Best regulator for DIY'r

[rickdog67]

Hi all. I'm a fairly new diver and have been looking at getting gear for my wife and I. From what I've read, I think I want to service my own gear. I have rebuilt engines and regularly do maintenance on my own vehicles. I probably don't need the whole bit about being life support, that can has been opened many times over already, lol. I've been reading through the forums and trying to find the best regulator for parts availability and ease of servicing. I've seen mares, zeagle and scubapro mentioned. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks
Rick

 

[joeg]

Zeagle
Parts are easy to get and shop manuals are available at Scuba Toys

 

[herman]

Welcome to the board Rick. Where are you at in NC?

The biggest problem you will run into is getting parts. I see you have already heard the "life support" argument (BS IMO) but there is also the manuf will not allow us to sell parts argument as well. This one is getting easier to get around, scuba parts are kinda like drugs, illegal or not if there is a market someone is going to find a way to sell them. If you are interested I know of a very good reg tech course that will be a big help to you, drop me a PM for the details.
Pretty much any of the know brand names are fine. I tend to prefer Aqualung (aka US Divers in days of old) just because their internal design has not chanced since the mid 60's and I like diaphram first stages. The guts of 90% of all Aqualungs are the same, makes finding and keeping parts on hand easier. Same goes for the older model Sherwoods, almost nothing has changed in them in the last 30 years or more making parts fairly easy to find, very easy regs to work on as well.
I would shy away from the smaller brands, mainly because of the smaller markets, parts are harder to find and I would avoid higher end regs, esp some of the Scubapros. Nothing wrong with them but they have gotten a little parts intensive for my taste....too many little bits added just to scrape an ounce of performance out of the reg...little bits that are likely to become impossible to get in a few years.

 

[halocline]

Dive rite would be one good choice, because dive rite freely sells parts and manuals. Scubapro would be another, because there is such a large community of SP DIYers that parts and manuals are freely available through off-market sources. Plus, there are lots of excellent condition used SP regs available, and the 2 books most commonly used for DIY, the Vance Harlow book and the Peter Wolfinger book, both make extensive references to SP designs and specifics. If you go for SP. start with the older regs like MK10/G250. They're easier to work on and there are plenty of parts available.

If you're going to DIY, there's no reason to buy a new reg anyway IMO. But, others will probably disagree with this.

IMO aqualung would not be a good choice, not would poseidon. Aqualung seems to really have a stranglehold on parts, and poseidon regs are very specialized.

 

[Couv]

For ease of service and inexpensive:
First stage: SP MK2
Second stage: SP 109

Couv

Edit: I just noticed this is your first post. Welcome to Scuba Board and the Dark side.

 

[mts0628]

Zeagle, Salvo, and Dive Rite all have cheaper parts kits available and manuals online. I have Apeks ATX series regulators and while they are pretty easy to work on and require minimum specialty tools, the parts are kinda' expensive when compared to the others.

As other posters have mentioned, get something with easy parts availability, minimal specialized tools, and plenty of references. Two books I like, and while they don't cover every regulator in detail, they do provide the tinkerer with an idea of why things work, are Regulator Savvy and Vance Harlow's Scuba Regulator Maintenance and Repair.

 

[JBRES1]

My vote goes to Dive Rite.
You can go to the Dive Rite site and download the maintenance manual.
You can get the parts easily from alot of Dive Rite online shops.
The regs are easy to service, as long as you have the tools and the knowhow to do it.

Jim Breslin

 

[rickdog67]

I'm located just northeast of Raleigh In Bunn. Thanks for all the replies so far. I see dive rite is a preferred choice along with some AL In smaller companies, do you mean Aeris, Mares, Tusa, etc? I hate that I just missed Zeagles anniversary sale. I forgot to mention that we probably will be diving 10-20 dives a year, so I think something high end would be overkill. I figured a good eco or mid range reg would probably suffice (for me). I noticed that some regs design only seated when high pressure applied (Atomic was one but kinda pricey). I suppose if I were to do my own work, it wouldn't matter. My LDS carries SP and AL for regs, so I'm looking online as well. My wife really liked the AL mikron in pink after seeing it in the LDS. The Titan looked decent.....so many choices! Then the BC.....

 

[divad]

Maybe you should buy or borrow a copy of "Vance Harlow's SCUBA Regulator Maintenance and Repair" and read chapter 13. It covers all the regulators you mentioned as well as various "idiosyncracies" of some of them. Zeagle regulators seem to be held in very high regard and you can just openly buy the rebuild parts.

 

[Misa]

Buying new regs for your wife...doing only 10-20 dives per year...you think those will "brake" that fast? Why do you want to repair wife`s gear...want to get rid of her ?)

Sorry, this is 1st that came trough my mind after i read your post

So, i think ScubaPro MK17, 19, 25 and G250V + Octo will be great!

Gl.