O-rings, O-rings

[oxyhacker]

Actually the tech has a scrap of leather or rubber in his drawer, that he wraps around the splined nut and uses a vise grip. Page 113 ;- )

jamiei once bubbled...
Ran across something I found kinda interesting that shows the manufacturers motives... Directly from scubapro... "The "splined" swivel hose fitting helps to prevent consumer disassembly. right from their book. We all knew this anyway... its obvious but they put another spin on it. They try to fool the tech into believing this is the man reason for the splines when in fact, its two-fold. Keep the unmotivated customer from working on his regs and make the tech buy a $30 tool so they don't scratch up the fitting. Makes it a necessity...

 

[ElectricZombie]

Or, you can just do like I did and replace all the non-standard hoses. This is one of the few things that drives me crazy about ScubaPro. I hate that they won't sell parts directly too.

jamiei,

The Trident and the PSI catalog probably have most of what you need. Personally I don't bother. I just use the kits for convience. It's only once a year, and the parts are free anyway with the warranty. I know at the the shop here, they have probably 50 of every o-rings stored in individual bins. So, you can order them in bulk.

O-rings have a long shelf life. I've seen some that dry rotten in storage but, they were 20 - 30 years old.

 

[jamiei]

I just got my shipment of 0-rings in, mostly all lp and static applications was all I purchased this time but they all match my scubapro o-rings exactly and were packaged very nicely. The people I spoke with said these o-rings had a "shelf life" of many, many years. These o-rings are made for use in situations similar to, if not more extreme than the use they will see in scuba regs. Again, I'll state that my main use for these o-rings is to replace o-rings that aren't included in service kits and thus not readily available. If I could find someone willing to just sell me the seats and nylocs, I'd never have to buy another air2 or r190/380 kit again.

 

[Genesis]

ought to be available in SS without too much trouble. I'll have to look for the little ones that are commonly used in seconds and see if I can find a source for them.

Seats are another, more difficult, matter.

 

[jamiei]

I found a few other parts such as filter retainers and what I think is the correct nylock and I'm checking into the ip adjustment washers for the mk20. I believe I can match them. The catalog I have has everything actual size so its easy to match up.

 

[Braunbehrens]

oxyhacker once bubbled...
A few regs like Apeks and some of the newer Italian-designed SPs use metric sizes, something to be aware of when when you can't find the right O-ring in the 2- sizes. Though it is suprising how often someone who doesn't know this will plunk in the nearest inch size and get away with it.

There are a few applications where a special ring is required or desirable - usually a harder 90 duro, or maybe oddball material like urethane to resist extrusion - like the HP O-ring on piston regs.
[/B]

Vance, your book is a real gem, I refer to it all the time. I must have missed the part where it says that the apeks o-rings are metric...bummer. Tracking down the service kits is a real pain in the neck. For your next edition, have you considered writing the size of the O-ring next to the legend? It would sure make things easier.

Also, all the Viton O-rings I find are the harder 90 durometer. I'm wondering if this will affect the performance of the reg or not? Thanks.

 

[jamiei]

I have a source for quality 75 durometer viton o-rings. they also have a great catalog with full scale o-ring images so that you can easily match up o-rings. Just find a service kit for you reg and then compare the o-rings in the kit to the full size drawings in the catalog. They also offer "metric" size o-rings too.

 

[oxyhacker]

Glad you like the book!

Alas you're not likely to see O-ring sizes in our book, beyond what's already there. Reason being, anytime you specify an O-ring size without having access to the manufacturers' specs and prints you are to one degree or another guessing, either by trying to identify used possibly worn and distorted O-rings removed from a reg, or, if they give a size identification chart, by comparing that chart with another, realizing as you do that printed matter is always subject to some distortion . And then there's always the chance that what you thought was a standard US size is actually a slightly different metric one.

These are risks I'll happily take for myself, but we don't feel we should be publishing information for use by others if we aren't absolutely sure its accurate, and there's no way in this case to be sure.

The other thing is, even if we were happy with guessing, just accumulating all those numbers and doublechecking them would be an enormous undertaking.

BTW here's what appears to be very useful O-ring source from one of the others lists. What's great about it is that they have 90 duro O-rings, which are often hard to find at reasonable prices, for not much more than the 70s. However, I haven't ordered from them yet. Note though that there viton is only 75, which many people feel is too soft (viton often not being as tough as nitrile) for general use, which is why dive suppliers usually supply only 90 viton as a replacement for 70 nitrile.

http://www.air-oil.com/oringsonlinefset.htm

Braunbehrens once bubbled...


For your next edition, have you considered writing the size of the O-ring next to the legend? It would sure make things easier.

Also, all the Viton O-rings I find are the harder 90 durometer. I'm wondering if this will affect the performance of the reg or not? Thanks.

 

[jeffkruse2000]

I just purchased $70 worth of O-rings from air-oil. I hope to get them in a few days. I ordered all 90 duro. You can buy just $1 of each type with a minimum order of $5. I was tired of never having the right o-ring lying around.

Jeff

 

[detroit diver]

jeffkruse2000 once bubbled...
I just purchased $70 worth of O-rings from air-oil. I hope to get them in a few days. I ordered all 90 duro. You can buy just $1 of each type with a minimum order of $5. I was tired of never having the right o-ring lying around.

Jeff

Here's the link: http://www.air-oil.com/oringsonlinefset.htm