Does this really ever happen? How often has /does a regulator actually fail?

[dshorwich]

I had a second stage fall apart on me once, many years ago - the reg was a rental, from a busy cattle-boat operation in the tropics, and apparently hadn't been well maintained. I was a newbie diver at the time (on my 22nd dive), and neglected to perform an adequate pre-dive gear check, which probably would have caught the problem. So I learned my lesson, and besides that bought myself a reg when I got home from the trip.

 

[redacted]

Yes, it can happen. I have had a Scubapro Mk5 that locked up and failed to deliver any gas from a full tank. It did not happen UW. It happened when I was attempting to modify the regulator to deliver air at a lower pressure suitable for use with an air tool.

Bottom line, if the spring in a balanced piston fails to exert enough pressure to disengage the piston from the seat, it will lock up and fail to deliver air. Thankfully, such a failure is extremely remote.

 

[Divescape]

Jax I was 20min in on an 18m dive where the reg of one of our group failed closed after becoming hard to breath. Primary filed first with octo going about 5 breaths later. I watched as he signaled out of air and his buddy gave a text book demonstration of how to do everything right. On the surface the reg breathed fine again. to answer your other question. In my opinion this was a poorly serviced regulator of an old school long time diver. As a relatively inexperinced diver it was nice to see a real life demonstration handled so carmly and ending with a good result all out safe!

 

[fire_diver]

With any luck I'll never know if this is paranoid or prudent, but I never dive with all recently serviced regs. Whether it's my pony or sidemount, if one was just serviced , the other one has been around for a while.

flots.

I share your "concern". I won't dive with newly serviced regs until I get a couple pool or shallow lake dives on them first. I have never had a failure, but I have witnessed "just serviced" regs fail.

 

[DaleC]

Jax I was 20min in on an 18m dive where the reg of one of our group failed closed after becoming hard to breath. Primary filed first with octo going about 5 breaths later. I watched as he signaled out of air and his buddy gave a text book demonstration of how to do everything right. On the surface the reg breathed fine again. to answer your other question. In my opinion this was a poorly serviced regulator of an old school long time diver. As a relatively inexperinced diver it was nice to see a real life demonstration handled so carmly and ending with a good result all out safe!

Not to discount this but a similar effect could be produced by diving an almost closed tank valve, though not 20 minutes into a dive. On the surface it would work fine but at depth would become progressively harder to breath (as depth increased).

 

[BoltSnap]

I have NEVER had a regulator stop delivering air to me underwater due to malfunction of regulator or any reason at all in my 40+ years of diving!!!! I have used AMF Voit, Mares, Poseidon, Sherwood, Dacor, SeaQuest, Scubapro, Aqua Lung and Atomic regulators in these years. I remember that an octopus second stage was loose at the attachment to the hose (after service) but I caught that before I entered the water and was fixed immediately.

I test the regulators on a scuba tank before I leave the dive shop after service. I also inspect everything before I go on a dive trip. I service my regulators on annual basis or as required by the mfg. except for the Atomic regulators (always sealed FS). Since I have been living outside the US for the last 10 years or so, I have had my Atomic regulators serviced less frequently than the 2 year cycle as suggested by the mfg. (I think it was more like 3 - 4 years). No issues with longer service cycle for the Atomic regulators. SP and Atomic regulators held up the best as far as I can remember. Poseidon was the worst in my experience but Mares comes very close to being worst especially during a time when they had the "Ruby" FS (MR22 Abyss) when regulators failed out of the box.

 

[Chuckitall]

Had an SP 600 totally fail at 15 to 20 ft after an annual. Did not go back to dealer, sent directly to SP and was told that the dealer did not put all the parts back in the reg during annual. Fixed by SP and never had a problem again. Never set foot in that store again.

 

[redacted]

Had an SP 600 totally fail at 15 to 20 ft after an annual. Did not go back to dealer, sent directly to SP and was told that the dealer did not put all the parts back in the reg during annual. Fixed by SP and never had a problem again. Never set foot in that store again.

Please define "totally fail".

There are really only a few parts that one could leave out of an S600 (or most regulators for that matter) and still end up with an apparently working regulator. And I can't think of any of those that would lead to anything more than an annoying leak.

Overtightening and under tightening are more common service errors that produce an apparently working regulator with an incipient failure.

 

[emoreira]

How often has /does a regulator actually fail?

Not talking about an out of air situation.

I'm talking a situation where you have plenty of air in your tank and you simply can not breathe off your reg.

Also to expand on this, how many of these regs were actually maintained properly?

Perhaps not a regulator failure in itself, but something that happens often is when the mouth piece comes off the second stage while you are inhaling.
This happened once to me in the pool with a reg set that belongs to the dive school. The zip tie was not broken or missing (this is the usual cause), but it was a too small one and perhaps was not correctly secured. It's striking that a mouth piece is quite hard to install out of the water, but it seems that the water works as lube for it, as it comes off very easily.

 

[GrandpaScuba]

I've had a mouth piece come off.
Cold water freeze up.
Uncontrollable free-flow.
O-ring failure.