Repair training

[CWMurf]

For the record, I do know some techs who could and would provide good service. I like to think that when I owned a shop I took care of people and their regs. I also helped a few get started doing their own. The thing is that I want the choice. As it is right now it's being a dealer or a "delaer blessed" that makes you a service tech.

I hear you. I didn't mean that most techs were poor techs. I have a tech I trust but am interested in doing it myself for reasons mentioned earlier. I am getting ready to move farther away from the tech I now use and you never know the quality of your new tech or his work unless you have enough knowlege to inspectand evaluate his work. The one I am using never hesitates to take me back into the shop and show me exactly what he is doing. He answers any questions I have and volunteers volumes of information. He would probably teach me everything I need to know. That is exactly why I trust him with my gear.

I would like the education and the choice. What if I move too far away from this guy, or he moves away, or I just get impatient for my equipment. I should have access to the parts and information I need to do it myself.

In my experience, the people who don't want you to know their secrets usually don't want you to be able to tell what they don't know.

 

[Blueskys4ever]

I started diving in 1971 in Florida. My father taugh me because I was too young to take the class. Now I have a NAUI Advanced rating. I must mention that I also hold an Airframe and Powerplant Certification issued by the FAA. I am certified to repair a aircraft that will carry 200 people. Do you think I can handle a regulator overhaul given the proper technical data? I really do not believe the lie, and that is what it is.
The Bush Administration just reeled in the trial lawyers on frivious lawsuits. Now what is the excuse!

 

[CWMurf]

... I must mention that I also hold an Airframe and Powerplant Certification issued by the FAA. I am certified to repair a aircraft that will carry 200 people. Do you think I can handle a regulator overhaul given the proper technical data?

I don't know man! After all, it IS life support equipment. You'd better get approved by the proper agency before you crack the seal on that baby. After all, if some fool dies, how will the sales staff cover their own assets? :05:

 

[Blueskys4ever]

Let me share this recent letter I got in reply to my question.


Dear XXX,

Oceanic restricts attendance to its regulator repair seminars to the
staff of its authorized dealers. This restriction is in place for two
reasons:

1) Authentic Oceanic repair parts are only available to authorized
dealers. Our Service Procedures require that only authentic Oceanic
repair parts are used in performing regulator service.
2) Current Oceanic Service Procedures must be used to conduct
repairs, and these procedures are only available to authorized dealers.

By restricting seminar attendance to authorized dealer staff members,
we are able to insure that customer repairs are performed by factory
trained service technicians, using authentic Oceanic parts and
current service procedures. This provides the highest possible level
of service to the customer while limiting our liability.

Having said that, Oceanic dealers often find themselves looking for
qualified repair technicians during the busy times of the year. If
you have a close relationship with your local shop and they are
willing to sponsor you to attend our next local Repair Seminar, you
would be able to attend the course. You would then be affiliated with
that shop as a factory trained service technician.

While we do not have any repair seminars scheduled in the immediate
future, it is likely that we will be scheduling seminars beginning
early next year. My recommendation is that you begin discussing the
possibility of sponsorship with your local Oceanic dealer now, so
that when a local seminar is announced you will already be sponsored.
For a list of Oceanic dealers in your area, please see the Dealer
Locator feature on our website, www.oceanicworldwide.com.

I hope this adequately answers your question. If you have any other
questions, please let me know.

Regards,

Mark Lane
Oceanic Customer Service
1.800.435.3483 x 128

 

[Blueskys4ever]

If, I were the owner of a Local Dive Shop , I would file as a corporation. I think that you will find that the vast majority of shops are doing business in this fashion.

Dive shops are in business to make money. This the American way and I agree with this. Dive shops must offer training in order to create new business. The training portion of my business would be separate from my sales portion and constructed as a LLC Limited Liability Corporation. This form of ownership has a built-in resistance to being sued for monetary damages. Think of this as a firewall to keep out sleazy lawyers.

