din vs yoke, reg marketing miss?

[djtimmy77]

My crew uses all DIN on all of our regs and tanks, and adapters if needed on trips.

 

[H2O 70]

as for the adapters... if you live in the USA and rent tanks odds are that they are all yoke anyway. Why complicate things? If an oring is going to pop it will probably happen on the surface not underwater where there is a ton of external pressure working to keep it in place.

This is not necessarily true anymore. Most tanks I've rented had the Pro valve. It converts between 200bar DIN and yoke. Keep a set of allen wrenches in your save a dive kit and you can simply unscrew the insert and voila, DIN.

Not hitting head problem.

 

[jstamets]

Bare with me I am really close to pulling the trigger a few questions if you please.

It seems to me that a din to yoke adapter looks a lot like a reg with just a yoke adapter. Why don't people just by din regs and use adapters for yoke? Why is yoke even an option why don't they just make all din regs and sell with yoke adapters?

Second what regulators fronts can be taken off at depth. Is atomic the only one (the cave ring) to market this? What other regulators can you clean at depth?

Thanks

Also is a turret on the first stage dir and is a swivel hose on the second stage dir?

Atomic adds the cave ring as an option specifically for the M1 since the M1 face cannot be easily removed otherwise, unlike the other regs in their line.

I have a lot of the same questions since I am looking to move towards this style of diving and this is what I have come up with. If you look at the GUE equipment rules list as the grail of DIR, then any good regulator is acceptable. Spend any time on the DIR forum and you find lots of DIR divers using regs with turrets, the M1 included. The same regulations also specify hoses but don't specifically mention the swivel, which I take to imply that it should just be a hose. The fact that Atomic leaves the swivel off of the M1 is a pretty good indication of what the public opinion is for the intended market. It is another failure point, although Darcy has indicated that the odds of the swivel failing before the hose is pretty remote.

That being said, I also have a T2 and the swivel is really nice - it does take the side pressure off the regulator, but I am under the impression that correct hose length and routing will also do the same.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

The decision to purchase a DIN or yoke-configured regulator should be based on what types of tank valves you intend to use a majority of the time.

If you rent tanks in the U.S., there's a good chance that the tank will be an AL80 which will have either a plain old K valve or a newer DIN/K convertible valve (DIN with removable yoke insert).

If you own your tanks, then have your regs configured in a compatible way.

The first tank that I owned was an AL80 with a K valve. Consequently, when I purchased my reg I had it yoke-configured. Several years later, when I purchased a couple of steel tanks with 300 bar DIN valves, I bought the appropriate reg parts and converted my reg to DIN.

IMO, it's downright silly for a diver to be messing with a DIN connector when all of his tank valves are K valves. A yoke connector would work just fine in this case.

 

[spyder]

I totally get the "moves the first stage closer to your head" bit, as it can be annoying as hell to constantly whack one's head on a first stage, but how is a DIN adaptor adding a failure point? Sure, any gear can fail, but a DIN-to-yoke adaptor just screws right onto your DIN first stage and adds a bit of extra metal. No extra O-rings to fail, or bits of gadgetry to go bonkers. I guess it could add a failure point in that, if you forget it and you need it, you can't use your regulator on yoke cylinders, or maybe the extra bit of length might catch on something, but that's all I can think of.

At any rate, pick the first stage that works best with your diving....if you're going to be primarily diving yoke cylinders or standard rental cylinders, then there's no need for the DIN fitting. Having a DIN regulator and yoke adaptor is just one more piece of gear to forget, and there's the potential "clunk you in the back of the head" issue.

If you're thinking of picking up technical training someday, or purchasing your own cylinders and would prefer the DIN configuration, then that makes perfect sense to have a DIN reg with yoke adaptor for now. All my regs are DIN, and it makes sense for the kind of diving I do, but I hate having to thread the 300 bar reg onto my cylinder...seems to take forever

The purge cover on my Atomic regs can be taken off if needed, even without the cave ring (it just takes a little finesse and some careful rethreading). My Dive Rite reg has a ring already in place around the purge cover that makes taking it off easier.

I don't know if a swivel turret on the first stage is "DIR"...you might get better answers if you posted it in the "DIR" forum. I'm darn near certain that a swivel on the second stage wouldn't be OK, because they generally do add extra failure points (extra O rings, and there are anecdotes out there about some kinds of swivels falling apart), and if you have the correct length hoses, you'll find that swivels aren't usually needed.

I have one but haven't looked at it in a while, kept hitting me in the head on singles. Thinking it had to seal both on the DIN and yoke side if I remember right (but obviously could be wrong) so two seals to potentially leak. Now you've got me curious and I'll have to dig it out again to look. It also seemed to want to unscrew itself a little with hose movement. The latter two are what made me say more failure points. I found it easier to just keep a "rec" yoke reg and DIN for everything else. Regs seem to be like Windows servers and rabbits, turn out the light/shut the door and they multiply....

 

[Bubbletrubble]

I have one but haven't looked at it in a while, kept hitting me in the head on singles. Thinking it had to seal both on the DIN and yoke side if I remember right (but obviously could be wrong) so two seals to potentially leak. Now you've got me curious and I'll have to dig it out again to look. It also seemed to want to unscrew itself a little with hose movement. The latter two are what made me say more failure points. I found it easier to just keep a "rec" yoke reg and DIN for everything else. Regs seem to be like Windows servers and rabbits, turn out the light/shut the door and they multiply....

@spyder: Yes, the DIN with spin-on DIN-to-yoke adapter does introduce another o-ring into the system. The DIN o-ring, which is normally seated against the back of the DIN tank valve, is instead seated against a sealing surface inside the adapter. The adapter then has a separate surface that seals against the o-ring on the face of the K valve.

In my experience, having the spin-on adapters "unscrew" themselves is not a legitimate concern.

The spin-on adapters work well and I keep one in my save-a-dive kit just in case.

There are some quick fixes that one can try if the adapter is causing the reg to hit the back of one's head. You can try mounting the tank a little lower, but this can affect trim. You can also try to mount the tank so that the valve isn't facing directly forward. More specifically, mount it so that the tank valve is facing slightly to the right of the diver. Of course, hose routing needs to be considered with this type of fix. And, doing this, might make manipulating the tank valve a little more difficult.

 

[CaveMD]

If yoke to DIN is what you're worried about, why not buy one of the oceanic or aeris regs that you can purchase a $70 DIN conversion kit for? Instead of using an adapter you can actually make it Yoke or DIN just by changing out the connector--no added failure points