Paint Ball Mini Gauge for Pony Regulator

[kanonfodr]

I think at the end of the day, we should all use Spare Air style guages on our emergency cylinders. After all, it's good enough for cave divers,

Well if cave divers do it, then who's to argue? I'm gonna go hide before we start another Spare Air war here.

Peace,
Greg

 

[jstamets]

While cleaning out the closet. I found a new paintball mini guage (5000psi) from the good old days of paintballing.

I was thinking of putting it on the pony regulator. The manufacturer is Dye. This is the one that glow in the dark. See photo.

Good Idea? or Not? Anybody been there - done that? What was the result?

I would say no. Doing a one-time test dive will likely be fine, but whether something will or won't perform the job once or even a for while is irrelevent. The question is whether it is designed to do the job.

I used to hang very heavy things above people's heads. You use rated hardware to do such things, such as shackles, cable and chain. Let's take chain for example. All 3/8 chain looks pretty much the same, but the strength of the material is rated for different capacities. We used 3/8 grade 80 chain (minimum) with a working load limit of 7100 lbs. to hang things "up there". That is not it's breaking strength, that is the working load limit. To the uninformed, you might also use 3/8 Grade 30. They look almost identical, but the grade 30 has a WLL of 2650 lbs. Again, not it's breaking strength. Could you hang 3000 lbs with it? Probably. Maybe a lot more, but you are exceeding not only the WLL, but the intended purpose. The grade 30 is specifically labelled not for overhead lifting, but the grade 80 (or better, grade 100) is. The alloys are different, the testing is more stringent on the grade 80 as is the manufacturing and tolerence levels. So, to the point. The gauge may look the same, act the same and even work the same (for a while), but it is NOT the same. It could fail at any time because it is not being used for it's intended purpose. Maybe the failure is life threatening or maybe not, but if you are ok with a gauge failing in any way (accuracy, leakage, whatever) then the use of the gauge to begin with is questionable. Why use questionable instrumentation?

One could argue until the horse is hamburger about whether it could be used, and the answer to that is "probably", but the real question is whether it should be used (which, I think, was the question?). My opinion would be to stick to the tools rated for the intended use.

Just my 2 cents... be safe.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

When do you need to know how much air is in your emergency air source?

At the beginning of the dive. Check it with your main reg, then put on a reg without an SPG at all, and it will still work fine.

Once you are in an emergency situation, knowing your remaining air supply is really just an exercise in futility. If you run out before you reach the surface, you are dead, whether you have a gauge or not.

I don't understand this reasoning. I am diving at 100'. I am checking my gauges, plural. I see that my redundant air supply is showing empty. How did that happen? Is the regulator leaking? Did water get into my paintball gauge and it is failing? I don't care, I thumb the dive and figure it out on the boat.

It's true that once you are in an emergency situation you have very little recourse. However, knowing your remaining air supply before an emergency occurs is important.

Furthermore, although the nice people here seem very confident in explaining why a failing gauge won't kill me, I am not trying a paintball gauge. If it's fine for my pony, why isn't it fine for my back gas?

I am not interested in equipment that is more likely to fail but not in a way that kills me. I am interested in equipment which is less likely to fail in the first place.