Equipment Servicing

[mark01]

I bought my Aqualung Legend primary and Octo in June of 06. I also bought a set of Scubapro regs for my daughter. I did about 30 or so dives that year including a week in Cozumel as did my daughter. I took the regs to the shop from which they were purchased and they serviced the regs in June of this year as required.. at least that is what I think the shop did.

In intervening time, I have changed shops. My present shop guy has a very poor opinion of the shop I started with and has stated that he has serviced equipment which had "supposedly" been "serviced" at my old shop. He showed me pix of two reg with corroded springs, seats, push rods, crud buildup in hoses, and all manner of corruption which, he says, would not have occured had proper service been done. He went so far as to tell me that he believed my old shop might not even been servicing the stuff at all, just taking money for work not done. He offered two anecdotes to back up that speculation. He did not tell me I needed to have my regs reserviced by him or I would die.

Now I am pretty meticulous with my stuff and spend extra time rinsing, soaking, and cleaning stuff when I finish a dive, especilly when we dove in salt water in Cozumel.

So now, I am sitting here thinking about all this. I'd like to think that reasonable user care would would prevent most bad stuff from happening to this gear. My first stage has an auto sealing mechanism which is meant to keep stuff out of the first stage when it's off the tank. I make sure the purge button does not get pushed when cleaning, and try to ensure the cap is in place on the first stage before cleaning on both my reg and my daughter's reg which is not sealed at the first stage.
I also think that if salt water does find its way into the regs during a dive, a yearly service is hardly sufficient to prevent the damage it's going to cause. The regs are due again for service in June of this year.



So I guess I have some questions:

1. Would you guess the damage I was shown by my new shop guy more likely to be caused by lengthy/profound neglect than a missed service caused by poor or deceptive shop practice?
2. How would I know if my stuff got serviced properly or at all without actually taking it apart? - something which I have no qualification for.
3. Obviously, salt water is can been pretty damaging to equipment, but are regs on the market these days so fragile that missing a service (assuming the shop did not do its business) is going to result in horrifying corrosion if the user does reasonable maintence following each dive?
4. Should I have the both sets of regs reserviced ???


Thanks for listening

Mark

 

[RiverRat]

This is why I service my own gear. Man sorry to hear that. Sounds like you may have found a decent guy to service your gear from now on. Regulators are not that fragile. My Apeks recommends full service every 2 years with an inspection service in between. During the inspection the tech can do a few tests and determine whether or not to do a full service for that year. Sounds like your reg got flooded at one point and then if the bad shop didn't service it well then that would explain what your new shop found. If you ever do knowingly flood your reg with salt water then you want to "flood" it with fresh water asap to get the salt out before you get it to a tech for teardown. Without getting to know the insides of your gear it's hard to know what is really going on with service until you establish a good relationship with a tech. I suggest picking up a book like Vance Harlow's Scuba Regulator Maintenance and Repair. Even if you don't start rebuilding your own regs the information is good for any diver. Knowledge is power. There are plenty of tips to help you keep your gear in check and some simple tests you can do, like IP pressure, that will help you monitor your regs condition. In any event a good tech should give you back all your parts in a bag so you know they've been replaced along with a report on the post rebuild performance.

I would have all the regs torn down and looked at. If one of them was properly rebuilt and cleaned then it may not need a full rebuild. But keep in mind the rebuild kits are really the cheapest part of a decent full service. Most of the time it's just best practice to replace the parts, mostly o-rings, during a teardown.

 

[redacted]

I only service my own regs and Have bought some pretty nasty looking used regs, but I have never seen corrosion on a spring. I have also seen regs fresh out of service that clearly were not serviced. I have removed hoses from 1st stages and seen green corrosion indicating they were poorly cared for by the user and not serviced properly by their shop.

