Button Gauge...

[spooky1]

If you have not seen them, Salvo has a larger, easier to read button with a 1" face.

 

[Mr.X]

I have one on my argon reg too. Its basically worthless at this point due to scratches. Can be read but with great difficulty. Since HP failures are never volumetrically very large and its suit inflation anyway, I have not removed it. There's not much to go wrong with them but they are so challenging to read on the surface I can't imagine actually using one underwater to monitor required gas.

If it's an acrylic lens take a little jewelers rouge (red) and a high speed cloth buffer (attached to a drill) and polish it up nice and clean. I also do this for some of my watches that eventually become scratched.


X

 

[DIR-Atlanta]

I keep a button gauge on my 40 that is used for a pony only, pony issue asside, that gauge only lets me know that the tank has air and approx (within 1000psi) how much and thats all a pony needs.

Pony bottles are not DIR, therefore this solution/answer is not a DIR answer. In the DIR system, all breathable gas is "managed" gas, in the sense that you must be able to plan and monitor reserves throughout the dive. We plan our gas usage and contingencies carefully, and do not ever use pony bottles for bailout. Therefore using a pony bottle as an example of an "appropriate" use a button gauge is not a DIR suggestion.

Furthermore - a button gauge might work OK if you only have one bottle, but as a general solution to managing and monitoring your gas, it does not scale to multiple stage/deco bottles. To the extent possible, deco and stage regulators need to be interchangeable across all bottles that might by potentially used for a dive, and the button gauges are simply not suitable to that application, for reasons that several folks have already pointed out.

With that said I have every intention of switching to the 6" hose before next summer.

Not trying to be argumentative, but why wait until summer?

 

[Rick Inman]

I have a button gage on my 6cf argon bottle, and it is a piece of junk and a failure point.

I am going to take it off this summer.

 

[Peter Guy]

Rick, will you replace the button with a "real" gauge or just do without?

BTW, where do you get jeweler's rouge?

 

[Rick Inman]

Rick, will you replace the button with a "real" gauge or just do without?

BTW, where do you get jeweler's rouge?

Without. I have enough dives now at verious depths and temps to know pretty much how long the 6 will last.

jewelers rouge for $2.00 Take your gage into a watch repair guy and I'll bet he'd polish it up right quick.

 

[Couv]

BTW, where do you get jeweler's rouge?

Off of her cheeks of course.