I Want to hear about Reg. Failures. Got any stories?

[Kevrumbo]

Catastrophic failure and massive freeflow of my eight-year old Delta II 2nd stage at a depth of 6m/20'; the whole inhalation adjustment assembly blew out when I tried turning the knob to fine tune the breathing resistance. Completely unexpected, as I just had the regulator serviced for its annual maintenance check. . .

 

[Mark Michaud SELAUSAR]

Two weeks ago I was about 300' into a river cave when a HP seat on my left (sidemount) bottle's first stage went. I shut that bottle down, refigured thirds on the remaining bottle (partner had full doubles) and moved on. Only lost about two hundred PSI so I still had that bottle, with a reg switch and sharing air with my partner, if a second would have occurred. Nice, but short (30 min) dive in spite of the failure.

 

[The Kraken]

Was doing a dive with a recently certified diver at about 30' in a quarry.

All of a sudden she gave me the OOA sign.

We executed a proper OOA drill and went to the surface.

Upon reaching the surface she said that her reuglator, a Sea Elite, had, ". . . just stopped working."

I took her alternate and found, as indicated by her SPG, that she did have air and that the alternate was in good working order.

When I tried breathing through her primary second stage, it simply would not work. It was if I were trying to suck air from a bottle . . . nothing.

When we got back to shore, I removed the regulator's cover to discover that the actuator lever had simply fallen away from its mount.

The kicker here is that this was the very first time the regulator had been used.

Needless to say, I returned the regulator to the LDS for a refund and purchased another brand.

Kudos for the student !!! Kept her head and did a great job with a true OOA situation.

the K

 

[Artimas]

Kudos for the student !!! Kept her head and did a great job with a true OOA situation.

the K

That's terrific! Not panicking in that situation by a new student is commendable.

She probably didn't realize how extraordinarily rare an occurrence that is, she previously spent the vast percentage of her time underwater practicing emergencies. That may have helped.

Personally, I've not had a significant regulator failure.

 

[HatchetJoe]

A few years back I was in CA. visiting and somehow ended up in Cozumel diving with Blue Angel (back when the old woman ran it and it was under the Hog Town cafe for you old time Cozumel divers). Anyway at about 90+ feet the rental first stage stopped flowing. Twas exiting when we started up I don't recall exactly at what depth probably in the vacinity of 30-40 Ft it started working again.

 

[mike_s]

You could always have a problem with your 2nd stage falling off during a dive when the dive shop didn't properly service your reg and tighten up attaching the 2nd stage...

like on this video.

Regulator 2nd stage falls off

 

[PhilEllis]

You could always have a problem with your 2nd stage falling off during a dive when the dive shop didn't properly service your reg and tighten up attaching the 2nd stage...

like on this video.

Regulator 2nd stage falls off

It looks as though that guys is turning the hose counter-clockwise. I don't know if he was fiddling with the hose to stop a leak or what happened. In any event, if you turn it far enough counter-clockwise, it will fall off!

Phil Ellis
Discount Scuba Gear at DiveSports.com - Buy Scuba Diving Equipment & Snorkeling Equipment

 

[Packhorse]

Exhaust valve not seated after service.
Backup reg free flowed after service.
High pressure hose developed a slow leak.

 

[Thalassamania]

I was diving at Pt. Lobos, CA with my Assistant Instructor. We were at about 40 FSW, 15 minutes into our dive. Louis, after signaling me, took off in pursuit of a large eagle ray, I was along side of him, about 2 feet back. He suddenly stopped, spat out his regulator and pointed to his mouth (signaling me to buddy-breathe). I gave him my regulator and we settled into a two-breath-each rhythm while maintaining our neutral buoyancy. We were under a very dense kelp canopy and had to buddy-breathe while traveling about 100 yards to a point where we could surface. We did so without further incident, surfaced, returned to our surf mats and to shore. Later examination of his regulator second stage showed that he had bitten off a tab from his mouthpiece and it had lodged in the regulator behind the actuating lever in such a fashion as to cut off his air supply. After some experimentation I found that in this circumstance, if I attempted to depress the purge button I could feel it stick and that if I sharply stuck the second stage it would then function.

 

[RonFrank]

I had a seal blow in a Zeagle 50D. This had been going on for some time as I would mount the first stage, and it would leak. Try it again, and it would seal. Once it was sealed, it was fine as long as I left it under pressure.

Finally the thing just went. I was at BH, so I borrowed a first stage from someone, and swopped hoses off of my reg for the remainder of the trip.

I attribute this to soaking the first stage after a dive in water without the dust cap on. It started having problems about a month after I did that. I now carry at least two first stages, and backup seconds as well.