Best Inherently Sealed Regulator for Cold/Warm Diving

[Blue Quaker]

QUOTE="BurhanMuntasser, post: 8215811, member: 147861"]I owned a very busy dive center/shop in NY for over ten years that sold many brands of regulators (AL, SP, Atomic, Poseidon, Mares, Sherwood and others) and I run a dive school now and I can make that claim with confidence. I have never seen any regulator that can go for many years of heavy use without any issues at all as the Atomic regulator does.[/QUOTE]
I much preferred this statement, which gives your considered opinion concerning Atomic regs. It was much preferred over your previous post which stated your opinion as if it was a fact. I owned and operated a repair shop in Ottawa for 28 years and have lots of experience with many reg brands too, but I would never make that sort of statement concerning any specific regulator in a public forum without citing independent references to support my claim.​

 

[BoltSnap]

QUOTE="BurhanMuntasser, post: 8215811, member: 147861"]I owned a very busy dive center/shop in NY for over ten years that sold many brands of regulators (AL, SP, Atomic, Poseidon, Mares, Sherwood and others) and I run a dive school now and I can make that claim with confidence. I have never seen any regulator that can go for many years of heavy use without any issues at all as the Atomic regulator does.​

I much preferred this statement, which gives your considered opinion concerning Atomic regs. It was much preferred over your previous post which stated your opinion as if it was a fact. I owned and operated a repair shop in Ottawa for 28 years and have lots of experience with many reg brands too, but I would never make that sort of statement concerning any specific regulator in a public forum without citing independent references to support my claim.​

[/QUOTE]

As any "opinion" given on SB, I can only speak from my experience and the experience of people I know or dealt with during my diving and diver training journey as well as a regulator service technician (diving for almost 50 years and teaching and servicing equipment for over 32 years now). No one here, or anywhere else, has a monopoly on truth or facts. There are no studies, at least credible studies, or reports I know of that say that one regulator is the "most" of anything out there at all, we all speak from our own experience. I speak based on my relatively extensive experience in the trenches

 

[Umuntu]

2. Cost of sealing lube: Don't believe the nonsense being propagated on SB about this cost. Don't forget that you can go for 3 - 5 years between servicing it.

Sealing an Atomic 1st Stage with Christo-lube is expensive. Saying otherwise is just disingenuous. Especially if you pay retail rather than trade prices for your Christo-Lube. And the Atomic is still wet sealed rather than dry-sealed, so contaminants and fine silt can still enter the chamber.

Compared to any dry-sealed 1st Stage, with an environmental diaphragm that comes with the service kit (and can usually be re-used if you really needed to), I see the Atomic as a very expensive service. Sealing a dry-sealed reg involves no extra lube cost. The lube needed is just the drops needed to lube O-rings for any regulator.

How much Christo-lube (in oz / grams ) do you use to seal your Atomic 1st Stage, that way I can price it up.

 

[BoltSnap]

Sealing an Atomic 1st Stage with Christo-lube is expensive. Saying otherwise is just disingenuous. Especially if you pay retail rather than trade prices for your Christo-Lube. And the Atomic is still wet sealed rather than dry-sealed, so contaminants and fine silt can still enter the chamber.

Compared to any dry-sealed 1st Stage, with an environmental diaphragm that comes with the service kit (and can usually be re-used if you really needed to), I see the Atomic as a very expensive service. Sealing a dry-sealed reg involves no extra lube cost. The lube needed is just the drops needed to lube O-rings for any regulator.

How much Christo-lube (in oz / grams ) do you use to seal your Atomic 1st Stage, that way I can price it up.

It costs less than a fast food meal in my experience and lasts a lot longer

BTW, it doesn't help if you take sentences or words out of the whole context and makes the discussion a mere argument, I am not interested in arguments at this point.

 

[Umuntu]

BTW, it doesn't help if you take sentences or words out of the whole context and makes the discussion a mere argument, I am not interested in arguments at this point.

