Regulator for tec

[Angelo Farina]

Ive done my research on why sb g260s and their other variants and why not s600 or an a700 which are top of the line. Along the way techies did ans... g260s and their tech equivalent can be taken down underwater and cleaned of debris. That was in theory...

I would say more the G250 than the G260.
The older, the simpler, the more reliable, the better.
Said that, I remain trustful of my all-metal 109s (converted to BA, of course). They cannot be opened underwater, but, again the mantra is: the older, etc...

 

[The Chairman]

Whenever they have stage 2 problems, well its end of the dive.

Those are probably 1st stage issues at that. Many divers believe that 2nd stages cause freeflows, when in fact, it's almost always the 1st. Rentals get abused and often flooded. It takes just the tiniest of debris to cause a runaway or creeping IP, and getting the insides wet will cause that. Owning your own regs is the first step to avoiding that kind of crap. And it's a huge step at that.

And here you are telling me about it!

Those were Hog regs, left and right. They've since been replaced by Dive Rite regs, left and right. While made by different factories, the rebuild kits are almost identical and are easily interchangeable. Zeagle used the same design at one point and now Deep6 is carrying the same thing. It's like having a PC rather than a Mac. So many options out there to get parts from. I always check my regs before I travel, but I still carry both first and second stage kits with me as well as an IP gauge with a 3/16" Allen key. Most shops have a pin wrench, though they don't know how to use it, so I can rebuild or repair on the fly if needed. I've never needed to.

 

[CuriousRambler]

That is a good point. Did you get periodic service from someone? How much did that run? How often? When they went under, how much had you spend on the regs, and how much on service over time?

I was a bad kid, and never actually had the regs serviced. I was diving almost weekly when I bought them, then work took me out of the country for the better part of a year while they sat in storage. When I got back, I dove a few times before moving several states away, had surgery that kept me out of the water for the diveable months, and eventually moved back to California. (man that sounds like a sob story when I write it out...) When I started looking like I'd be able to reignite my diving, I went to have the regs serviced and was repeatedly told parts don't exist. I chased a few rumors of compatible parts from other brands, but found no shortage of conflicting information. Eventually, I decided buying new regs was just the easier solution. All this took place over the course of years, so I honestly couldn't even guess at the total I had invested. I probably bought the Salvo regs around 07-08ish, and replaced them around 2013?

Stuff happens. I really don't know Salvo's story, or what caused them to disappear. I've seen other good companies who are entirely stable be knocked out of business by stupid stuff like a drunk driver running a red light and taking a key employee out of the running to recover for several months. As such, I'm definitely not trying to badmouth Salvo here, not in any way. Simply sharing my experiences of the risks that might be involved in buying this type of equipment from less established manufacturers.

At very least, I would verify, before I buy, that there's an alternate stream of service parts available. If I buy regs from Wet Willy Inc, but their regs work with parts kits from Oceanic regs, yeah that seems pretty safe to me. If Wet Willy is 100% proprietary? I'm gonna have a good, long think about what makes them the better choice than buying from somebody else. I often wonder if I failed to dig deep enough to find that alternate source for Salvo kits that very well may have (and still could) existed.

 

[The Chairman]

I really don't know Salvo's story,

I believe those are Cressi regs. I can still source HP and LP seats for them, which is all I really need. I use their first stages on many of my deco bottles, again because I like how it routes the hoses. I bought a few off of amazon for $25 each. I went back to get more and the price had skyrocketed. I often pair them with a Deep6 or Hog second.

 

[BoltSnap]

You've made some big claims here, but provide no facts to back them up. How many regulators have you seen fail at 180 feet? Oh, people fail at that depth way before the gear will. You glibly use the fear of death, but really: how many people have died because the reg has failed? You make it sound so common, when I can't attribute a single death to that, much less to any of these "miniature, make belief" companies you keep railing against.

It's my opinion that your fear and the "facts" you refer to are the real make believe in this thread.

