgia, is there anything to these regs?

As a reg fanatic I'm not bashing my skull for not buying one I saw for 20 dollars a while ago, but yeah, the question is basically: 'are' or 'were' these ever any good?

I had one of these back in the day. It was way superior to any other regulator I used at that time. I absolutely loved it.

I never experienced any soggy filters mentioned, but I was very particular about how I looked after my equipment.

 

[InTheHighlands]

The Manta was Apeks's first product and the Manta ST that dbrock mentions was their 2nd. The 2nd stage on the original ST didn't have the coloured plastic collar prone to splitting. The 1st stage was a balanced piston which carried through to the ST - I think that came in an environmentally sealed version? Or maybe that was the diagphram "D" version that followed?

I bought a Manta new as my first regulator from a shop called NW Dive Systems somewhere near Manchester in 1982. I was about to go on a diving expedition - we drove to Egypt, taking everything with us (Compressor, Inflatable etc). In those days the Egyptian coastline was completely barren - the only diving operations being one in Hurghada, one attached to the Safaga Hotel & an Italian(?) club near Marsa Alam.

For me, key requirements were that it should be reliable, reasonable performance (in those days, by no means all were decent performers) - and simple to maintain. The version I bought was pre swivel turret - the 1st stage sat sideways across the cylinder valve with 3LP outlets on one end and 1HP on the other. I bought a "U" LP adapter to send a LP hose over left shoulder to my Scubapro Stab Jacket - this BC was a huge rarity in the UK where everyone was using horse collar "Fenzy" type BCs, or ABLJ (Adjustable Buoyancy Life Jackets). When I progressed to drysuit diving I added a 3 way LP adapter - can't recall if this was instead or in addition to the "U".

The Apeks Manta was all it was supposed to be & I was v pleased with it. It was extremely easy to service - you could take the 2nd stage apart by hand and I recall adjusting it with a small diving knife once. I later bought a couple of the ST versions and used them until about 10 years ago. Not as high performance as the modern Apeks regulators, but still v good. From memory, the only custom service parts were the 2 valve seats and the plastic 1st stage filter - all of which could be fanricated. I seem to recall that the 2 valve seats could be turned around to get twice the life?