I narrowed down and got confused...

[Leisure Proski]

Hi,
My recommendation would be to go with the Oceanic EOS or the Sherwood SR1. Both are environmentally sealed which is best when diving in cold water. It will keep the cold water away from the internal components lowering the potential for a first-stage freeze up, which are rare anyway most regulators have the second-stage freeze up and they begin to free flow allowing you to get to the surface with a steady stream of air. The freeze up is 99% of the time caused by diver error in not adhering to proper cold water standards of practice. The environmental first stage also keeps contaminates from entering the mechanism reducing the damage and corrosion from sand, silt, salt, chlorine and any other nasty’s we put our gear in. The Scuba pro Mk 25 is not environmental and has to allow water (sand, salt, silt, etc) into the first-stage spring cavity. This is difficult to get out of that area of the regulator and requires the diver to clean their gear much better then with the other two regulators. Over Balance is nothing you will feel from one with it to one without it, so I would not worry much about that feature. All three Scubapro Mk25/S600 SKU: SCPM25S60, Oceanic EOS SKU: OCNEOSDVT and the Sherwood SR1 SKU: SWDSR1 can be found at the Leisure Pro website. Just copy and paste the above SKU’s into the search window and check them out, or just type in regulators and see a whole lot more. I hope this information will help you. If you have any other questions please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,
Leisure Proski

 

[Leisure Proski]

Hi,
My recommendation would be to go with the Oceanic EOS or the Sherwood SR1. Both are environmentally sealed which is best when diving in cold water. It will keep the cold water away from the internal components lowering the potential for a first-stage freeze up, which are rare anyway most regulators have the second-stage freeze up and they begin to free flow allowing you to get to the surface with a steady stream of air. The freeze up is 99% of the time caused by diver error in not adhering to proper cold water standards of practice. The environmental first stage also keeps contaminates from entering the mechanism reducing the damage and corrosion from sand, silt, salt, chlorine and any other nasty’s we put our gear in. The Scuba pro Mk 25 is not environmental and has to allow water (sand, salt, silt, etc) into the first-stage spring cavity. This is difficult to get out of that area of the regulator and requires the diver to clean their gear much better then with the other two regulators. Over Balance is nothing you will feel from one with it to one without it, so I would not worry much about that feature. All three Scubapro Mk25/S600 SKU: SCPM25S60, Oceanic EOS SKU: OCNEOSDVT and the Sherwood SR1 SKU: SWDSR1 can be found at the Leisure Pro website. Just copy and paste the above SKU’s into the search window and check them out, or just type in regulators and see a whole lot more. I hope this information will help you. If you have any other questions please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,
Leisure Proski

 

[NC Wreck Diver]

Hi Leisure Proski:

I dive the ScubaPro regs that are open to the enviroment in very cold water. Even our quarry gets very cold in April/May at depth (90 feet plus). I have never had a freeze up in any of these temperatures. But, this is just my opinion (with my life depending on it). I wash my three regs after every dive day, fresh or salt (no chlorine.....I think its more damaging then salt water!). That's why my MK10/G250 still bench tests to factory specs. I've even had my Authorized ScubaPro LDS comment on how my maitenance has made it last. My only change to the reg is a long yellow LP hose as an octo, to dedicate it on my doubles isolation valves.

 

[Belce]

Well the US Navy thinks the Mk25 S600 combo meets their needs 38F @190 feet down and breathing very hard on it as well. The Navy doesn't even bother to test half the regs on the market and to get on that list is not just an indication of performance but of quality history as well.

As a recreational diver like me you will be diving well within the limits of US Navy testing.

People on this forum really should stop stop being parrots of scuba tradationalists or maybe come and see what people in cold water up here actually use when they dive. Mk25 1st stage is the most common high performance reg I see for my cold water diving.

 

[hypertech]

FWIW, Both my wife I had freeflow problems with our Oceanic EOS regs ice diving. Maybe they needed tuning or something.

Since switching to Apeks - not one problem. In fact, one guy dove an Apeks flight ice diving (before the cold water one came out) and it was fine.

In the great lakes and ice diving, I saw a few MK25's, but mostly Apeks.

 

[randytay]

Thank you very much for all the input. I am researching on HOG now, but I still have not made up my mind yet

 

[John_B]

Well the US Navy thinks the Mk25 S600 combo meets their needs 38F @190 feet down and breathing very hard on it as well. The Navy doesn't even bother to test half the regs on the market and to get on that list is not just an indication of performance but of quality history as well.

As a recreational diver like me you will be diving well within the limits of US Navy testing.

People on this forum really should stop stop being parrots of scuba tradationalists or maybe come and see what people in cold water up here actually use when they dive. Mk25 1st stage is the most common high performance reg I see for my cold water diving.

LOL! You don't see the irony of chastising everyone else for what you see as anectdotal evidence, one sentence after you quote your own? What's next, everyone should go back to diving the Navy tables?

Anyone who knows me personally might remember that I actually went through this a handful of years ago as a newish diver with a newish dive buddy. We were doing a cold-water lake dive and right as he got to depth his Scubapro piston first stage froze up and freeflowed like crazy. What stuck will me (and still does to this day) is how massive the bubble storm was and how loud and chaotic it all was underwater. Also shocking to me was how fast it emptied his tank, just in the time it took to get him on my reg and for me to get his valve shut off he was down to a few hundred psi.

Was it ca to a mistake on his part? Probably, shorter bursts into the BC are better than one long burst. I don't think either of us knew that on that morning. And I didn't react nearly as fast as I should; possibly because my OW training taught me I had plenty of time, which wasn't the case. And, of course, neither of us were Navy divers.

BTW, he eventually traded his piston first stage for a MK17, but his wife's nerves can't take the thought of him diving since that morning, so he's effectively given it up. And I've given up cold water diving for warm tropic waters.

Long story short, your assumption that piston first stages are always safe in cold water is complete crap. Freeflows from frozen first stages happen, and if you are new to diving and don't have your head about you it could get ugly, fast. Sorry, if that upsets people who are big fans of of the Scubapro piston regs. Esp. when the MK17 really is a better alternative.

 

[John_B]

Sincerely,
Leisure Proski

Just curious...

Are you here representing Leisure Pro? Or are you just an LP fan?

 

[randytay]

Ok, I have looked into the HOG and they seemed really awesome. Here's a question to HOG users:

1. I know they are serious "specialized" regs for deep/technical/cold dives, but are they also excellent "general" regs? (I know it may come across as stupid, but I am drawing this from my experience as a photographer: try taking the Hassy H3D as a general travel camera and you'll know what I mean). I remembered when I was training, I was using the Oceanic 8 (or something like that) and when we were doing a beach entry, I couldn't breathe when I got to about 8 ft. My instructor said that it was optimized for between 20-40 ft i.e. I could only "breathe easy" when I am at that depth.

2. I was looking at the Poseidon at one point but the complicated process of tuning the IP to match my SS1 etc make me abandon that combo. How compatible (ease wise) is the HOG D1 to the Atomic SS1 (IP 145 psi)?

Thanks in advance.

 

[randytay]

Another question:

What is the difference between the Edge Epic and HOG D1?

Also, I am looking into Hollis; what is the difference between the DC1 and the DC2 first stage? Everything about them seemed to be identical