Where did I mention "death" or anything related to what you claim I said in my post you reference please? And what claims are you objecting too? Are you objecting to the fact that these companies are indeed tiny/diminutive when compared to AL, SP, Huish Group for example?

On my back mount, I simply love the way my Atomic reg hoses lay out. It's perfect and no other reg will route my hoses quite the same way. Sidemounting? Oh, I use Deep6, Dive Rite and/or Hog first stages because of the way the hoses get routed. They are such a joy to use! For my second stages, I really prefer Dive Rite because I like their solution for left and right handed regs. On my SF2 rebreather, I love Apeks regs for the way the hoses are routed... again.

Good for you but you live in a privileged and prosperous society/country in very big contrast to many in the rest of the world, such as where the OP lives. We can barely afford one regulator let alone the so many you appear to have and hence we need to protect our investment by buying from a well established company with worldwide service and representation especially a company such as SP that has all of these in addition having some of the best products, regulators in this case, in the world with prove track record in reliability, performance, stability, service, availability of parts and service in addition to competitive prices at the different price points. My opinion is shaped by the opinion and requests of my clients/students who insist on buying (after saving for it for a long time) a brand name regulator, mainly SP, and forego other options from lesser known brands with lower prices just for the points I made above. These third world people have a lot of common sense and savvy to make up for the lack of the financial resources and luxuries you have in your happy land.

while amateurs built the Ark

If you believe this part of the Ark story, then you have to believe the entire story and know that these "amateurs" had an incredible most powerful, all knowing, all mighty, all great and omnipresent force behind them, God himself!!! The "professionals" who built the Titanic didn't have the big Guy himself guiding them.

For what it's worth, I have had a reg utterly fail at 60ft. It was my Aqualung Micra First Stage. However, it wasn't the reg at fault, but the fidiot professional who rebuilt it. Yes, he had a diploma from Aqualung, but he still put in a defective diaphragm. and it pulled away from the flange allowing me to try to breathe water at depth. He didn't replace it because he thought my bill was already too high. It was, but his decision, made without asking me, put me at risk. The technician failed me, not the reg. I was aghast paying $200 for the rebuild, but that it failed me on top of that was the real insult. When the diaphragm came in, it was $12 or so. The technician almost didn't sell it to me because he felt that only HE was qualified to install it. There was no way I was going to let him touch my regs again. I've been rebuilding all my regs since.

There are millions of divers making 10's of millions of dives per year and yet no one is dying because of bad technicians doing bad things to the regulators, you have already insisted that there are/were no deaths due to equipment problems, and hence your argument holds no water and isn't a universal problem or stands to be a real problem at all. The absolute majority of people have a certified/trained technician do the service and not themselves and yet no recorded deaths anywhere, again according to you.


BTW, let us all remember the one tiny but very load and nasty BCD maker who simply chose to close down without warning and left many former clients holding the bag/bladder with nowhere to go for support and service.



P.S. I changed the terms "miniature, make-belief" in my post to "tiny/diminutive" after a very polite and professional request from a friend on SB. He made his point with utmost respect and I changed them. I made the change mainly to avoid creating a controversy detracting from the main points in my glorious reply

 

[loosenit2]

Where did I mention "death" or anything related to what you claim I said in my post you reference please? And what claims are you objecting too? Are you objecting to the fact that these companies are indeed tiny/diminutive when compared to AL, SP, Huish Group for example?

Good for you but you live in a privileged and prosperous society/country in very big contrast to many in the rest of the world, such as where the OP lives. We can barely afford one regulator let alone the so many you appear to have and hence we need to protect our investment by buying from a well established company with worldwide service and representation especially a company such as SP that has all of these in addition having some of the best products, regulators in this case, in the world with prove track record in reliability, performance, stability, service, availability of parts and service in addition to competitive prices at the different price points. My opinion is shaped by the opinion and requests of my clients/students who insist on buying (after saving for it for a long time) a brand name regulator, mainly SP, and forego other options from lesser known brands with lower prices just for the points I made above. These third world people have a lot of common sense and savvy to make up for the lack of the financial resources and luxuries you have in your happy land.


