Freshly serviced regs!

[northernone]

@couv , you da man! Great diagnostic move!
Okay. Some weird second stage failure, then.
@couv 1, @rsingler 0

Love you guys. Sorry for the patchy info.

Kinda wished I had have followed him up for my own curiosity now to check it out on land... did get some nice photos that day though. A shy freshwater fish was feeling friendly.

More on the topic of the incident. I know I would have felt bad if they subsequently drowned after I decided not to see them to shore.

...Not sure I'd call the dive next time either though.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

Love you guys. Sorry for the patchy info.

Kinda wished I had have followed him up for my own curiosity now to check it out on land... did get some nice photos that day though. A shy freshwater fish was feeling friendly.

More on the topic of the incident. I know I would have felt bad if they subsequently drowned after I decided not to see them to shore.

...Not sure I'd call the dive next time either though.

Great self-critique. When I read the story, I went back to see if you indicated you were an Instructor or DM, and of course you are. Maybe because I'm a new(ish) DM, I feel hyper-vigilant about liability issues. I think I would have made sure I got him up to the surface. On the other hand, I wouldn't have done the pre-check you did due to my lack of experience.

And not doing a pre-check on a newly certified diver's weight was a contributing factor in calling a dive. I should have made him do it, I told him I was checking my own weight as I'd swapped out my BC, but I assumed since he was certified the week before he'd know how much lead he'd need. (He was overweighted, the water was a bit rough for his taste, and his mask strap was so tight it was causing flooding. We fixed the mask, but with the waves and excess lead he was sufficiently freaked to call it. I tried to recover the situation by making sure he had take home lessons for next time, specifically we pinned down his weight requirement and loosened his mask strap. A couple of us offered to dive with him one-on-one as just two buddies going out.)

 

[BRT]

How do freshly serviced regs fail ? Poor technician servicing?

Debris will do it.

 

[Couv]

Sorry; I forgot this was a "Lessons Learned" thread and got interested in the reg malfunction.

Personally, I think you did fine. Put your DM/Instructor hat away and stop being so hard on yourself over this. You may very well have saved this guy's life.

Second takeaway, would have been better to call my dive and see them safely to shore.

Certainly you should not beat yourself up over not seeing him to the shore. You were a spectator, not his buddy.

the buddy shares air and they ascend together.

Your job was more that done at this point......except to us, you could have taken pictures of the event.

Also curious what predive reg check I missed in going over his reg that might have caught it.

Again, you did more that your share here-the reg checked good and developed a problem later.

 

[northernone]

Frankly, I might have put this in the wrong forum myself.... I wrote a heavily reg focused post and that's what puzzled me... just happened to be a bad day for a fellow diver at the same time.

Plenty of lessons learned on his side of things I hope. His buddy's as well. It was a while until I got there... and had plenty of time with him before the buddy showed up.

-humor-
...I was very tempted to take a few photos... But thought a DSLR and a pair of strobes in his face might have been a little in poor taste.
---

 

[Shasta_man]

I'm always surprised when I hear "the diver had already left by the time I got out" after such events. Besides saying thanks, it's an opportunity to get some education on what to do from someone who obviously had some idea what to do. And hopefully the buddy learned that buddy means more than we went diving in the same place at the same time. Makes me wonder if the buddy was the one who wanted to leave before hearing that in person.

Note to self: dive with northernone and rsingler after servicing reg

 

[Bob DBF]

Oh, in hindsight for my own behaviour, I added risk by leaving his tank partially closed to slow the free flow. Not my valve to touch. Second takeaway, would have been better to call my dive and see them safely to shore. The largest piece, underwater reg diagnosis shouldn't have taken place and added unnecessary delays and risks. He needed brought to the surface. Just call the dive.

As long as everyone was calm, I wouldn't see the delay as a problem unless we were deep. I would have stayed with him, once I adjusted the valve, so I could keep track of an adjustment only I knew about, and inform him what I had done once on the surface.

In any event well done.


Bob

 

[Coztick]

Plenty of lessons learned on his side of things I hope. His buddy's as well. It was a while until I got there... and had plenty of time with him before the buddy showed up.

Along with not heading for the surface means, to me, that he was as good as gone had you not acted.
Poor guy had no idea he was solo or how to handle the issue at hand.
BRAVO Cameron, see ya in Dec.

Kevin

 

[JackD342]

It's a straightforward business. Not too complex, but requiring of two things for reliability: experience and precision.
Experience you get by getting good instruction, and maybe making mistakes, but you recover by post-repair testing. Precision you have to have the temperament for. If you're rushed in a busy shop, it's all too easy to nick an o-ring during reassembly. If you skip steps, it comes back to bite you. If you're sloppy, it bites you.

There are some freeflows that are almost unavoidable. If you are asked to set cracking effort at the low end of spec, when the seat takes a set it may begin to freeflow gently. But that's a five minute adjustment, and not catastrophic.

And this could be one of those rare part failures. A HP seat could have a flaw and fail. I've had a HP Seat viton oring with a molding flaw cause a first stage failure a few days into a trip, on first pressurization. It happens.
View attachment 484507
This oring split like a sandwich, and leaked out the hole where the brass pick now sits. That was a surprise, but you can clearly see the plane where high pressure air divided the oring, probably along molding lines.

I hope the OP finds out what really happened.

I am curious what happened too, but we’ll never actually know. I can think of 15 different ways to cause a leak or a slight free flow, but I can’t visual something done wrong during servicing a Legend that would do this, after making it past all that pre dive check. Maybe break a spring? Although I never have heard of that happening. I agree anything on the 1st stage balance chamber (scratches, debris on oring, inverted backup oring) is most likely to cause an HP creep than a full on flow.
.

 

[txgoose]

@couv 1, @rsingler 0

Nah. I appreciate _all_ of the contributions to this post. None of it was bad info, just some folks with tech skills brainstorming a problem.

Contributors 1, SB readers 1, no zeros.