Old Healthways Scubair - Gem or Junk?

[SwimJim]

Might not be a good breather, but Healthway's of that period had the coolest yokes! Love my Gold Label double hose!

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I picked this thing up at a local yard sale. It looks like it is in really good shape. Sure breathes like crap though.

Is it worth anything or should I pitch it?

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There are a couple of comments on this regulator. This Scubair is not a "J" valve regulator. Instead, it has a calibrated orifice that can be either turned on or off (rerouting the air either through the calibrated orifice or through a regularly-sized orifice). This type of reserve actually workes quite well, and will definately remind you that you are running out of air. The problem is that if you need to go deeper, the breathing will become harder and harder. It quite literally forces you to the surface to get enough air through the calibrated tube. This starts at about 500 psig. This regulator is probably the third generation of this regulator. As such, it may have two exhaust mushroom valves in line. This was supposed to lead to drier air, as some of the early single hose regulators breathed wet. Because of the chrome exhaust tube, water could enter from the side in a current and displace the mushroom exhaust valve. Looking at it, it seems that this one only has one exhaust mushroom (it would have a short tube between the body and the exhaust tube if it had two). Fred Roberts, in Basic Scuba described the reserve mechanism of this regulator below:

The reserve action itself is of the calibrated orifice principal described in detail in the valve section of this chapter. Briefly it is the control of the flow rate of gas--air in this case--by directing the flow through a mall plate orifice or equivalent device which acts to control proportionally the actual rate of gas flow through the hole for a given upstream, high pressure side, pressure. The greater the upstream pressure, the more air can be squeezed through he hole. As cylinder pressure falls, the flow rate through the small hole decreases, and eventually the diver begins to notice to notice some difficulty in satisfying his demand for air.

Air continues to flow through the orifice, but breathing effort becomes more and more difficult as upstream pressure falls and eventually the diver must either by-pass the orifice, or surface. The selector is intended for predive adjustment, not submerged reserve release.

I started out with the Scuba Star regulator (see the photo below) in the early 1960s. I now have all four of these regulators (Scuba Star, Scubair, Scubair-J and Scubair-300). The regulators were somewhat hard to breath but very, very durable. I have not seen a Healthways regulator of this time period with a diaphragm which did not work, and they will continue indefinitely (nylon-impregnated neoprene). These are rather stiff diaphragms, but functional. The later regulators (around 1977) featured more flexible LP diaphragm, and a bigger exhalation valve too. These latter regulators were pretty nice breathing regulators. The thing to remember is that we were just coming off the double hose era, and a single hose regulator did not have to be very good to breath "better" than what was perceived for the double hose regulator. This, in my opinion, was because divers were using single tanks, and this kept the double hose regulators very high and away from the diver's lungs. So a regulator that breathed with, say 4 inches of suction pressure was better than a double hose regulator which breathed at 1.5 inches of suction pressure but was positioned six inches above the lungs. That's four inches verses 7.5 inches, or beating the double hose regulator in perception by 3.5 inches of water pressure.

Using this regulator is actually pretty fun, even with the harder suction pressure and exhalation. In moderate dives it performs adequately. One biologist I dove with in 1975 used it for underwater clam bed surveys in high current situations in Oregon bays. I used my Healthways Scuba Star in all kinds of diving in Oregon, but then I was a teenager too. So I would encourage you to keep this regulator, fix it up and dive it to understand more about the reserve function. You get that resistance at somewhere between 500 and 700 psig, and it is noticeable at 500 psig and below. I have dived my current Healthways regulators in both the pool and the Clackamas River (but not in the springtime with high water). So it is effective as long as you are not in an overhead environment. You can improve the exhalation resistance by replacing the neoprene original mushroom exhaust valve with one of silicone; the smaller ones for the Scubapro Shotgun snorkel should probably work (woman's or child size). Yours is a downstream valve design (the first ones in the early 1960s were tilt valves, like my Scuba Star). They are extremely simple regulators, and very easy to maintain.

SeaRat

 

[Six2Life]

I spent some time adjusting the 2nd stage. It does have 2 exhaust valves in series. After tuning I did notice a significant improvement. The diaphragm is in good shape but the exhaust valves seem a little stiff.

The chrome on the 2nd stage is great but on the first it is flaking pretty badly. At one point while testing it developed a hiss out of the blue. I took the 2nd stage demand valve apart and there was a flake of chrome stuck to the seat over the seating groove. I'd be pretty concerned about diving it and sucking in a bunch of chrome flakes.

 

[=C=]

Would not toss the reg!!! I have a couple glass fame cases from Ikea and this resides in one of them, its a nice piece. Not as conversational as a Sucba Pro bend-o-matic but mine is not as nice as yours.

Nice find!

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I've been playing around with my Healthways regulators this evening, and learned something. First, there is a lot of variability in the LP diaphragm flexibility. I switched out a hard-breathing ScubaAir-J for a silicone diaphragm on another regulator (wrong diameter, but I could do a bit of study because it sealed when I held down the cover). It breathed much, much better. I then found that the different diaphragms in my second stages gave different performances. I have four of these regulators, including a tilt-valve Scuba Star. I put the poor-performing diaphragm on the Scuba Star, thinking that I would not use it much, and tried to breath on it...very, very bad performance. I took it out, turned it over and the performance was almost as good as the downstream ScubAir regulators. So the orientation makes a big difference too.

'Just a few more words on my playing with the regs. Six2Life, I don't have an answer about the flaking chrome. However, those flakes are too big to go very far.

SeaRat