Review Dräger Shark teardown

[Geo7]

As promised here are some more photos of the first stage. In comparison to a Mk25T for the size, and then the latest iteration to an early iteration of the Shark/Nemo. It does not seem to matter if Uwatec or Dräger or Shark or Nemo is printed on it.

 

[Geo7]

And same for the 2nd stages: Shark, Nemo and Chinook look the same inside. Chinook is the name for the nitrox version (green deflector), but this reg seems young enough to have all epdm o-rings inside, so the difference may be just color and cleaning procedures. As noted above there is an original and an upgraded version of the Shark, which is the only major difference. There is a main tube with short flats and another with longer flats to attach the hose. And the mouthpiece adapter can be exchanged for the P-port, and it seems these are delivered with hoses that have an integrated OPV and do not vent into the reg but into the water (I wonder if the integrated OPV in the 2nd stage differs in these versions). Finally, there are black, grey, yellow and green bubble deflectors. And it seems that sums up the variation in 2nd stage versions.

 

[Geo7]

The closest thing to this you could buy today is a Scubapro D420 which has an injection molded plastic valve housing, which may perhaps be more advanced and better performing than 316 steel, but I’d still take steel or titanium. Sadly, this seems a thing of the past. Think of how many more manufacturing steps you need in order to cut the valve housing, and then you still have to make a barrel for it. Compare that to the completely round Apeks barrels or Scubapro plastic barrels and you can guess what the future will look like.

Looking at this discontinued design, I have to ask myself whether it is worth going to such a complex to manufacture design over a Mk10/G250 or Mk25/D420? Has reg design reached its peak in the 1990s, or were the Dräger engineers able to add some tricks that are worth considering in future reg designs?

It seems like Atomic provided an answer to my question above: The TFX is the latest representation of the center-balanced valve reg with co-axial exhaust, and it is amazing how close it stayed to the D400 valve (but adding innovations). I am happy I was wrong that future regs using complex shaped parts like this valve will go the cheap and disposable way of injection mold plastic. Similar to the Shark with the steel valve body, we have titanium in the TFX, and I love it...