Gear Failure Experience

[ozziworld]

Was wondering what others experience with gear failure at depth I have had a few, Was wondering which item of gear has the failure rate.

My experience with gear failure are:

1. Free-flowing reg. Minor but happens. Easy to solve most of the time.
2. Depth gauge flodded. Old Tekna beyond its years. Replaced it with a new one.
3. HP hose failure at depth. Replaced it after aborting the dive.
4. Back-up light twist on/off head unreliable. Don't use it much anymore.
5. Leaking inflator. Minor leak - disconnected it continued diving and inflated manually as required. Replaced O-ring.
6. SPG flooded. Had to replace it.
6. Fins - Scubapro Seawings. Torn at notches near the foot pocket after just a year or so. Replaced it with MARES Avavntis. Still using them after 18 years.

Other divers Gear failures I have encountered:
1. Mask lens coming off. Must have been damged by tanks or got stepped on.
2. Stuck inflator. That looked scary the first time since y0u have to think and act quickly.

Never seen a reg freeze-up because I am now in a warm water location ; )

 

[spectrum]

I had my inflater valve freeze on during 2 ice dives,

As it turned out the QD fitting (which had never been touched with a tool in 120+ dives) had started to unscrew. Whenever the inflater was fired, even in short bursts the air flow would case a venturi that drew water into the valve. The cold ambient conditions combined with the adiabatic cooling made for a mini snow machine inside the valve and it would lock up. Fortunately the flow was minor and I was able to manage the dive by burping the butt dump.

Pete

 

[Tigerman]

Ive seen, but not had on my own gear;

- Stuck inflator. Something needs to be dealt with correctly and quickly or youll start shooting to the surface FAST (which my buddy did, but was ok)
- Blown HP hose. I was sure someone jumped or threw something into the water right on top of me and was looking for whatever was on its way to hit me in the head from above..

 

[nereas]

Was wondering what others experience with gear failure at depth I have had a few, Was wondering which item of gear has the failure rate.

My experience with gear failure are:

1. Free-flowing reg. Minor but happens. Easy to solve most of the time.
2. Depth gauge flodded. Old Tekna beyond its years. Replaced it with a new one.
3. HP hose failure at depth. Replaced it after aborting the dive.
4. Back-up light twist on/off head unreliable. Don't use it much anymore.
5. Leaking inflator. Minor leak - disconnected it continued diving and inflated manually as required. Replaced O-ring.
6. SPG flooded. Had to replace it.
6. Fins - Scubapro Seawings. Torn at notches near the foot pocket after just a year or so. Replaced it with MARES Avavntis. Still using them after 18 years.

Other divers Gear failures I have encountered:
1. Mask lens coming off. Must have been damged by tanks or got stepped on.
2. Stuck inflator. That looked scary the first time since y0u have to think and act quickly.

Never seen a reg freeze-up because I am now in a warm water location ; )

From your list, I have had a freeflowing 2nd stage, a leaking LP power inflator, and a stepped-on and broken mask.

The freeflowing 2nd stage was caused by assembly error at the shop. Fortunately I had a spare set with me in the car to swap out.

I also bring an extra LP inflator assembly in my gear bag as part of my save a dive kit, to swap out whenever a leak occurs.

I watch out for my masks more carefully now, so that no one can step on them in the boat or on shore. And I always carry an extra mask in my cargo pocket. I have cargo pockets glued onto my 1/2 mm and 3mm wetsuits as well as 2 on my drysuit.

 

[sunapeebob]

This was discussed on another thread, I will mention it here as well. My son had his mouthpiece zip tie break as he did a giant stride into the water from a boat. He had to abort the dive since his octo was hooked to a pony. The suggested correction was to goop the zip tie on and it will hold even better. I have not done this yet. I have had a fast leak (not really free flow) on an octo when I first started diving. It was adjusted and was corrected. I lost a fin once and fortunately someone below me coming up the mooring line saw it drifting down and snagged it. Yes, I bought him a beer. I now have spring straps. We have done some cold water diving, but not ice diving yet. I would like to practice the free flow inflator so that it is less of a thrash when it occurs with some of the cold water diving. I have had the plastic strap holder on a mask shatter in the cold when I accidently dropped it from about 2 feet up. The glass was fine, but the plastic was toast.

Bob

 

[HatchetJoe]

I have had a freeflowing 2nd stage,
and a stepped-on and broken mask.
A stuck inflator
A frozen first stage @about 90 feet
had a blatter dissasemble at the seam
imflator.pull dump came loose at fitting, would not inflate or hold air

 

[dumpsterDiver]

In my experiens the most common scuba failures are in descending frequency:

Free flow second stage
Stuck "on" inflator
mouthpiece loss due to zip tie failure
Total failure of a BC over pressure relief spring due to corrosion
hose failures
and all the other misc. crap that gets wrecked or screws up, but rarely impacts your dive.

 

[ozziworld]

Oh, forgot to mention in my original post. Fin straps and mask straps seem to fail a lot at the worst time. Perhaps someone can invent a spring strap equivalent for masks

 

[dumpsterDiver]

They do.. A nylon strap with neoprene head band..

 

[Web Monkey]

Was wondering what others experience with gear failure at depth

On OW dive # 7, I tore my BC inflator hose while pulling on the pull dump, on a drift dive over a very deep wall. Oddly enough that was the last time I ever pulled the inflator hose to dump air.

I had a free-flow after filling my 75 pound SMB using my second stage in 30-something degree water. That probably qualifies more as a brain-fart than a hardware failure.

Terry