Regulator Freeze

[MikeFerrara]

jamiei once bubbled...
I bet my wetsuit that there are plenty of people out there that have had zeagles and apexs freeze up though and I bet there are plenty of people that have never had their SP freeze up either. Most likely if you used a SP and followed the same procedures you do with your zeagles and apexs, then the SP would never freeze up either. I would venture to say that if took all the SP freeze ups and disected them you would find that either it wasn't properly cared for/serviced or the diver did not follow the correct procedures for diving in such conditions. Maybe you could even find that a greater number of SP divers are less experience in those conditions and therefore place their equipment in a situation where they are doomed to failure. Or maybe you just can't have your cake and eat it too. As for me, I love how my SP setup breathes and don't plan on doing that much frigid diving, but if I do, I'll know what not to do.

Bet me something other than your wet suit cause I don't want it. I dive cold water alot and I know which ones I see freeze. Lots of cold water tech divers are having trouble with freezing sp regs. I don't do anything special with my regs to keep them from freezing they just don't.

I will say that some sp models seem to have more trouble than others. Also I have never looked into what the cause is because I don't care.

 

[thethumper]

had to know I couldn't NOT pipe up.

Being a Poseidon (Odin) and a warm to cool (65 degree) water diver, I don't have COLD water diving experiance. I can only rely on the reputation of the Mnfgr. As Poseidon's are made in Sweden & their regulators were designed for, among other things, ICE diving, and have been tried & true by more people than you can shake a snorkle @,I would have to put my faith in them for a COLD/ICE diving reg.


Just my 2 cents.

 

[oxyhacker]

Interesting it stopped. Did he do anything particular? Freezeup induced freeflows tend to get worse not better, on 1sts especially, because the high flow rate cools things down even further (2nds are more flukey, because a single ice crystal in the wrong place can be the whole problem).

SPs use to be bulletproof as far as freezeup went in the old days of the grease pack SPEC kit. When they came out with the Mk20/25 they tried to clean things up by doing away with the grease and adding a TIB (thermal isulating bushing). It didn't work as well and cold water divers soon started packing into the new ones, and SP eventually said it was OK.

Oh, as far as double hosers go (didn't someone mentioned them?), I've always suspected their reputation as being particularly suitable for cold water was a folk myth as much as anything, and that if you lowered the flow rate on any decent modern single hoser so it breathed as bad as a double hoser, it wouldn't freeze up either. After all its been a long time since they have been going under the ice in any numbers, and at that time the state of the art for single hosers was still pretty crude. There was a guy who'd done reg servicing in the arctic who posted some freezeup statistics by brand a while back, best I can recall there was no clear superiority to the double hosers - or any of the regs supposedly designed for cold water.

Rooster1 once bubbled...
couple of weeks ago one of the divers from our dive club was with us at Gilboa and he was using the SP S600/MK25 down at 126 feet in 45 degree water and it started free flowing...he lost 700 psi out of his twin 95s before it stopped

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I mentioned above the down side of two different double hose regulators (the Nemrod Snark III & Sportways Hydro-Twin) for freeze up. But you need to know that the US Divers and AMF Voit double hose, specifically the Aquamaster, Royal Aquamaster, AMF Trieste and Voit equivalent regulators, simply won't freeze up.

Also, a finely-tuned Aquamaster will perform as well as any of the current single-hose regs around, breathing resistance wise. The single-stage double hose regs (US Divers Mistral) also won't freeze, but are not quite as good for breathing at high tank pressures (but wonderful at low tank pressures).

Why is this, why won't these regs freeze up? Well, both the first and second stages are in an ambient air environment, protected within the case from regulator freeze (and wetness by the intake hose with its non-return valve). Ice will form on these regulators, sometimes big hunks of ice, but this is on the back of the regulator, away from the working parts. If you see some of the Antartic ice diving photos from way back, you can see this effect.

The reputation gained greatly when, in the 1980's, the airliner went down in Washington DC, and slammed into the Potomic River. The US Navy divers who responded to recover bodies, the black boxes, and get the wreckage out of the river started out diving Unisuits and single-hose regulators. They had immediate problems. Their regs froze, and the Unisuits were ripped to shreds by the wreckage. Shortly after beginning their dives, they switched to heavy wet suits, and two-hose regulators on twin 90's. They were then able to complete the recovery and remove the wreckage.

SeaRat

 

[Groundhog246]

Mr. Nice Guy once bubbled...
Tested Reg and Octopus. Both Breathed fine.
Carried setup to water edge. ...Put on BC.
Put regulator in mouth and breathed. Regulator free flowed.
Tried everything to get it to stop. There was ice in the mouth pieace and beads of ice on the regulator hose.

You don't mention air temp. My first dive with sub-zero air temps was Jan 1, 2002. I was told (in no uncertain terms) not to breath on the reg, till submerging. Hook it up, hit the purge to confirm flow and go dive. The moisture in your breath will condense and freeze, causing the free flow on the next breath.

The only free flow I've had was an early spring dive (April). My buddy's reg free-flowed at depth (and was later condemmed by his LDS). After surfacing, having lots of air, I was surface swimming with the reg, rather than snorkeling. I looked up to get a bearing to our exit point and it started free flow. Water temp was 39F, air a couple of degrees above that.

Kent

 

[Bob3]

... suspected their reputation as being particularly suitable for cold water was a folk myth as much as anything ...

When I did my research before buying my first set of gear (mid '60s) the topic of cold water capability was a deciding factor (NE Wisconsin, UP MI diving).
I'd read the fatality reports on ice divers, most all that were attributable to gear malfunction were using single hose regs.

On a double hose, all your moving parts are inside the reg & dry, and you also have the slight benefit of having the exhaust air going back inside the reg helping to keep it defrosted through heat gain & turbulence. The humongus diaphraghm also adds a lot of leverage to the formula.
I strongly suspect that the critical difference comes in when the diver is in sub-freezing water temps where the relative non-movement of said water allows it to freeze up solid, making the "environmental heat sink" effect a liability rather than an asset.

 

[Norm]

IN MY OPINION: I have to agree that an octopus is a prime source of freeze-prone failure during ice diving. I dive without an octopus on my primary and I use a pony with it's own reg for redundancy. Every freeze up I have ever had or seen was on the second stage. Every first stage freeze up that I have heard of was a major calamity that could not be quickly fixed, (unlike the second stage freeze ups which can sometimes be quickly fixed by shutting off the air, exposing the second to ambient water temperatures/or exhaling through the reg, and then turning the air back on gently). Most first stage freeze ups seem to first be caused by a second stage freezing causing the first stage to eventually freeze up. I am not advocating either of the above. This is what has worked for me.
Norm