High Pressure cylinder & Reg. question

[deepstops]

Beth,

Who serviced your reg??

The best Aqualung shop in town is Undersea Sports at NE 14th street and Federal Hwy. The owner's name is Matt Stout and he should be able to sort this out for you in a jiffy.

 

[Luis H]

I did that once when servicing an old Conshelf. The O ring was rock hard and a @%$# to remove. Fortunately, the scratch did not result in a leak. It was only a back up regulator anyway. Later, I replaced the same ring with viton type for some specialty purpose involving oxygen.

Shame on you, I know you knew better. Burn them out if they are that hard.

I often just replace the spring block (balancing chamber) if it doesn’t look in great shape or it looks like it will be too difficult to service and bring back to great shape. I also prefer the newer spring blocks.

The newer ones also have better access to replace the O-ring…the outer lip (that forms the opening) is much more user friendlier, and the O-ring cavity is longer to allow for room to turn the back up ring and the O-ring.

New spring blocks are not expensive.

 

[BethO]

Beth,

Who serviced your reg??

The best Aqualung shop in town is Undersea Sports at NE 14th street and Federal Hwy. The owner's name is Matt Stout and he should be able to sort this out for you in a jiffy.

Hey Brian - thanks for this info. I'll definitely pay them a visit if I have further problems with my reg and next time it needs servicing. I think I know the shop you're talking about - I think I was in it once a while ago.
Beth

 

[Hallmac]

Shame on you, I know you knew better. Burn them out if they are that hard.

Actually, if you just put your finger over all but one port, and leave the high pressure side in tact, you can use a blow gun and compressed air. A short blast will pop it out without effort or damage. No pick is necessary.

 

[captain]

Actually, if you just put your finger over all but one port, and leave the high pressure side in tact, you can use a blow gun and compressed air. A short blast will pop it out without effort or damage. No pick is necessary.

I don't think you are clear of what I was referring to. The Aqua Lung balance chamber has no ports it is part of the HP seat assembly

 

[Luis H]

Actually, if you just put your finger over all but one port, and leave the high pressure side in tact, you can use a blow gun and compressed air. A short blast will pop it out without effort or damage. No pick is necessary.

The procedure you are describing is to pop out the HP diaphragm…not the O-ring in the spring block (1st stage balancing chamber) that Captain is referring to.

 

[halocline]

Hi Luis,

Isn't the new Calypso also a balanced piston design. Aqualung doesn't specifically state that it is balanced but they say in one of the catalogs that I looked at that the internal parts are usable in their older regulators.

I think the Scubapro MK 2 is balanced too. In general, pistons that have a hole all the way thru the stem are balanced.

You can bet if it doesn't say balanced in big letters on the manufacturer's literature, it's not. There are basically two kinds of piston designs, flow through and flow by. The calypso and MK2 are the flow by design, not balanced. There are some "balanced" flow by piston regs out there; Sherwood uses a set of spring washers to counter the loss of downstream force on the HP seat as the tank empties. I'd be curious to see how it works, meaning how much IP drops from 3000 to 300 PSI.

 

[Luis H]

There are some "balanced" flow by piston regs out there; Sherwood uses a set of spring washers to counter the loss of downstream force on the HP seat as the tank empties. I'd be curious to see how it works, meaning how much IP drops from 3000 to 300 PSI.

I asked one of my dive buddies (Pete, aka Spectrum) to check the IP with full and low tank pressure in a couple of his Sherwood Blizzard and he told me they were right on, it didn’t change.

It shouldn’t be too surprising since it is just based on a floating volcano orifice in what amount to a secondary pneumatic piston. It shouldn’t be too hard to analyze…that being said I haven’t actually analyzed it…I don’t own one.