 

[jchaplain]

I started diving in 1971 in Florida. My father taugh me because I was too young to take the class. Now I have a NAUI Advanced rating. I must mention that I also hold an Airframe and Powerplant Certification issued by the FAA. I am certified to repair a aircraft that will carry 200 people. Do you think I can handle a regulator overhaul given the proper technical data? I really do not believe the lie, and that is what it is.
The Bush Administration just reeled in the trial lawyers on frivious lawsuits. Now what is the excuse!

You're exactly right..it's all about the F.U.D. ( fear, uncertainty, and doubt) that scuba shops and industry puts out.
I overhauled my regs last night ( 2 first stages and 2 second stages.) I was uncertain about doing it but after I took one of the first stages apart I was STUNNED at how simple it is. There is only ONE adjustment on it, the low pressure adjustment. You need a pressure guage, but thats about it. Take it apart, clean and replace any parts that need it, put it back together and adjust the low pressure and you're done.

You'll need some mechanical apptitude and a few tools like snap ring pliers, a few open end wrenches, and the pressure guage I mentioned, but it's NO big deal and if you're at all technical then don't let anyone tell you it is and that you can't do it unless you are certified, qualified, bonafied, licensed, stamped, endorsed, blessed, or have an advanced degree in mechanical engineering.

I do have a background as a machinist and I have my own little garage shop. I used to work at a company that makes air pressure regulators also ( but not for scuba) so I know how these things work. But if you are the type who can do...say a brake job on a car then you can do regs.

Having said that now I'm going to sit back and wait for all the replies that are going to say how I'm going to die a drowning death because I did it myself. ))

 

[MikeFerrara]

If, I were the owner of a Local Dive Shop , I would file as a corporation. I think that you will find that the vast majority of shops are doing business in this fashion.

Dive shops are in business to make money. This the American way and I agree with this. Dive shops must offer training in order to create new business. The training portion of my business would be separate from my sales portion and constructed as a LLC Limited Liability Corporation. This form of ownership has a built-in resistance to being sued for monetary damages. Think of this as a firewall to keep out sleazy lawyers.

You have to be careful here. When I owned a dive shop I wanted to service regs that I could not get "authorized" to service. having to turn those people away was just killing me. I did consult with an attourney who specializes in corporate law and decided against it. I'm not a lawyer so my explaination may not be complete or totally accurate but there are various ways and reasons that the court may allow a "corporate veil" to be pierced. As explained to me (at least in part) one factor can be if a corporation appears to have insufficient funds to seem lagit. As an example if a corporation has as their total assets a bench (that lives in a dive shop) and a couple hundred bucks in tools and parts and no insurance. Niether of the two insurance companies I used when I had a dive shop would cover a suit due to the servicing of equipment that I wan not authorized to service. I'll also note that it was not stated as such in the policy but when I specifically asked about it they said "no". Whether that would hold up as an exclusion in court I don't know but anything that you have to go to court to sort out will be expensive. It just wasn't worth the risk.

I did sell parts but only to certain people. again....just fear. I want you to be able to service your own gear but not at the risk of my home and all the money I will ever earn. I wasn't able to teach reg repair but I let some people watch me do it and make up their own mind as to whether they were qualified to do it. What I would never do was to tell them that they were qualified since the way the industry is structured, only the manufacturer can do that (as big of a joke as that is)

Nothing is going to change until divers push the issue. Dive shops aren't going to take the risk. I would imagine that diverite does things different because so many of their customers are technical divers and diverite knows what problems they face. When you own 20 regs and 30 tanks you aren't going to pay some one else to do it unless you are very wealthy. Tech divers are often do-it-yourselfers. They've been around enough to know that they don't want to do a big cave dive with a reg that some shop monkey worked on and they are too self reliant to be ignorant of how their equipment is put together. I don't know very many technical divers who don't do their own work. Most shops don't see much of them and don't care what they want but apparantly diverite does.

My advice is to buy diverite regs and stop rewarding companies that shove it up your backside. Buy from places like scubatoys that will sell parts. Either way, don't hold your breath for things to change in the dive shop. They are treated more like employees of the manufacturer than like customers and often have to do unspeakable things while on their knees just to get on a dealers list in the first place.

