Lubrication

[DA Aquamaster]

I looked on scubatools.com, and they have two grades of silicone, 7 and 111. Is there a difference in application?

Silicone filled ambient chambers can be a pain from a maintenance standpoint as the silicone can bleed out, particularly in hot weather. The Dow 111 silicone is a little thicker and stays put better in silicone filled environmental chambers. It also sticks a little better to parts in the ambient chamber even if the chamber is not intended to be completely packed.

For internal o-ring lubrication, use the Dow 7 silicone.

Silicone, and Dow 111 in particular, is much more water compatible than ChristoLube which is not well suited at all for use in areas with direct contact to water.

I still use SPEC boots on my personal Mk 20's and fill the chambers with Dow 111 despite using ChristoLube inside the first stages if I am planning to use them nitrox. This does pose the potential for silicone to get into contact with higher levels of O2, but to do so, the silicone would have to migrate upstream past the HP o-ring or past the two piston head o-rings.

I would not recommend it for anyone else or set their regs up for them that way as it is most definitely not SP approved, but so far I have not had any problems. I regard the increased potential for freeze flow in very cold water as a much larger risk than a very small potential for a first stage fire when I pressurize the reg.

There is also potentially some merit in using silicone on some of the o-rings in the second stage that are likely to come into contact with water and will only be exposed to Nitrox at ambient pressure.

 

[DennisW]

ChristoLube for 1st stage regs used for Nitrox is normally the grease used in that application. For 2nd stages and non Nitrox applications, silicone grease is just fine and works very well.

Silicone grease should not be used on silicone o-rings as said somewhere above. For silicone o-rings, use the grease provided by the manufacturer. These are usually camera housing o-rings. They use a grease made for silicone o-rings.

 

[oxyhacker]

Christolube is a third or forth generation synthetic. The silicones we used previously were just borrowed from the food industry, mainly because they were foodsafe and water resistant, not because they are particulary good at lubricating.

Many of the top reg manufacturers switched over to using Christolube or similar synthetics a few years back, saying that they were simply better at the job. SP, for one, said it made for noticably more stable IPs which suggests it was allowing the moving parts of the reg to move more freely, and hence respond quicker. I've had a few regs that seemed to breathe noticably better on Christolube, but I can't prove it. All of them were piston regs, as one migh expect, since O-ring friction plays a much larger part in a piston 1st than a diaphragm.

I use it on all my regs, but then, there's not telling what gas will be running though them next.

I haven't found much information on regulator lubes. Would I see any real benefit to using Christo-lube on a non-Nitrox regulator setup vs silicone grease?

 

[padiscubapro]

I haven't found much information on regulator lubes. Would I see any real benefit to using Christo-lube on a non-Nitrox regulator setup vs silicone grease?

Many manufacturers have switched to lubricants like CL because it has a MUCH higher lubricity rating than silicon.. Many regs now tout better specifications that "previous" generations.. In some case the regs are EXACTLY the same just that a different lubricant is used.

CL is also much more resistant to heat and cold than silicon, heat breaks up silicon, and cold makes it "gummy" CL performs much better across the board..

Most peoplelwho do alot of Nitrox service agree its not the smartest idea to mix lubricants.. just having silicon around leads to the potential of contaminating tools and other surfaces that may come in contact with an eventual oxygen service..

Personally I maintain TWO sets of Tools "clean" and everything else.. I'll disasemble the regs with the reg tools and wafeter everything is cleaned I only use clean tools to reassemble..

A few years back An Charlie J. from ANDI ran a service tech/oxygen clean class at one of the Scubapro factories, he did his whole lecture then allowed the techs to work as they normall did, using CL on hp parts and silicon on LP parts.. after a few hours he went around with a black/UV light and showed each individual how contaminated THEY were, where they touched, how dirty their toosl were and took apart a few regs and examined them.. They were contaminated..

Scubapro then made it a policy to ONLY use CL.

 

[BuoyantC]

I see a lot of regs get used for >40% Nitrox that I know have silicone lubes. I have not heard of any problems. Is this luck or is it only critical in higher levels of O2?

Dennis

 

[opiniongirl]

I just use margarine - works like a dandy

 

[Creed]

Someone mentioned in another thread that LP carried a re-branded Christolube under another name. I looked on their website, and found this . Is this indeed Christolube? And if so, is it 129 or 111? Anyone happen to know?

 

[padiscubapro]

Someone mentioned in another thread that LP carried a re-branded Christolube under another name. I looked on their website, and found this . Is this indeed Christolube? And if so, is it 129 or 111? Anyone happen to know?

111

 

[mddolson]

It's based on historical data.
The US navy has used standard silicone lubes on regulators with up to 40% Nitrox with no detrimental problems (FIRES) since the 1950's.

This standard has been adopted by the sport and technical diving industry.

Mike D
NAUI 4780
PADI 202288

I see a lot of regs get used for >40% Nitrox that I know have silicone lubes. I have not heard of any problems. Is this luck or is it only critical in higher levels of O2?

Dennis