If you believe this part of the Ark story, then you have to believe the entire story and know that these "amateurs" had an incredible most powerful, all knowing, all mighty, all great and omnipresent force behind them, God himself!!! The "professionals" who built the Titanic didn't have the big Guy himself guiding them.


There are millions of divers making 10's of millions of dives per year and yet no one is dying because of bad technicians doing bad things to the regulators, you have already insisted that there are/were no deaths due to equipment problems, and hence your argument holds no water and isn't a universal problem or stands to be a real problem at all. The absolute majority of people have a certified/trained technician do the service and not themselves and yet no recorded deaths anywhere, again according to you.

P.S. I changed the terms "miniature, make-belief" in my post to "tiny/diminutive" after a very polite and professional request from a friend on SB. He made his point with utmost respect and I changed them. I made the change mainly to avoid creating a controversy detracting from the main points in my glorious reply

OMG...I went to bed, got up worked out, went shopping, did some work on my gear and you are still crusading on the same thread.

Not everyone wants to buy from only the big name brands, there are other options....accept it and move on. Some folks value certainty, as you do, and others value other things. I'm sure the OP has heard your point of view and if he agrees with it he will buy more SP, if he doesn't then he won't; but I seriously doubt this thread is changing anyone else's mind.

At this point the OPs thread has been hijacked for limited benefit to him with the very real possibility that he is going to get very turned off from pursuing tec diving.

 

[BoltSnap]

OMG...I went to bed, got up worked out, went shopping, did some work on my gear and you are still crusading on the same thread.

I went to bed, woke up, had breakfast, went diving and spearfishing, went to the pool and chatted with friends, had lunch and then ran some errands and now home doing some work and getting ready for another day of diving and spearfishing since the weather forecast for tomorrow appears to be fantastic.

So now you are the new attendance taker and the class monitor?? Do you get paid by the word or letter or what? Don't you think that your post is actually a very useless and a judgmental nonsense type of post?

 

[MichaelMc]

Good for you but you live in a privileged and prosperous society/country in very big contrast to many in the rest of the world, such as where the OP lives. We can barely afford one regulator let alone the so many you appear to have

If you can barely afford one regulator: Mk2 + related second stages. Bullet proof.

Tech diving: Not the 'I have no money' part of diving. Implies multiple regulators. As mentioned above, OP has a buddy that does his service, every other time, replacing just the parts needed.

Yeah, this is one huge tangent.

 

[fish149]

I'm sorry, forget Scubapro if you're going tech, what..?
You can easily service Scubapro regs yourself, and there is no way you can make a good argument against their regs, the Mk25/G250v is an incredible combo with awesome hose routing for doubles...

Yeah, I know people do service their own SP regs, a buddy of mine does his own but SP won't sell you the service kits, you have to find them on eBay or find a shop that will sell them to you. HOG is way more friendly to the diy customer. Nothing against SP regs how they perform or whatever I just think you get a lot more bang for your buck HOG when you're talking about multiple regs.

 

[CuriousRambler]

I believe those are Cressi regs. I can still source HP and LP seats for them, which is all I really need. I use their first stages on many of my deco bottles, again because I like how it routes the hoses. I bought a few off of amazon for $25 each. I went back to get more and the price had skyrocketed. I often pair them with a Deep6 or Hog second.

I suspect if I were in the same position today, I'd probably pursue the hunt for service parts a little bit harder than I did then. I kind of stumbled into a decent deal that made abandoning the Salvo's altogether an easy choice at the time. It basically amounted to an unnecessarily generous move on the part of a stranger to help me out as I was hunting for a parts source, and I'm still very grateful.

I don't think saying "avoid the small guys" is a reasonable statement to make, and I haven't intended to make that statement myself. I simply want to share my experiences, and suggest everyone consider their situation carefully before deciding what to buy. My next regs will likely come from a smaller outfit, but I make that decision knowing the potential "risks" associated.