Flooded Regs

[burnboy]

I was assisting a Scuba Class this evening when one of the Assistant Instructors accidently submerged their regs underwater by accident. ;-0 The regs were Scubapro 380/S600 and a Vyper computer. There was no dust cap on the regs so the first stage was flooded. The AI then quickly set the regs up on a tank and tried to expell all of the water that he could.

My question is this, without the possibility of getting to the LDS in the next couple of days, what is the best thing to do to the regs. One suggestion given by the instructor was to do a tear down in a dry enviroment and try to let everything dry. Is this a good idea or is there a better one?

I am looking forward to hearing what all of you have to say other then that was a stupid mistake.

burnboy

 

[Rick Murchison]

You didn't say whether you were in a pool or not... if in a pool, and the chemistry's right, and it's a pretty clean pool, the instant "blow dry" probably saved the reg and you won't even have to rebuild it. The parts are all rinsed in fresh water and dried during rebuild anyway. You should go ahead and do a disassembly and inspection at the earliest opportunity, but there's no need for "undue concern."
If you were in salt water, forget it - rebuild required ASAP.
Rick

 

[Stone]

How did the AI blow the water out?

I have not done this myself, but I watched a guy (two guys, actually) clear a wet first stage like this:

After putting the reg back on the tank, one guy put his thumb over the mouth piece of the octo. The other guy pressed the purge button on the primary and turned on the air to blast the water out. It appeared to be dry as a bone in about 2 seconds.

I'm assuming the octo was plugged up by hand so there would be no chance of water getting into it if it would have free-flowed when pressurized.

 

[burnboy]

Thanks for the info so far . The regs themselves were in a pool that is fairly clean. The bottom is a little dirty but there is little actually suspended in the water.

The AI took the regs and attached them to the tank and purged them underwater. I don't know if maybe the water acted like the thumb?

burnboy

 

[dc4bs]

#1

I usualy break down everything after a dive and put it into a big plastic tub in the back of my truck for the drive home.

I just put the whole thing on the ground and fill it with water from the hose.

I forgot to put the dust cap on the reg one day and it soaked (in fresh water) for an hour or two before I dumped out of the tub and put everything away.

I didn't notice the cap was off till I went to use the reg again but I never had any problems with it.

Saltwater is another story though (see #2)

#2

During a Deco dive course, my buddy had a significant O-ring leak on the reg on his deco bottle when he went to switch over. First, he tried to get it to reseat by loosening and wiggling it. After fiddling with it for a minute or two he ended up just removing it from the tank, reseating the O-ring with his fingers and then puting the reg back on and opening the valve.

Worked fine after that but he went straight to the diveshop when we got off the boat as we figured saltwater at 50 feet or so was a prety bad thing for the reg.

 

[Norm]

If it was pool water I wouldn't worry too much about it ...... temporarily. (As others have told you, saltwater is another story) There are opinions that say chlorine is the WORST thing that can go into your reg. (One company even discontinued purge button depressor locks because of this!)
Me personally? I would worry more about the stuff that would like "take up residence" within your hoses! Man, I've torn some down some that looked like a giant, flexible, green Petri dish inside! (One guy was getting sick every time that he went diving. After I rebuilt his reg I saw why. His was the NASTIEST reg I have EVER seen! He would take it straight home, after a freshwater diver, coil it up and store it in his reg bag until the next dive. After about 4 months of this he had a severely cankered reg!)
In my opinion, any (piston) reg that has a flow control element inside the first stage would naturally be much more susceptible to damage from this sort of thing.
Norm

 

[devjr]

Pardon, what is a flow control element? Some kind of perforated disk at the inlet?

TIA

 

[Norm]

Have you seen the Sherwoods having a teeny-tiny stream of bubbles coming from their first stage? This is a standard function for them. This is how they seal their first stages. They use air, to balance against the ambient pressure of the water. This helps to balance their regs while keeping all contaminants out of the piston first stage. (Genesis now uses a similar technology as well)Well, INSIDE the first stage is a tiny little orifice piece called a flow control element. In the older models it was in the piston itself. In the newer models it's in the first stage housing. It does a super job of controlling the maximum flow of this balancing air and is usually good for the life of the reg.....but (like the guts of most any reg) it doesn't like saltwater! JMO
Norm

 

[devjr]

OK, I got it. Yep, from the design standpoint alone, I think Sherwood's piston is one of the most interesting. The little trick they use to balance the intermediate pressure; it looks like a floating valve seat, is neat, as is the dry housing.

 

[scubafanatic]

I've heard some people say how clever an idea it is to use an 'air-bleed' 1st stage to keep water out of Sherwood 1st stages.

One 'fly-in'the-ointment' though:

I've heard many a story of how people fresh-water-soak their Sherwood 1st stages after taking it off the tank....forgetting that the moment the 1st stage is unpressurized, it is vulnerable to being ruined, since without air pressure water immediately enters the 1st stage.

A good design concept on paper....not so smart in the real-world though!