But If you provided good user care, I would expect you could go for a number of years before you really needed them serviced. You might have a trusted LDS check IP and cracking pressure just to make sure they are in good shape. No disassembly involved (unless he just pulls a hose or two for a peek) and costs should be around $20 or so per. Or you could get your own IP gauge for about $30 and do the inspection yourself whenever you would like to.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

River Rat, he did not say his has the crud in it but was shown pics of regs supposedly serviced by the other place that did. In any case, this is more common than it should be. When I first started reading the post I had to see where he was from to be sure it was a place around here. Anyway with the care you describe taking I would not think that you have a concern. Yes conditions like that are usually do to a lot of neglect and not just poor service. I also service my own regs for this reason and can give you a few tips that will not involve tearing them completely down. While not foolproof it can give some indications as to whether proper service was done. First visually look them over good, check for tool marks, any sign of corrosion, sand, dirt etc. Look in the exhaust baffles are they clean and is the diaphragm seemed to be well seated( nothing stuck under it). Forcefully exhale thru the second stage. Did it pop easily or was it stuck? Now pull back the hose protectors. Clean and free of corrosion as well? Are you using console mount guages? If so and you are ok with doing it pop out the guages. Soaking it in a little warm water sometimes helps with this. Is there any crud or sand in there? If so he most likely did not clean these out. Not a good sign as it's very easy and quick to do and should be done each time the regs are serviced. Next you can take a wrench of the right size and take the hoses off and see if there is anything in the ports. Are the orings ok and do they appear shiny and lubed or are they dry. If so, stop and take the reg in if you don't have extras or any silicone lube for them. Any green stuff in the ports? There should not be. Put the hoses back on finger tight and then just a snug with the wrench. Lastly put em on a tank and breath em. If anything in this causes you concern, stop, don't do the step. If anything seems irregular or out of whack, take em in. A service is cheap life insurance.

 

[redacted]

A service is cheap life insurance.

A service is not life insurance. Service, if done properly reduces the chances of future problems. If not done correctly, it increases the chance of near term problems, some of which could cause an emergency situation (which well trained and practiced divers should be able to handle).

 

[halocline]

As I start to get into reg service, I'm realizing that 90% of it is cleaning parts and being careful removing and installing o-rings. These are not difficult things to do, but are exactly the kind of things a shop employee on the clock is likely to short cut.

If I understand the OP, he's saying that he was shown photos of some regs that had been neglected/poorly serviced, not his regs. Is that correct? If he's rinsing/soaking well after salt water diving, and being careful with keeping water out of the 1st stage, probably there's not too much to be worried about. I did come back from a Coz trip once and be told by a reliable tech that there was some unexpected corrosion in my MK2, and some nasty stuff in the filter. My guess is that it was caused by a bad rental tank, and you can be pretty sure those are not uncommon in Coz.

 

[ianw2]

I am sitting here thinking about all this. I'd like to think that reasonable user care would would prevent most bad stuff from happening to this gear. My first stage has an auto sealing mechanism which is meant to keep stuff out of the first stage when it's off the tank. I make sure the purge button does not get pushed when cleaning, and try to ensure the cap is in place on the first stage before cleaning on both my reg and my daughter's reg which is not sealed at the first stage.
I also think that if salt water does find its way into the regs during a dive, a yearly service is hardly sufficient to prevent the damage it's going to cause. The regs are due again for service in June of this year.

I thought I was being meticulous with my rinsing and care program for my first set of regs, too. And I was. It turns out that I wasn't even taught the one step that significantly reduces the damage done to the insides of regs.

BEFORE you attach the reg to the tank, open the valve and blow off a bit of air. This will remove (or significantly reduce) the amount of water sitting in the valve ABOVE the valve seat. If there is ANY water in the valve, it will be blown into the innards of ANY regulator to begin its destructive chemical attack.

No matter how wonderful you are at you maintenance routine, without this simple but crucial step, you aren't gpoing to be successful in reducing the corrosion insde your first stage.

BTW...my LDS gives me back my regs and a bag of the parts that were replaced. I KNOW Phil of Temecula SCUBA Center is doing the service. I know Phil and I trust him with my regs and my wife's regs.

Ian