Regulator servicing; do it yourself?

[spoolin01]

Try scubastore.com. I've bought a couple of 1st and 2nd stage Abyss kits from them, but haven't yet tried to overhaul the 1st - though it badly needs it...

http://www.scubastore.com/product.a...&id=39&marca=MARES&desde=1&fromhbx=subfamilia

 

[komi hunter]

The only thing to remeber if you are not a certified trained tech and you open the reg up you are on your own as you just threw away the waranty if the waranty is not important to you by used. I would rather take it to a good reputable shop I trust to do the work and have a waranty. The LDS I use test them before they give them back to make sure they are right.

 

[reidman]

Thanks Spoolin01 I tried for a long time to find seal kits, I didn't know scubastore.com existed. I haven't looked in a year for parts because I had it serviced. But no more!
I even found a site that had PDF files for regulator service. But no kits. komi hunter it would be nice if all LDS were as good as yours but I haven't found one where I live that is. Having had my regulator service each year for several years each time there is a problem. I now go to a shop 50 miles away just because they have a pool and when I pick up my equipment I test it. And like I said there is always something wrong. I switched my dive shop 3 times because of this, thinking the next one would be better. I was told only one guy at the shop could work on my Mares reg that’s why it took 3 weeks, then when I walk in the shop I find a trainee with my regulator apart rebuilding it because it was supposed to be ready and wasn't. This guy had a printout using it to assemble. Last time I went there. I am sure this is the exception not the rule for most dive shops but it’s what I had the misfortune to run into. I am a do it yourselfer but this is life support, I just wish my LDS looked at it that way to.

 

[CustomTech]

I have to agree with most of the above comments—Both 1st and 2nd stages are very simple, and most of the divers out there could service their own. Thankfully they don’t

Once you open up a reg. you just voided the warranty. If the warranty is not a big issue to you then have at it. Manufactures rely on LDS to have their gear techs properly trained to handle their products. I’m not going to try and tell you that just because a gear tech works for a shop, he can’t make a mistake. They are humane and they screw up.

Talk to your dive buddies and find a shop that does top quality work. I don’t know about most gear techs. I do know about myself. I won’t let a reg out of my gear room that I wouldn't dive myself. All of them are check in a tank before they go back to a customer.


I doubt a reputable dive shop would negotiate a sale for a reg with service kits. That would open them up for a major lawsuit. They sell you a repair kit and you die even if it isn’t connected to the Reg. The shop is going to have all kinds of trouble. It isn't worth the hassle.

Yes if you look around you will find kits for sale on the Internet. Just remember it is your life support. If you are going to service it yourself, Spend the money for the correct books and tools.

This is just my personel opinion

 

[miketsp]

Given the long life of a typical regulator and their simplicity, it may be quite worth doing your your own servicing if you're mechanically minded and you have more than one reg set to service.
In our family we have 3 divers and 5 sets of regs to maintain. Almost all use the same repair kits.
The so-called lifetime warranty is a bit of a rip-off if you total up what you are obliged to spend every year in order to get "free" parts that rarely fail. Most years all that need changing are some o-rings costing just a few $.
IP pressure gauges are surprisingly cheap to buy, even the big precision ones.
The manual tools required are normally cheap.
Your biggest investment is probably an ultrasonic cleaner but even that may not be necessary if you have a friendly car service shop locally. Since the advent of fuel injection systems many shops have US cleaners big enough to take reg parts.
I'm quite sure I take more care putting my own regs back together than the LDS does.

 

[redacted]

I have to agree with most of the above comments—Both 1st and 2nd stages are very simple, and most of the divers out there could service their own. Thankfully they don’t

Once you open up a reg. you just voided the warranty. If the warranty is not a big issue to you then have at it. Manufactures rely on LDS to have their gear techs properly trained to handle their products. I’m not going to try and tell you that just because a gear tech works for a shop, he can’t make a mistake. They are humane and they screw up.

Talk to your dive buddies and find a shop that does top quality work. I don’t know about most gear techs. I do know about myself. I won’t let a reg out of my gear room that I wouldn't dive myself. All of them are check in a tank before they go back to a customer.


