HOG Regulator Issue

[mmadiver]

I just bought a pair of D1 first & second stages. After the second dive (first dive in pool, second dive in the ocean) the circular black/white indicator face on the inhalation effort knob came off on one of my second stages. It appears to be a plastic piece with a foil back, basically a sticker. It's mostly a cosmetic piece and doesn't affect the regulator performance, but I'd still rather not have parts falling off my regs...

 

[Jim Lapenta]

The adhesive used on that piece is usually pretty good. I have had one of mine come loose. Course it had a hundred or so dives on it. All I did was take a little gorilla glue and put it back on. The area it adheres to is not very large and sometimes stuff like this can happen with so small an area to adhere to. And when gluing plastic to metal it gets even trickier. Dissimilar surfaces and all that.

I also work in a shop that laminates metal foils. Glue is a tricky animal. We run into this where to look at it, there appears to be sufficient adhesive. But when the waterjet comes in contact it delaminates. Sometimes quite spectacularly. You can obviously re glue it yourself or call your dealer. If you decide to do it yourself gorilla glue or 910 adhesive works well. Superglue anymore seems to be hit or miss.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

I'd just leave it off - you know that screwing in increases cracking pressure while screwing out reduces it, so why have some poorly thoughtout label stuck to the reg? Having it etched into the outside face of the metal adjustment knob would have been the smarter way to do it, but that would add to the reg's cost and HOG can't have that.

 

[mmadiver]

The adhesive used on that piece is usually pretty good. I have had one of mine come loose. Course it had a hundred or so dives on it. All I did was take a little gorilla glue and put it back on. The area it adheres to is not very large and sometimes stuff like this can happen with so small an area to adhere to. And when gluing plastic to metal it gets even trickier. Dissimilar surfaces and all that.

I also work in a shop that laminates metal foils. Glue is a tricky animal. We run into this where to look at it, there appears to be sufficient adhesive. But when the waterjet comes in contact it delaminates. Sometimes quite spectacularly. You can obviously re glue it yourself or call your dealer. If you decide to do it yourself gorilla glue or 910 adhesive works well. Superglue anymore seems to be hit or miss.

Seems like a poor design:

1) Without looking at the regulator schematic, it appears the adjustment dial is hollow. Gluing the indicator face over the hollow cavity would seal it shut. I'm not partial to having air voids in my equipment that are not rated for depth. The alternative is you leave a small opening to vent which would then trap sea water, be difficult to clean and inspect, and ultimately corrode.

2) Any sort of adhesive in salt water is going to fail eventually - a better design would be to use a locking ring to retain the plastic indicator.

 

[Bhtmec2]

All of mine came off after a hell of a lot of dives. I cleaned the up took a dab of marine shoe goop and put them back on. Never had a problem since. Do not really need them but I like to keep every thing sort of original.

Good luck do not sweat it much.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

HOG is not the only brand to use a sticker here...

...and I think I'm not the only one with spare stickers lying around from service kits that I never installed.

Jim is right about glue. I once suffered through a purchasing person's substitute for a glue that worked, with a glue that seemed to, but failed randomly months later. Both glues were similar on paper, but one just didn't work consistently.

 

[Chilly_Dipper]

Seems like a poor design:

1) Without looking at the regulator schematic, it appears the adjustment dial is hollow. Gluing the indicator face over the hollow cavity would seal it shut. I'm not partial to having air voids in my equipment that are not rated for depth. The alternative is you leave a small opening to vent which would then trap sea water, be difficult to clean and inspect, and ultimately corrode.

2) Any sort of adhesive in salt water is going to fail eventually - a better design would be to use a locking ring to retain the plastic indicator.

1. Your assuming that there is no other drainage available to the water that may enter here.

2. Drysuits are typical held together with glue. Don't lump all adhesives into the same barrel as Elmers white. I've dealt with glues and adhesives that bond so well that you have to destroy the materials they are adhering to get them apart. Also locking ring requires additional machining and manufacturing steps all of which lead to increase of overall cost at no additional gain in functionality or reliability.

I would suggest possibly converting this part to a snap fit style part, but again if it isn't broke why incur the NRE costs to fix it.