Now days we have enough choices as consumers to apply pressure if enough divers want to. Personally, I don't buy from dive shops because of their policies. If a shop will sell me parts, manuals ect then maybe we can do business but not otherwise. And no, I'm not going to hang around there in the evenings and spend a bunch of money to "develope a relationship". I don't want a relationship beyond...I give you money in exchange for the product I want. Maybe they don't need me but I sure as hell don't need them either. I would hold me breath til I burst before buying anything from the two leaders in scuba equipment manufacturing (scubapro and aqualung). They only get away with this stuff because the dive business is small enough that no one cares and/or the divers themselves don't care. As long as divers continue to be good little divers and dive and handle their gear the way the shop tells tells them to and the shop continues to do things as ordered to by the manufacturers and the agencies, diving will remain a manufacturer and agency run affair.

 

[bruehlt]

Love this discussion....

Not sure if this was brought up already or not, but -

What if I was to work on my car at home, in my driveway. Say I was working on my brakes. Now, it may be a moot point, but I'm sure some people out there consider brakes to be a life saving device (heh - you wouldn't be able to drive without them).

Now who is responsible if I mess up the brake job, and get into a horrible accident? Is it the auto manufacturer, the auto parts place down the road (for selling me the parts)? NO - no one but myself.

But wait - if that's the case, why do places like autozone or car parts america, etc exist?

The argument that equipment manufacturers and dive shop owners put up is false - period.

 

[bruehlt]

Hmm - Just thought of something. I wonder how upset the manufacturers would be if we actually changed the whole dive industry. I'm talking about a shake up!

Start a company that produced aftermarket regulator replacement parts - that sold to the public, and / or even step by step repair guides (ala the chilton manuals for cars).

 

[MikeFerrara]

Hmm - Just thought of something. I wonder how upset the manufacturers would be if we actually changed the whole dive industry. I'm talking about a shake up!

Start a company that produced aftermarket regulator replacement parts - that sold to the public, and / or even step by step repair guides (ala the chilton manuals for cars).

There already are after market parts for some regs. And...I'll tell you what else...some Authorized techs use them! Most regs use standard orings and guess what most of the parts are that get replaced in anual servicing...yep! orings. As long as you know which orings you need you can get them fa cheaper than buying them in the manufacturers kits. Some manufacturer kits are real cheap while others are absolutely outrageous. For other regs (like sherwoods) you can buy the seats after market and other parts too if I remember right (I haven't baught sherwood parts for awhile). Other than diaphragms and things like filters, other parts rarely need to be replaced.

Books like the Air Speed Press reg repair manual contain most of the information you need to work on many, if not most, regs and there are probably other sources.

I'd point out something else here. All the manufacturers training sessions I've been through primarily only cover anual inspection and service which is just following the directions and replacing parts. They did not really cover troubleshooting/repair or even how the reg works in depth. My ability to do that comes from my own understanding of how a reg works and my knowledge of a specific design which I get from studying the specific reg. Not that they really break all that often.

Lets talk about what would happen if you did work on your own reg and mess it up. Other than over/under tourquing something (I guess it's possible for a yolk screw to come off though I've never seen it) what could you do...leave an oring out? Put the wrong oring in the wrong place? What. Odds are the reg won't work at all and you'll know before you get in the water. A friend of mine was doing his own and when he finished the reg wouldn't work at all. He brought it in and I found that he had switched the position of 2 of the orings that looked almost identical. Still, it wasn't dangerous because the reg just didn't work and no one would have got in the water with it. Otherwise a reg leaks some....will that kill you? Have you ever seen a reg just freeze up and stop delivering air in the middle of a dive? I guess it couls happen but that's not even going to kill you if you're any kind of diver. My life never depends on the function of a single reg. I did have a DM have a reg housing literally fall apart in the pool during a class once but that was a reg that had just been serviced by a factory authorized service tech (the dive shop owner in fact. It was an aqualung reg and one of the ones I had to turn away. He took the thing home and put it back together himself.

The liability arguement is so much horse dung. I do believe that they are trying to force the use of their own parts though. Why would they want you buying orings for a few cents each when they can sell them to you for a dollaqr or three?