"disposable regulators" vs servicing?

[CT-Rich]

This seems like a PIA solution to waste time and money. Just selling the old regulator is more work than paying to have it serviced. You sell it, you have to deal with some whiney bastard on eBay. You are going to buy the new regulators and have to configure them and make sure they are ready to dive. Are you buying them online? Are they out of the box ready to use and did you get the hoses you wanted or are you just using what was in the box?

If you don’t want to service them yourself, why not stagger them and service 1 set at a time? I don’t think you are going to find your plan convenient or cheap. You are going to have gear that is almost new and replace it with gear of unknown performance. If it arrives out of spec, you are going to spend money or time fixing it.

I would find someplace that will do the work properly and get good gear to start.

 

[emoreira]

It was the outrageous price that I was quoted to get two Atomic regs serviced here in Australia that triggered me to buy a couple of special tools and OEM service kits and service them myself!
Never looked back... even with the cost of buying the tools I was still in front!
However be warned it rapidly becomes an addictive hobby and the number of beautifully restored reg sets will grow exponentially

5 reg sets I own now .... and I can't stop.

 

[DrWilliam]

Well I've reconsidered the replacement concept and servicing myself next time.

 

[Still Kicking]

Well I've reconsidered the replacement concept and servicing myself next time.

Good call .... life is too short to breathe on second- or third-rate regs, chasing a dollar to the bottom of the ocean. Learning to service your own regs is a win-win.

 

[Thunder Struck]

This seems like a PIA solution to waste time and money. Just selling the old regulator is more work than paying to have it serviced. You sell it, you have to deal with some whiney bastard on eBay. You are going to buy the new regulators and have to configure them and make sure they are ready to dive. Are you buying them online? Are they out of the box ready to use and did you get the hoses you wanted or are you just using what was in the box?

If you don’t want to service them yourself, why not stagger them and service 1 set at a time? I don’t think you are going to find your plan convenient or cheap. You are going to have gear that is almost new and replace it with gear of unknown performance. If it arrives out of spec, you are going to spend money or time fixing it.

I would find someplace that will do the work properly and get good gear to start.

Cloud list it on eBay and in the fine print state that it’s only for the packaging and not the actual regulator. And if someone buys it then complains it was deceptive you can come here looking for sympathy only to find the opposite.

 

[CT-Rich]

Cloud list it on eBay and in the fine print state that it’s only for the packaging and not the actual regulator. And if someone buys it then complains it was deceptive you can come here looking for sympathy only to find the opposite.

Who the heck would come to ScubaBoard for sympathy?

 

[Bigbella]

Here’s yet another reason for pursuing the DIY route

An acquaintance spent about 135.00, plus parts, to have his spare regulator and two second stages “serviced,” I think, in FLA, while on vacation, and had complained to them, within a day or two, that it was fizzing as soon as it had been pressurized. I couldn’t get a real answer why it wasn’t ever tested in the shop before any payment.

A ziplock bag of supposedly spent parts was also provided, stapled to the invoice.

I stripped the first stage down to the diaphragm and couldn’t believe what I saw . . .

 

[elmo]

Here’s yet another reason for pursuing the DIY route

An acquaintance spent about 135.00, plus parts, to have his spare regulator and two second stages “serviced,” I think, in FLA, while on vacation, and had complained to them, within a day or two, that it was fizzing as soon as it had been pressurized. I couldn’t get a real answer why it wasn’t ever tested in the shop before any payment.

A ziplock bag of supposedly spent parts was also provided, stapled to the invoice.

I stripped the first stage down to the diaphragm and couldn’t believe what I saw . . .

Are you saying you saw the Virgin Mary in the diaphragm?

 

[rfwoodvt]

Lots of good thoughts on both side of this discussion but I lean heavily towards self-servicing of any life-safety gear, or at the very least having an intimate knowledge of how it works and why.

It astounds me how many folks will express they are too frightened to service their own life-safety gear yet blindly trust someone, often an anonymous someone, to service that gear.

We have all heard stories of gear coming back from "servicing" and having them fail due to an error in the shop. I dare say we have all probably experienced those stories first hand,

Even if servicing or repair truly are beyond our skillset it seems to me that we should still become intimately familiar with the gear to the point of being able to assemble, disassemble, and know the theory behind it.

This information alone can mean the difference between surviving an incident and not.

The whole reason we do a buddy-check pre-dive is to make sure we haven't screwed up in getting ready. A valid buddy check can only be performed by a competent buddy. Why, then, are so many of us afraid, or feel it is beyond our knowledge to become competent to check our own life-safety gear post service or to service it ourselves?

It's not rocket science, (actually it is) and there is not one among us incapable of understanding it.

Just my two pennies worth.

 

[CT-Rich]

Are you saying you saw the Virgin Mary in the diaphragm?

Why would the Virgin Mary need a diaphragm?