OP
First set of regulators for a newbie?
- Thread starter Jherny
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Pao
Contributor
Do they conduct heat or hold it? They can't do both. Take two pipes. One metal and one plastic. Stick one end in ice water and hold the other end and tell me which one feels cold first.
Now put your mouth to the end of each and start exhaling through them. Which one (still) feels warmer in your hand?
What reports have you seen of 212s freezing up, other than the one I posted here a year and a half ago?
Having a heat sink on a first stage makes sense. The only source of warmth it has is the surrounding water. But, the second stage has a constant injection of 98 degree air. Why would it be good to maximize conduction of that warmth from the inside of the reg into the surrounding water?
I had a 212 freeze on me during a ice dive with Mike from DRIS, I wanted to test it out. I exited on a HOG....(metal barrel)
Anyhow the metal barrel where it meets the hose is conducting heat from the surrounding water which helps prevent ice at the oriface/lp seat , a metal barrel also is getting heat from your exhaled breath and that is helping keep the spring around the poppet from forming ice.
Metal barrel balanced seconds in general do much better in cold than plastic barreled balanced seconds. I'm pretty confident in that statement.
OP
Jherny
Contributor
Gotcha... Well I don't care too much how it looks. I just want something reliable that I'll feel safe diving. I've heard of the brand before just not that specific model. Yet again I'm new at this...Apeks is more popular with the technical diving community because of their reliability and ease of service. Not very popular in the recreational diving field though. Maybe because the their designs are not "sexy"?
Is it more for cold water? All my diving will most likely be in warm water down in south Florida, keys, Caribbean.
Always factor in cost of service if you buy 2nd hand, unless you get a copy of receipt of service from dealer. Less than a year old from new is fine. Service every 2 years is also normally fine imo despite what dive shops will tell you. Aqualung regs breathe great at recreational depths and shallower water, better than Apeks which are good deeper and I have both. Go for it.
Caveeagle
Contributor
Even if you don't plan on any ice diving, there are reasons to consider one of the "cold water" regs. Both thermodynamic properties and being environmentally sealed characteristics will help with cold water performance. I tend to think regs that are environmentally sealed diaphragms (like the enviro sealed Apeks, HOG, D6, Dive Rite) are great for warm water diving too. You get less chance of salt getting into places that are hard to rinse. And less sand and grit for the fresh water sites.
You'll notice that threads sometimes tend to get side-tracked here on SB. Here's my suggestion. Buy from your local dive store. In my experience, most local dive shops are able to get pretty close to on-line prices. But even if you pay a little more, you're getting service you can't get on-line. Virtually all of the major brands produce quality products. For regulators, one of the important considerations is being able to get it serviced locally. So find out what your local shops sells/services and let that be a guide for which brand to buy.
OP
Jherny
Contributor
Similar threads
