I had that Tekna reg for many years and its breathing was without equal. Later, I got the Omega II and found it to be just as good (but a little wetter). No matter how deep, and no matter how hard you were working, you could never overbreathe these regulators. They were just phenomenal at air delivery. I had mine tuned so that placing it in 2" of water would start the air flow. At depth, it seemed like the regulator was positively feeding air to you (or in other words "inflating" you), but you could control with absolute precision your breathing rate once you got used to it. IF you had to pant hard, never a concern about CO2 build up. The tiny second stage, incredible light weight, eash 360 degree swivel "no wrong position" design, were all great as well.
I am thrilled to see that Oceanic/Hollis are bringing back the Omega design. I did not know that a company (Poseidon) was still making this design. If I had known that, even with the extra effort in getting service (neither my Tekna nor Omega had problems or ever needed repair), I would have gotten one in a heartbeat over my Apeks XTS 200. This will be high on my "wish list" this year and it is encouraging to see that Poseidon might be establishing a bigger presence in the U.S.
I, for one, did not mind the slightly "wet" breathing of the Omega. There was never enough water to actually be noticeable, and is sure beat dry mouth.
That is the infamous and not very good Tekna T2100BX. It was their final and poor attempt to tame the beast, aside from being detuned it was mostly plastic which mostly cracked. Here is the Tekna T2100, the good one:
The all metal T2100 was followed by the equally good but not as svelte T2100B, also in the photo, which still had a metal construction aside from the plastic outer housing. It was only slightly detuned from the T2100.
I also agree, the Omega II was a fine regulator and like you concur that it was a wet breather. There have in total only been a few pilot/servo assisted regulators in the market. Just have never really made it in the mainstream. The Tekna had an upstream tilt valve servo on the balance chamber, the Omega used a downstream servo valve on the balance chamber. Unlike most second stage regs, the servo assisted second stages do not have a direct mechanical link from the ambient diaphragm to the main flow valve. It is an amplified pneumatic connection. Herein is a potential problem, if the servo fails you can suck until blue in the face and the Tekna will not give up a single drop of air, or it will go into wild free flow. Given that the MkV clone first is a (very) high flow design and that the Tekna second stage is not a limiting factor, it can empty a tank, lickity split. Either way you have an issue.
Another problem was that especially at shallow depths and made worse by the panting most divers call their efforts at breathing, it would flutter/stutter and sometimes jump out of the mouth and fly about like a squid. Well, that last part only, maybe a slight exaggeration. The servo opening and closing would be out of sync with the divers rapid panting and this made for unhappy divers. Kind of like Jeep Wrangler Death Wobble, if you have experienced it, you do not want to again.
Well, they were not that bad and a few divers, probably just me and you, enjoyed using the all time top of the heap. Yes, it would pump the air at depth, the only current regulator that can do that is the new Argonaut Kraken, not due to the servo assist but it has a very powerful Venturi, but then it is also a double hose regulator.
And by the way, 2.0 inches of water cracking effort is pretty bad. Mine crack at about 1.4. But, of the three primary variables of WOB, cracking effort is the least important in my opinion, but cracking effort gets the big press because it is so easy to measure. Actually, exhalation is the biggest factor of WOB followed by inhalation work, cracking effort is the last and least.
We cannot have this kind of innovation in SCUBA or anything else anymore for that matter because we have lawyers instead of engineers designing everything.
I bought the T2100 in the pic in circa 1979, the T2100B about 84, I used both up until about 1998 where I went back to the Conshelf XIV due to lack of parts. About the same time I put my wife back on the Conshelf also due to her constant complaining about the wet breathing of the Omega II. I sold the Omega on ebait, the Teknas I still have and both work fine. I have a small stash of parts, having given away most all of them over the years to the few Tekna fans I came across. The few remaining parts, I am keeping.
N
