Reminder about unavoidable OOAs

[Gary D.]

What did your undies come out looking like?

PLEASE, NO PIC"S

Gary D.

 

[pilot fish]

As stated above, if it was serviced recenlty that might be the cause and NOT who you want looking at the broken reg. Ship it to Scubapro as soon as you can for evaluation. I'm sure they will replace it. Glad you are ok.

 

[FredT]

A few decades ago my wife lost the swivel off the top of her MkV. The hollow bolt failed when her "safe second" snagged a lifecable on a sailboat entry. She still doesn't like to use two seconds on her rig. Talk about bunches of bubbles! The hollow bolt can fail if mechanically overloaded. It's unlikely to unscrew if properly installed. Either way SP should warrant the parts. IF you had just had the reg serviced the fault may lie with the installer overtorquing the bolt. Early on those were retained by a snap ring. Those failed by stripping out the ring groove if overloaded, but were immune to heavy handed repairs and fatigue. I still keep an old snap ring style turret in my save a dive kit.

FT

 

[ShakaZulu]

I guess a pony might give you more assurance at times like these. At least give you enough time to get to your buddy.

Is it just me or am I hearing more often about reg failure after a service. What are the monkeys doing???

 

[Uncle Pug]

Be sure to use an Apex DS4 or other non-swivel first stage on your pony... to avoid the unavoidable.

 

[ABQdiver]

Amazing! Glad you experienced that above the water instead of below.

I've always heard that you should turn the gas on slowly so the sudden pressure doesn't shock the first stage. Is there truth to that? Makes sense to me.

 

[Tom Smedley]

My good friend and fellow instructor has worked on Scubapro regulators for 25 years. I asked him to look at the thread and here is what he had to say:

"It could be two things. either the retainer bolt has failed due to over torquing. Or the bolt was not tight enough and came unscrewed. The old MK5s had bolts made of brass, then changed them to SS. They are all SS now. Most likely a repair guy problem."

 

[Xman]

Thanks for all of the responses. The bolt definately sheared off rather than came loose. As others have suggested, I think it may have been overtorqued last service (about 9 months ago). Seems odd though, as it has done a fair few dives since then.

UP, I guess i poorly worded the title. I agree that this was avoidable by using a non swivel first stage. However, this is what my rig was, and whilst I would not have used it for deco type situations, I had become complacent I guess, and dismissed the likelyhood of it actually failing (since I have never heard of one failing until now).

 

[Uncle Pug]

You caught that, eh.

 

[geraldp]

I guess a pony might give you more assurance at times like these. At least give you enough time to get to your buddy.

Is it just me or am I hearing more often about reg failure after a service. What are the monkeys doing???

Well I guess that's what happened to me on Saturday - the first dive after getting my Atomic Aquatics SS1 serviced I had the 2nd-stage freeflow. Fortunately it was at the end of the dive just after I surfaced. My tank went from 850psi to zero in less than 10 seconds. I was so shocked I didn't think to disconnect the connector hose. Thank God for my buddy, who swam over to keep me afloat. That's the last time I dive without my pony.

Jerry