Pulling my hair out....

[leadweight]

No free parts for Scubapro regs bought online. A few dealers are charging more for labor on SP regs that were purchased online or used.

The above post about parts being a rip off is misleading. Its pretty hard to buy the parts kit on your own and most people do not service their own regulators, especially new divers. The lack of availability of parts kits to individual customers is a bigger issue than their cost, or the availability of parts that wear the most on a separate basis. By the way, other regulator manufacturers charge as much for parts and restrict their availability.

I spoke to the tech once and there are quite a few parts that have gone into my regs that go beyond the usual rebuild kit, all for free. As I recall, my MK20 was upgraded with the cold water teflon coated parts gratis when that improvement came along.

By the way, in case you don't own your own tanks its nice to be able to bring your reg to the LDS to check it out before a trip.

 

[Mverick]

And just for your knowledge.

My MK20UL/G500 has never been serviced. And I've used it for 5 years. So even though you get free parts. You still have to pay for the labor. And to get the free parts you have to have it serviced anually. Miss a year and no more free parts. Don't dive for a year and it's in storage. Then you plan a trip and want to dive. So you take your reg into the shop to get checked out. If it's over a year, no free parts.

And no matter what. You still have to pay the labor.

I've never had my apeks serviced either. In 4-5 years service.
The only ones I serviced were ones I had bought used. Since I didn't know how they were taken care of.....

Am I telling you not to get yours serviced. NO. I can actually service my own regs. I DM for a shop. I'm just telling you my experience with my equipment. OH, The instructors don't get there's serviced until needed either...

And if your on a trip and something goes wrong. That's why you bought a ScubaPro. Since they are sold everywhere. They can be fixed everywhere.

 

[Genesis]

on a BP Scubapro 1st there are a couple of O-rings that should be replaced any time its apart, but those are nothing special and available anywhere (the HP Piston ring should be 90 durometer, but you can buy those easily); the others can be standard stuff. You DO need a couple of special tools to "do it right"; buy 'em once for a few bucks and then 'ya have 'em forever.

I can strip a Mk10 (which has a few fewer pieces than the newer 20s and 25s) in about 5 minutes. What takes time to do right is to clean everything up. Reassembly is no big thing; about the same amount of time as stripping takes. The Mk20/25 has a "floating" HP seat with a tricky O-ring on it that SP has had some trouble with, but that's the only "trick" one.

The only "tough to get" or "special" part is the HP seat, and unless your IP is creeping you DO NOT need to change it. Just be careful doing the R&R so you don't score or otherwise damage it!

The parts access issue is real, but for SP regs at least there are "back door" sources. Buy and have a spare rebuild kit and unless you're having trouble just dive the silly thing.

 

[Zaphod]

Scubapro now has a new policy for those who "forget" to service their regs annually. If you pay for parts (and labor) this year, and have your warranty card, you will then be current. Parts will then be free until you "forget" again. Of course, I'm sure you could find a dealer that takes it upon himself to ignore this policy.

 

[leadweight]

Genesis,

I realize that you mean well, but some of us are not mechanically inclined, or lack the knowledge to service their own regulators.

 

[Warren_L]

I must say once again, great info from everyone here. It is greatly appreciated, but as someone not so inclined, I'm going to have the servicing done for me at least until I can learn more on my own....

 

[Genesis]

I understand that.

Consider buying Vance Harlow's book and reading it.

Then consider finding a friend who does this who wouldn't mind showing you just how simple it really is!

The trick is to have a nearly-empty tank around for testing when you do it, so that if you DO screw up, you don't end up blowing 3,000 psi down a LP hose and exploding it - and crack that valve SSSSLLLOOOWWWWLLLYYY! Then go dive it in a pool just to be sure before you use it "for real".

There really isn't much to these things, especially the piston firsts (most SP stuff) and the simple downstream seconds (e.g. the SP R190/R380, etc) Diaphram firsts are a bit trickier just due to the larger parts count, as are balanced poppet seconds, but seriously, if you can handle replacing the O-rings on a HP hose spool, you can probably do this as well.

You WILL need to buy a handful of specialized tools, as the scuba folks seem to get off on making things that need special pin-spanner wrenches and pin-indexed cap wrenches to get things apart and put back together without scratching everything up, but that's about it. They're not very expensive. Some of them you can get away with improvising too, if you're careful. (For example, there is a tool that Peterbuilt makes for inserting the HP O-ring in SP BP 1sts. You can do the job without it, but its both easier and faster with it, and carries less risk of nicking the O-ring, causing a leak. On the other hand for the cost of the tool you could buy 30 to 50 of those O-rings, as long as you didn't buy them from SP!

I won't do rebuilds for others, as I don't do this "for money", and don't want the liability. But I am perfectly comfortable doing my own regs. They're WAY simpler than an awful lot of the stuff that I work on regularly in my boat, and a mistake there could just as easily get me hurt or worse, or (which might be even worse!) cost me $20,000 or so for a new engine.

Until I got a "spare" cheap back last summer and tore it down, figuring that if I had trouble I could put it back together "as best I could" and take it somewhere, I didn't realize just how simple these things really are. The whole bit about them being "really complicated and dangerous to work on" is just more dive-shop BS.

 

[Warren_L]

Yes, I've heard that Vance Harlow's book the one to get to learn all about servicing regs .... will probably do that eventually. There's just something about dropping some pretty big coin (at least for me) on a reg setup and messing around with it as I'm learning that makes me a little uneasy.

 

[pescador775]

Genesis, that is INTERESTING stuff!. How does the average guy find 90 durometer rings, Global? I just paid a fortune for EBAY 'tuneup' kits for my G250HP/MK20. Still, less than labor and 'free' parts. How does one remove the adjustment knob and stem from the G250HP? It looks like the little button on the end of the knob has to come off. Otherwise, I don't see any other way to get to the balance chamber.

 

[Genesis]

They carry 90 duro O-rings, and I think they have the correct size for the BP 1st HP seal (will have to check - I haven't had to buy any in a while, as I have some)

Hydraulic Supply has them too (I buy quite a bit of boat-related stuff from them; they have darn near anything in that area)

The little metal knob-end does have to come off, yes. If you do it carefully you can avoid damaging it