I doubt a reputable dive shop would negotiate a sale for a reg with service kits. That would open them up for a major lawsuit. They sell you a repair kit and you die even if it isn’t connected to the Reg. The shop is going to have all kinds of trouble. It isn't worth the hassle.

Yes if you look around you will find kits for sale on the Internet. Just remember it is your life support. If you are going to service it yourself, Spend the money for the correct books and tools.

This is just my personel opinion

I was surprised when I looked at a Scubapro warrenty that there is no statement about voiding the warrenty by unauthorized service. Surprised again when I again found no such prohibition in the online Aqualung warrenty. But Oceanic site does have such an exclusion in their warrenty so it is not entirely another "Scuba ledgend".

Major reputable dive shops do sell service kits to their customers who request them. It is just one more thing that seperates the good LDSs from the others. I look in the paper every day and have not seen a single story of the "all kinds of trouble" it causes.

 

[wilkie]

I've been considering doing my own regulator service also. Not that I begrudge the $$$, what gets me is the standard "Leave this to the "Pro's" advice......So I left it to the "Pro's", and have had to return my reg.s for "further adjustment" on several occasions, most reciently replacing o-rings and hoses myself....On an island far, far away.

Sure, I could take my reg back to the (unnamed) LDS and whine, or I could fall back on my skills, buy an ultarsonic cleaning setup (that I could use anyway), a few specialised tools, and put an end to this recurent problem.

I don't know, at this point, wheather a flow-bench, or pressure pot are required (first step is to get the books), but even if these are required, I think the cost would be offset within a couple of years ??

Any na-sayers ?

 

[blatter]

I have been servicing my own regulators for many years. Used to service gear for a dive shop when I was a scuba instructor in the 80s. The level of training aptitude of many of the people who work in dive shops and service regulators generally seems to be low. The manufacturer service courses are no guarantee of competency and some are apparently run on a no fail basis even if they are completed.

Have come across some real horror stories from dive buddies who have tried to get regs serviced, and once myself when I was travelling in Canada. Wrong tools being used, critical parts left loose, regs not actually serviced at all etc. Really unbelievable stuff.

One guy I regularly dive with is a ship's engineer who maintains and repairs really complex pieces of equipment as part of his work. He was told by that he wasn't qualified to service his own regulator by a dive shop sales person who I know did not understand the way his regulators worked.

It is not hard to service regulators if you have a bit of mechanical aptitude. In my opinion it is much simpler, for example, than cleaning a carburettor.

I don't use an ultrasonic cleaner, although an intermediate pressure gauge is essential. Some regs require specialised tools, many don't, although an inline adjustor for the second stage is very convenient for many models.

Servicing your own regs can be fun for some (me) and save you money, especially if you have multiple regulators. If you service your own reg you can also keep track of its condition more easily and fix it yourself when you are on some isolated island or dive boat when the is no shop support.

Given the poor level of service I have experienced and seen I would actually feel uncomfortable letting a shop touch my regulators unless I was absolutely certain they were qualified to do the job. Even then, I enjoy and prfer to service my own dive equipment.

Please excuse the following rant, but I find the restricted access to parts really annoying. There is no justification for this, particularly if you consider you can go and buy brake parts for a truck, car, bus and lots of other potentially life threatening things, and dive shops seem to happily sell regulators and other life support equipment to anyone who has the money (well I have rarely hear of a dive shop asking for a C card before selling scuba gear).

It is good to develop a relationship with dive shops (I have) so you can get service kits, but if this is difficult, the internet can now provide service manuals and service kits for many types of regulators. If you can't get parts form you LDS, consider buying your regulators from another source. Negotiating parts availability when your are purchasing the reg can give you a bit of leverage. Dive Rite has a particularly enlightened view on this and should be supported. Other manufacturers should follow their lead.

 

[captain]

Not only do I service my own regulators but I have made no longer available parts for some of my older ones. They are just machines not some magicial mystical device.

 

[Thalassamania]

If your mechanically inclined, you should have no problem, regulators are rather simple devices and I'f you gain a general knowledge of how they function and combine that with a repair manual and proper set of tools, it should give you little problem. What kind of regulator(s) do you have?