Ran out of air today...

[Ayisha]

Yep, it shows the value of purging the tank when you turn it off, which has been discussed in this thread, so you do not get a false positive. And it shows the value of not ASSUMING that the tank is on. If a DM turns off your tank without you realizing, it will also still show a full tank when off, unless they purged it. Be safe and proactive. Just check your tank before you splash.

 

[BarryNL]

I was the air donor on a dive charter in the Florida Keys. Buddy was my daughter on her third open-water dive. I was happy to help, and glad that I was there. She was pretty rattled. The gauge showed almost 800 psi. On an empty tank. I showed this malfunctioning rental gauge to the boat driver. Without saying a word he picked two 4-lb. weights out of the crate. Set one of the weights on the deck, placed the offending gauge on top of it and used the other weight as a hammer to crush the gauge to death.

Nice to see some dive ops do this - I had a rental SPG sticking on a dive; it showed 100 bar and then 10 mins later still 100 bar until I thumped it and it dropped to around 70. Afterwards I told the guy from the dive shop (Davy Jones on Gran Canaria); he hmm'd and it just ended up going back on the equipment rack. Can't say I was too impressed.

 

[BarryNL]

At the dive site the DM comes for his quick chat and I point out that my SPG says 2800, 200 less (I was worried there was a leak.) He looks at me and says "Ees OFF" then continues. It all hit me in a flash, including that I (might) have jumped in with no air. No one teaches you these little things, however.

What? No-one ever taught you to do a buddy check? Which agency did you train with?

 

[stadevene]

I'm a bit old school, but I was taught to look at the gauge to confirm it reads zero and then turn it away from you (no longer neccesary as new SPG's don't decontruct the way the old ones did if they fail), pressurize it and then look and confirm that the tank reads full as expected. In this case you probably would have noted the gauge at 30 bar with the reg depressurized and that would have been a much more obvious indicator of the gauge failure than the excessively full tank reading.

If it's old school, then I learned an old school method 4 years ago in my certification course. I still check the guage and still flip it away from me before I open the valve.

 

[Ayisha]

If it's old school, then I learned an old school method 4 years ago in my certification course. I still check the guage and still flip it away from me before I open the valve.

Many "old school" instructors still teach new divers to put the gauge with the face away from you when turning the valve on, but that is actually dangerous with newer gauges. You should be looking at the face of the gauge while turning it on or at the very least, not pointing the back of the gauge at your head.

 

[sibermike7]

Many "old school" instructors still teach new divers to put the gauge with the face away from you when turning the valve on, but that is actually dangerous with newer gauges. You should be looking at the face of the gauge while turning it on or at the very least, not pointing the back of the gauge at your head.

Since the gauges we use don't know if they are old school or new school, I just stick the thing in my back pocket when pressurizing so it won't hit nothing vital.

 

[FritzCat66]

For absolute clarity of use, sounds like the SPG manufacturers should take a design tip from this device:

 

[sibermike7]

For absolute clarity of use, sounds like the SPG manufacturers should take a design tip from this device:

 

[Seaduced]

For absolute clarity of use, sounds like the SPG manufacturers should take a design tip from this device:

The only question is... just who is the enemy?