Renting gauges and octo?

[Doc]

But, back to your original question....

Most dive shops will rent you whatever piece parts you need for a day or week.

Once you get there and consider the rental price, it will likely be a good ways along to owning one of your own. It would likely be the same price as renting a full reg set with gauges, I would figure about $100.

At that point, I would skip bringing your own 1st and 2nd and just rent the full thing- save on lugging your gear through the airport nightmare.

If you can screw a toothpaste cap back on, installing hoses isn't that much more complicated. Expertise comes into play where one decides which particular "port" on the 1st stage to utilize... allowing for the best positioning of hoses. Of course, there will be those who can mess this up, likely in proportion to the number of people who will caution against messing with life support gear. If you believe you can handle this, likely you can.... But.... any dive shop that you rent from will likely want to install the piece parts themselves- avoiding liability and potential damage to their gear. Thus, the concern in reference the installation is really a non-issue.

 

[rollerboi]

I just bought a set of regs from my local shop, and tossed them the SPG I had bought online. They had no problems installing it for me. Now that I've got it home, I realized I forgot to have them install the inflator hose. No problem, I busted out the hex wrench set and put the inflator hose on. It's not too big of a deal.

 

[JerseyMike]

If I bought my own regulator 1st and 2nd and my own bcd. Do shops rent out guages and octo? My shop does not. Just wondering when I am down in Curacao.

Why just not purchase the rest (octo and gauge)? You bought half of the setup, why not complete it and not rent anything?

 

[SubMariner]

This raises another question for me... When you buy a reg/oct/gauges, does the shop assemble all of this for you? Being a complete and utter novice, I know that I would definitely prefer to have someone setup this gear for me.

I would be very surprised if having bought the reg, octo, and console, that they wouldn't put it all together for you. It would be a good way for them to LOSE you as a customer if they didn't!

That being said, it's really not that hard to put together. All it usually takes is the right sized allen key and adjustable crescent wrench. Because the octo & reg go in the low pressure ports on the 1st stage while the gauges go in one of the high pressure ports; usually they are different sized fittings so that you don't inadvertently put an LP in an HP port or vice versa.

I'm really hoping to pickup all of this sometime in the next week or two, so I've been reading/researching everything I can. Unfortunately, I have no actual experience with which to base these purchase decisions and of course none of this gear is actually cheap. I'm really hoping to get into a BCD, reg, inflator/octo combo, and comp for around $1k. I'm also going to need to buy a wetsuit too, so that will be another expense. Anyway, I was just curious about assembling this stuff together.

I've seen a lot of alternate air source (AA) setups & I have to admit that the inflator/octo combo is NOT what I'd pick. You really are better off with a separate AA, reg, and bc setup, NOT an inflator/octo combo.

JMHO,

 

[rivers]

If you buy the complete set from your LDS, they should assemble it for you. Mine did, then told me to come to their next OW pool session (they used a pool at a local athletic club since they do not have their own on site) to test it out to make sure it worked properly.

 

[rk288]

If you're not yet certified why buy any gear yet? Sign up for an OW course and try all thier stuff for free..
I'd think about maybe finding a second dive shop to see how they handle your situation. Does'nt sound like this shop and you are on the same wavelength. Find a shop that is staffed by professional Dive Instructors and Divemasters. I don't think any worth thier salt would be trying to sell a non diver pieces of regulator sets...just my HO.
If you're going to Cuarcao I'd bet there are some great shops there who would get you a good intro to diving if not OW certify you in a few days...