I don't believe I have taken anything out of context at all … You made a specific claim about the cost of sealing lube, and I both fully quoted your claim and refuted it.

Respond on the substance, instead of making silly jokes or pretending to have been slighted !!!

 

[Umuntu]

I recall that in a separate thread someone mentioned that most shops (in the US) would charge between $30-$60 to environmentally seal an Atomic 1st Stage, in addition to the cost of a regulator service.

For that I could purchase 1 to 3 entire service kits for an Apeks 1st Stage, and probably more for less expensive brands.

EDIT: a Deep Six 1st Stage service kit is $22.50.

 

[lexvil]

If you are buying kits you are DIY, correct? I can buy an Atomic first stage kit for $25 delivered, the enviro seal is $12 {for those regs which didn't come with one} and I can get tribolube 66 {thicker than 71 which i prefer for sealing the chamber} for $22 for a 2oz tube, i can fill 2.5 regs with that plus when I pressurize it I can recover enough lube to service several regs.

The grease is non compressible so it transfers the pressure signal better that the compressed air in the dry seal which really doesn't matter in the real world. The only way for water or grit to enter a sealed reg is if you depressurize it under water and that can happen to a dry chamber too, also not much of a problem in the real world.

Apeks are tried and proven as are most regulators out there, I prefer the simplicity of a piston, in this pic {Z2 so it has a few fewer parts than one with a swivel turret}

you can see every part in this reg except the O-ring at the bottom of the yoke retainer and the HP seal o-ring and the two spacers that go with it.

By the way this was a rental reg that is unsealed and it looks pretty much new inside.

I like Atomic because they are easy to work on and easy to buy parts for they are pretty much like a MK 10 with a MK 20 HP seal system.

 

[BoltSnap]

If you are buying kits you are DIY, correct? I can buy an Atomic first stage kit for $25 delivered, the enviro seal is $12 {for those regs which didn't come with one} and I can get tribolube 66 {thicker than 71 which i prefer for sealing the chamber} for $22 for a 2oz tube, i can fill 2.5 regs with that plus when I pressurize it I can recover enough lube to service several regs.

The grease is non compressible so it transfers the pressure signal better that the compressed air in the dry seal which really doesn't matter in the real world. The only way for water or grit to enter a sealed reg is if you depressurize it under water and that can happen to a dry chamber too, also not much of a problem in the real world.

Apeks are tried and proven as are most regulators out there, I prefer the simplicity of a piston, in this pic {Z2 so it has a few fewer parts than one with a swivel turret}
View attachment 446592
you can see every part in this reg except the O-ring at the bottom of the yoke retainer and the HP seal o-ring and the two spacers that go with it.

By the way this was a rental reg that is unsealed and it looks pretty much new inside.

I like Atomic because they are easy to work on and easy to buy parts for they are pretty much like a MK 10 with a MK 20 HP seal system.

@Umuntu

Read the above please and learn something. Again, the insanely exaggerated costs for servicing Atomic regulators that have been propagated by some here on SB including you are just that, exaggerations!! They are so, "gross," exaggeration especially when considering that the Atomic regulator needs to be serviced much less frequently than other brands. I'd spend more money on a single meal in a fast food place in the US than what it would cost me to service an Atomic regulator. This is not a joke, it is a fact.

 

[Umuntu]

What I learn from the above is that with either approach, DIY or LDS, servicing an environmentally "sealed" Atomic is more expensive than servicing a sealed diaphragm regulator.

The grease is non compressible so it transfers the pressure signal better that the compressed air in the dry seal which really doesn't matter in the real world.

In a dry sealed diaphragm regulator it is the plastic "piston" inside the dry chamber which transmits the ambient pressure to the main diaphragm. The air in the chamber is not responsible for transmitting pressure. Properly serviced, the "piston" is always in contact with both diaphragms.

Diaphragm regulators evolved away from using silicone oil "wet" environmental seals to dry seals decades ago.

 

[kelemvor]

What's with all this talk about special lube to seal a piston reg? I thought you cold water types usually used whisky to seal piston regs.