Dacor Viper Tech America

[karmstrong]

Anyone have any pros or cons on this reg? Have a friend who has one and it seems decent thought I might get myself one I currently have an older USDivers reg that I realy dont care for. On the other hand Im a newbie and I know from other hobbies and such my taste change after I get better and time goes by. Any suggestions would be great I unfortunatley have a budget to stay within as well!

 

[Boogie711]

I would imagine you won't find a lot of favourable reviews for Dacor on here. This board is pretty decidedly pro Apeks or Scubapro (I'm an Apeks user, myself) and with good reason.

Dacor = crap. <---- my purely subjective opinion.

Apeks ATX50 <---- my purely subjective recommendation.

 

[Diver0001]

Anyone have any pros or cons on this reg? Have a friend who has one and it seems decent thought I might get myself one I currently have an older USDivers reg that I realy dont care for. On the other hand Im a newbie and I know from other hobbies and such my taste change after I get better and time goes by. Any suggestions would be great I unfortunatley have a budget to stay within as well!

Dacor's latest assortment, including the Viper are way behind the curve.

Look at Mares, Apeks and Aqualung.

R..

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Dacor is owned by Mares and I am not real clear on their future under the mares umbrella at the moment. Dacor has also had a bad habit in recent years of discontinuing parts support for older, but still relatively recent regulators. If you buy a Dacor reg you could find yourself having problems obtaining parts 5 years down the road and the service issue is questionable if Dacor does not remain around as a separate brand name.

Scubapro and Aqualung bith have a reputation for providing parts and service support for their regulators for decades. Scubapro even has a policy of making many of their improvements retrofitable into older regs which dramatically extends their useful life.

 

[karmstrong]

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[gto1]

I use a mares ruby first stage and a mares orbiter second stage as my primary reg. I purchased a dacor viper as an alternate air source because its low profile made my equipment more streamlined. For the past year that I have owned it I've been happy with it. That is until this past weekend when I had it ice diving. I made my decent to about twenty feet when I stoped to check for proper operation of my alternate air source. I took one breath from the reg and it began to free flow. My buddy passed me his alternate and I shut off my back gas and waited for 20 seconds then turned my air back on. The regulator started to free flow again I put my primary back in my mouth and gave a thumbs up to end dive. Once on the surface I turned my air off and got out of the river. When I was dissasembing my gear I discovered that when the reg free flowed it caused exsessive ice build up inside the reg. In fact the interior of the reg was one solid ice cube. The ice caused such carnege to the reg that it actualy pushed the steel lever behind the diaphram through the front cover of the reg. I would not recomend the dacor viper to any one that will be using it in cold water.