Is this an obsurd price for servicing? Atomic B2

[Zung]

I think the foot model in the image above is Zung. I seriously doubt he would forsake his traditional Swiss precision whenever he uses the foot method. For my part, I did use a torque wrench in conjunction with the foot. It maybe less than elegant but doable nonetheless.

Stop kicking my butts before I have the chance to explain myself! Or is it after?

 

[boulderjohn]

Regarding the matter of time vs money, from the amateur's point of view, unless you work 3 shifts a day, you have time at no cost to you, so that's a non-issue.

There is always a cost because there is always something you could have been doing instead that you will have to give up. It may be a job that pays something, or it could be just another activity you would prefer to do.

I used to do all the routine maintenance on my car--oil changes, etc. After a while I decided that I would rather pay someone else to do it while I did something else. I didn't particularly enjoy the job, and the price for an oil change was not enough to get me overly concerned. I figured whatever I could have been doing instead of doing that work was too high a price to pay. Other people who enjoy that sort of thing would make a different decision. More power to them.

In contrast, both my wife and I enjoy cooking, so we don't mind the time it takes for food preparation. In doing this, we save a lot of money by not going out to eat all that often. Others think the extra money spent in restaurants is worth the cost (in time) of cooking the food themselves.

 

[redacted]

We properly finish regulator service work for do-it-your-self'ers quite often.
It's easy to tell if somebody who knows what they are doing is doing the service work.
A properly trained repair tech won't scratch gouges in an O ring track and cause a non-repairable creep and ruin the regulator body, or leave tool marks in the brass, or overtighten everything to the point where you might destroy it during disasembly next year.
Most divers don't have ultrasonic cleaners, torque wrenches, brand specific tools, parts schematics and access to proper service parts.
GOOD service tech's attend a factory sponsored clinic every year to stay current on every brand they touch on the work bench.
What do you really save if a problem causes you to miss even one dive?

And I have properly finished regulator service work for a number of divers who were about to miss a dive because their properly trained repair tech did not get the job done correctly. What a shame to be missing even one dive, especially when the service was often unnecessary to begin with.

 

[Zung]

... I used to do all the routine maintenance on my car--oil changes, etc
...
In contrast, both my wife and I enjoy cooking, so we don't mind the time it takes for food preparation...

Fully agree.

I too gave up on doing oil change myself, and I also enjoy cooking, skiing, diving... and tinkering with my gears.

 

[Zung]

Here's the reciprocal foot technique for tightening a yoke retainer with a torque wrench:

 

[scubafanatic]

Here's the reciprocal foot technique for tightening a yoke retainer with a torque wrench:

Know I know exactly what ONE-FOOT pound of torque looks like.....

 

[Slamfire]

Stop kicking my butts before I have the chance to explain myself! Or is it after?

Sorry Zung, just bad timing issues.

John,

I get the thing about valuating your time. A few years back, when I was shooting a lot of claybirds every weekend, it was definitely more productive for me to buy ammo by caseloads rather than try to reload vast volumes with my single stage press. Even getting an expensive progressive reloading press would not make sense when the cost of the press AND the time requirements would be factored in. I still love the flexibility of being able to do my special recipe loads whenever I reload.

With regs, I only need to do them on intervals of more than 1 year. I can do the work by sacrificing some scuba board hours every evening. Also, think about the last batch I did of 4 1st stages and 4 2nd stages. At $40 per stage plus parts (~$20 per kit) we end up with a price tag that goes pretty close to that of a new Xen bottom timer or about 4 to 5 boat dives. Scuba is expensive, they say. Well it doesn't have to be. I've read around SB some people get good online deals on a brand new reg set, they use it for 2 years, ebay it after that and then get another new reg set. If you put self servicing your regs out of the question, it does seem to make economical sense, however wasteful the strategy may seem. They never have to worry about getting regs serviced ever.

I know reg techs and dive shops are not getting super rich servicing regs. The hourly labour rates in reality are not outlandish when compared to, say an auto mechanic. What is outlandish is the markup you have to pay to get a factory service kit. A G250 kit I got at the beginning of the year ended up costing $36. It was made up of about 10 orings, a LP seat and a useless faceplate pin. I can get orings on the expensive side of things for about $0.10 each and the LP seat I can get for $2. $3 dollars total for a kit I can put together myself vs $36 for buying a factory original kit... What is that? 1100% markup? And this is a markup over the inflated prices I get for buying such small quantities.

 

[Zung]

... A properly trained repair tech won't... leave tool marks in the brass...

The only time I have tool marks in the brass was from a "properly trained tech" I paid for; he even complained he had a hard time taking the reg apart. Obviously he has never heard of the soak and cold/hot treatments so common in the DIY section here.

... Most divers don't have ultrasonic cleaners, torque wrenches, brand specific tools, parts schematics and access to proper service parts.

It's true that most divers don't, but most of the DIY'ers here do, or know about the workarounds. I also had one "properly trained tech" I paid for complaining he had a hard time dealing with my AIR2 because he didn't have the spider tool. I did it with a needle nose plier.

... GOOD service tech's attend a factory sponsored clinic every year to stay current on every brand they touch on the work bench...

The "Technical Service Reference & Repair Guides" written by Pete Wolfinger is at least equal to any clinic by any factory, and they're all over the Internet. I think they're better than most. And a DIY'er doesn't have to deal with all brands.

 

[beanojones]

It's true that most divers don't, but most of the DIY'ers here do, or know about the workarounds. I also had one "properly trained tech" I paid for complaining he had a hard time dealing with my AIR2 because he didn't have the spider tool. I did it with a needle nose plier.

Interestingly Atomic actually recommends a spread needle nose for their spider on the SS1, which kind of pisses me off, since not using a spider tool makes for breakage on jammed with sand, slightly crossed threads, or thread on units that have taken a tank bounce on them.

I have the spider tool for the Air2 even though I got rid of mine in favor of the SS1s. I wish Atomic would go ahead and commision a spider tool for the SS1.

 

[fnfalman]

Atomic charges approximately $70 per stage, and that includes labor & parts replacement. Even the plastic parts get replaced. So that's $140 every two years. Big whoopdedoo. They work on these things, test them to make sure they're in spec, put them on the breathing machine, etc. To me that's worth the extra $20.

Other regs have annual services ($40-60 depending on the shop). Some regs have "free parts" and some don't.

Or do it yourself and save a few bucks.

Or just keep using the thing until it malfunctions and then send it in for service.