"Big Brother" of regulators

[thethumper]

Genesis once bubbled...
other than pissing on the LDS, which is complicit in this game.

Seems that there isn't one, other than giving up diving.

Concerted cooperative pressure will work, but that requires supporting things like what I'm doing - whether you advertise it or not.

So far the word seems to be "not", but the sales at LP seem to say its happening "silently" anyway. Is some of that due to the imlpicit (and sometimes EXPLICIT) threats by LDSs against divers who "go their own way"? Who knows.

Do I have permission to use your banner on my manufaturer's page?

 

[thethumper]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...


...because people don't have a clue and they don't want to have a clue.

Mike you said it "Ignorance is bliss" and that's the way the mnfrs. would like to keep it. When I bought my 1st pc, it was "If you break the seals or mess up the wax in the srews... even if you take it to a compitent tech, you no longer have a warrany" Now I'm an IT tech. People, for the most part don't wanna know. I was 5 when I took my Dad's lawn mower apart. Then I had to put it back together. I wanna know what makes things work & what & why it can break.

Yes..... I have trust issues.....

 

[Genesis]

Its no surprise to me.

This last Friday was my first time on a "cattle boat" in close to a year. I had forgotten how much I hated diving off them, and why. Diving off your own boat, with people you like, does that to you.

I saw all the insane things that pass for "training" and "divers" once again, and it was not pretty. At all. I had my reg kicked out of my mouth by one of those jewels - no biggie, but heh, its still dumb - the person who did it didn't even realize they had made contact.

Solutions? Sure, there are - getting involved and making a noise. Plastering tank stickers on your tanks, car, boat and gear. Talking to people. Spreading information - how to rebuild regs, where to get parts, etc.

De-fang the monster one diver at a time.

Do many people simply not care? Sure. Lots of people simply don't care. And a few are on the other side - mostly dive-shop owners and employees, along with those who have gotten intensive "perks" at the expense of those who have been fleeced.

Of course you'd garf if your free ride was about to end too, right?

All we can do is work towards solutions Mike. There are no neutral positions in life - that's something I learned early. Your actions define you as either pro a position or anti a position. While the strength of your "pro" or "anti" can change, the fact that it is pro or anti does not.

 

[Genesis]

Do I have permission to use your banner on my manufaturer's page?

From the page itself:

"You may also download either the above image to use on your web page, OR, if you desire, grab either of the two below, smaller, versions. Simply "right-click" on the image and save it to your local hard disk. Great for forums, your personal signature, etc."

http://diversunion.org/stickers.htm

(Several sizes of the sticker art are available on that page.)

 

[thethumper]

Genesis once bubbled...


From the page itself:

"You may also download either the above image to use on your web page, OR, if you desire, grab either of the two below, smaller, versions. Simply "right-click" on the image and save it to your local hard disk. Great for forums, your personal signature, etc."

http://diversunion.org/stickers.htm

(Several sizes of the sticker art are available on that page.)

I already went there & signed. I just wanted your acknowledgement that I was adding to the page. This page gets alot of hits as you can image w/people looking for this manual. Scubbie Doo add another link for it on another post too.

 

[Genesis]

And thanks!

 

[Northeastwrecks]

DeepScuba once bubbled...
I can see this could get heated, but here's my cool 2 cents..

NorthEastWr: I can't imagine, even in the good Ole US of A where somebody could hurt themselves after performing their own maintenance, and then sue the Manufacturer after getting the manual from some guys' web site.

I realize we are "Scuba blinded", but as posted by Genesis, the car makers do not do this, they cannot by law, and probably the manufacturers of dive equipment cannot by law, deny maintenance kits and parts to customers they sell to. THey do it anyways, and get away with it.

Absolutely they could sue. Whether they could win is another matter. However, consider this.

Joe the diver decides to service his own regulator. He goes to Thumper's site and downloads the manual. He reads it, acquires the parts and performs the service. Unfortunately, the manual doesn't explain everything quite as clearly as it should and he screws up. Or, if you prefer, the manual is out of date and doesn't contain a warning now included in all current manuals.

Joe goes diving. His upstream reg malfunctions and shuts down. Joe does a blow and go, embolizes and expires painfully and loudly on the deck, in full view of his pregnant wife.

