How long have you gone without servicing?

[rjack321]

So what type of experimentation goes into brands stating requirements like 2 years, 300 dives or you lose free parts for life etc. what have they done to their regs to come up with those requirements?

This was all about how often they could convince you to come into the shop and drop money on labor and maybe buy some other crap while you were there.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

I'll throw in my 2 bubbles. I don't think the majority of abuse to regs happens underwater. In fact, I'd say when they're underwater if anything your working them for what they were meant for. It's the post dive cleaning, soaking, drying, sitting in a closet for years on end left to dryrot that'll cause most of the issues.

I know that my post dive maintenance was piss poor before I opened one up and saw the amount of verdigris accumulated inside, but I never soaked afterwards either. Just a quick dunk like I see most do and on my way.

Used often, thoroughly soaked and dried, I think you have a very boring wait trying to get a reg to fail.

Also the type of diving would attribute as well (obviously). Salt, sandy, silty, dirty, constant chlorine?

So it depends on the diver. I'm interested to see what difference my maintenance causes at the next service interval (which to me will be ip creep..not 2 years...unless I get bored and need to tear something apart Most of my diving is fresh, silty diving....so we'll see.

 

[halocline]

Regulators do not degrade much in storage if they are properly stored. That is a myth. The only seal on a regulator that can wear in storage is the 2nd stage seat/orifice, especially on an unbalanced 2nd stage. In that case there is more force on the seat unpressurized. With a balanced 2nd stage, a large portion of the force against the seat is air from the balance chamber, so that seal will wear more while pressurized. For 1st stages, the seat/orifice are separated in storage, so there is zero wear. O-rings generally exist in regulators to prevent pressurized air from leaking out or water from leaking in, and in storage there is no pressure or water to wear them.

I believe that the persistence of the myth of regulators wearing more in storage is mostly due to two things: 1) Many regulators are not stored properly, which really means cleaned, soaked, and dried carefully before being stored, so that all traces of salt water are removed, and 2) Virtually all regulators spend at least 90% of their time in storage, probably much more than that, and so there is a perception that the reg is wearing out while it's in storage. My regulators routinely get 4-5 years between rebuilds (sometimes longer), but if I were diving with the same regulators every day, there's no way they'd last that long. Maybe a year?

It's more difficult and time consuming to really get all the salt water out post dive than people realize. Salt gets in the threads that are not protected by o-rings, and every reg has lots of those. The only way to get it out (other than disassembling the reg) is to soak it for a long time in clean fresh water, allowing that water time to pull the salt out of the tight threads by osmosis. I'll soak my regs for 24 hours or more after a dive trip when I get home, or after the last dive before waiting to fly the next day anyway. I also blow a few blasts of air from a tank through the reg after soaking to dry it out as much as a I can.

For unbalanced 2nd stages, it's a good idea to relieve the pressure on the seat somehow. Rigging something up to slightly depress the purge does a good job of that.

 

[bletso]

Halocline,
Sorry to disappoint you, but regs can and do degrade over time. The unknown of course is the conditions in which they are stored, what service they were in, i,e, O2, air, and of course time since service. I suspect that when a customer says it was just serviced a couple years ago, it may indeed have been 7 or more!! The bigger problem I find in regs is the lube used will oft times become dry which wouldn't be good for the functioning of said reg.
Keep in mind that buna and viton are not totally impervious to the lubes we use. This in itself could be a contributing factor to o-ring hardening as the lubes deteriorates.
Have I found any that don't function even when on disassembly where the O-rings were brittle? Very seldom. Would I take one of my regs into a cave or deep dive if it had been 5+ years since service? Hell no. An open water easy dive, wouldn't give it a second thought.
Personally I have been surprised that regs which on service were lacking, still functioned, seemingly in spec. Of course the real test of functionality of a reg isn't a bench test at 1 atm, but at depth when the volume of gas it must move is 3,4,5 times that on the surface. I have had only one instance where a reg I was using at 20 msw didn't give me the air I needed whilst working hard. Worked fine on the surface. On service there was a defective part found in the 1st stage.

 

[halocline]

Halocline,
Sorry to disappoint you, but regs can and do degrade over time. The unknown of course is the conditions in which they are stored, what service they were in, i,e, O2, air, and of course time since service. I suspect that when a customer says it was just serviced a couple years ago, it may indeed have been 7 or more!!

That is why I said "Regulators do not degrade much if they are stored properly"

I'm sorry to disappoint you.....

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

How long have you gone without servicing

It's been two years but my wife still won't divorce me.

Seriously? This whole thread has been about regulators?

Rodney D. would be ashamed of the lot of you.

 

[Kharon]

Since 2002 - oh regulators? Never mind.

 

[ofg-1]

I have a couple of SAS Sub II piston regulators that I bought in the mid 70's, never been rebuilt. They are still used as stage regs. They have had new mouthpieces, and I had to clean sand/shells out of them after a couple of high flow caves, but they just keep going.

 

[shurite7]

verdigris

Here is the term I keep forgetting. Thanks for the posting it.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

Here is the term I keep forgetting. Thanks for the posting it.

Lol, Mr. Chris from our regulator class said it enough I don't think I'll ever forget!