I've been primarily diving warm waters so far, but I'm prepping for a trip to try to do Antarctic diving. I have some environmentally sealed regulators but no special second stages, but in the prep material, I'm seeing some interesting information that I don't see anywhere else on the internet, and wanted to get some opinions before buying more second stages.
As a warning, the Dive Operations Handout state:
Bear in mind that any heat exchangers built into your regulator, designed to take heat from the water and into the regulator body, will act in reverse by further cooling the regulator, and increasing the chance of freezing, when the water temperature is below 0° Celsius.
How true is that statement? I've reached back out to the dive outfit for some clarification as well, and asked my LDS but they disagree with that statement. Either way - how much do I need to worry about a second stage? Does this mean that a normal second stage works better than a traditional "cold water" reg, since those regulators have fins and heatsinks?
Was potentially just going to grab some Sherwood Blizzard 2nd stages since those have a heat-vane but not a full metal body with heatsinks on it like some other regs like the Mares Abyss or Aqualung Legends.
As a warning, the Dive Operations Handout state:
Bear in mind that any heat exchangers built into your regulator, designed to take heat from the water and into the regulator body, will act in reverse by further cooling the regulator, and increasing the chance of freezing, when the water temperature is below 0° Celsius.
How true is that statement? I've reached back out to the dive outfit for some clarification as well, and asked my LDS but they disagree with that statement. Either way - how much do I need to worry about a second stage? Does this mean that a normal second stage works better than a traditional "cold water" reg, since those regulators have fins and heatsinks?
Was potentially just going to grab some Sherwood Blizzard 2nd stages since those have a heat-vane but not a full metal body with heatsinks on it like some other regs like the Mares Abyss or Aqualung Legends.