Joe's widow sues everyone in sight. She alleges that the manufacturer was negligent because the manual wasn't clear enough or, in the alternate scenario, because it didn't contain the warning.

I can almost guarantee that there is a PI lawyer out there who would take that case. Moreover, they might be able to win.

One way to minimize this risk is to provide manuals only to trained techs. In addition to providing training, you can keep them on a mailing list and make sure that they have all necessary updates.

I disagree with your claim that it is unlawful for manufacturers to refuse to sell parts kits the general public. A business may choose its distribution channels and its customers. So long as the selling decision is not based on some form of unlawful discrimination, they can sell to anyone or to no one.

I believe, but am not entirely sure, that specific statutes address the sale of parts by automobile manufactuers. Even so, there are some parts that cannot be obtained from auto parts stores and that must be obtained from a dealer.

Looking at the potential harm to the general public is not the correct question. The appropriate question is whether a business may decide to whom it will sell.

In the absence of discriminatory conduct or a statute, the answer in this country is yes. Businesses still have some rights.

 

[Scubaroo]

Very few people know that the commonly swapped Apeks manuals published in PDF format by SeaQuest have two versions - one has an extra page containing warnings about approved lubricants, the other is identical, minus this extra page. So yeah, manuals do change.

 

[Bob3]

Heck, Posidon is one of the more mellow manufacturers out there.
I've already been threatened with legal action for just using a picture of one mfgr's dive hats on a web page.

I do have permission to use the Mk V DESCO logo though, and I've even sold 9x12s of the critters on ebay for just about the cost of the paper & frames.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Northeastwrecks once bubbled...


Absolutely they could sue. Whether they could win is another matter. However, consider this.

Joe the diver decides to service his own regulator. He goes to Thumper's site and downloads the manual. He reads it, acquires the parts and performs the service. Unfortunately, the manual doesn't explain everything quite as clearly as it should and he screws up. Or, if you prefer, the manual is out of date and doesn't contain a warning now included in all current manuals.

Joe goes diving. His upstream reg malfunctions and shuts down. Joe does a blow and go, embolizes and expires painfully and loudly on the deck, in full view of his pregnant wife.

Joe's widow sues everyone in sight. She alleges that the manufacturer was negligent because the manual wasn't clear enough or, in the alternate scenario, because it didn't contain the warning.

I can almost guarantee that there is a PI lawyer out there who would take that case. Moreover, they might be able to win.

One way to minimize this risk is to provide manuals only to trained techs. In addition to providing training, you can keep them on a mailing list and make sure that they have all necessary updates.

I disagree with your claim that it is unlawful for manufacturers to refuse to sell parts kits the general public. A business may choose its distribution channels and its customers. So long as the selling decision is not based on some form of unlawful discrimination, they can sell to anyone or to no one.

I believe, but am not entirely sure, that specific statutes address the sale of parts by automobile manufactuers. Even so, there are some parts that cannot be obtained from auto parts stores and that must be obtained from a dealer.

Looking at the potential harm to the general public is not the correct question. The appropriate question is whether a business may decide to whom it will sell.

In the absence of discriminatory conduct or a statute, the answer in this country is yes. Businesses still have some rights.

I believe you since I'm not an expert on law, however, I would think the same would hold true for the auto makers. People work on their own cars every day without the right tools, using third party manufactured parts and manuals that aren't anywhere near accurate. They often change manufacturing processes mid year and multiple times. I've lost count of how many times components weren't even in the location called out in the manual. Yet all seem to survive the legal system. The situation with scuba equipment is a big scam. They've gotten away with it , I think, because the size of the market and the control they maintained of the LDS which for a long time was the only source of equipment and information. It won't last. It's already changing. The more people who wake up to it the faster it'll get squared away. This year, every one of the manufacturers I deal with allow mail order and online sales. Just last year they insisted that would never happen. In the next year or two they'll admit that the average avid diver (especially the technical diver) is more qualified to rebuild a reg than any minimum wage non-diving idiot working in a dive shop teaching people to kneel on the bottom and that they'll die if they change their own O-rings.

As I said just as a manufacturer what training they provide to their authorized service centers. It's a joke and it's a lie. All those service tech certs that your LDS has handing on the wall do not represent training or qualifications but rather attests to the fact that they wrote a check for the required opening order. PERIOD.