Rotating Regs on Doubles

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Rick Inman

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Hanging out, talking about stuff at the dive shop the other day, and it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to occasionally rotate the right and left post regs on my doubles. Maybe every 6 months or something.

My primary reg gets a lot more use than left post reg, and seats, orings, etc. must be getting more wear. So why not rotate them, like you do tires, once in a while.

OTOH, they get serviced every couple of years anyway, so maybe it's irrelevant.

Thoughts?
 
Seems that the servicing will take care of that. I do enough switching around of gear - don't have a dedicated single tank reg setup (read "good") for other than pool diving, so if I'm going to be traveling and don't have doubles gotta shift hoses around.
 
Hi Rick,
You have more experience than me, but my way of thinking is that, seeing as rebuilding the two regs at separate intervals is supposed to provide us with some margin of protection and if, say, the necklaced reg is newer to start with than the older primary (or vice versa) that MAY provide more safety and prolongation in the long run, than trying to use them both as rotated primaries which will wear seats, etc. relatively equally.

I would think that the switching off on every dive
keeps us informed as to their relative condition anyway.
So, if we own a third reg from a pony bottle, stage, etc.
that way we might have less chance of missing a dive due to one reg needing rebuilding or repair? In my case, my necklaced reg is one year newer than my primary because I switched from an SS1 to a necklaced reg on doubles.



Hopefully some reg techs will chime in on this one. Interesting thought/thread.
 
Rick, I had the same thought when I rebuilt my MK25's and the hp seat on the back up did not even look used. The tech asked me if I even used this reg at all. So I figured if I rotated them every 6 months they would wear evenly.

Butch
 
After re-reading my rather convoluted post above, what I'm actually trying to say is, if we rotate our doubles regs, aren't we more likely to have two regs "down" or in need of rebuilds at the same time, if we rotate their use evenly? Is that an advantage or disadvantage?
Wouldn't it be likely that the less used secondary would be useable along with a spare pony reg, etc. while the primary (or older) reg is in the shop?

Would the cost of rebuilds (if that's a concern) be spread out if based on the number of dives they're used as a primary? If an Atomic (for example) is to be rebuild under warrantee every 300 dives, would one consider 300 dives on a necklaced, rarely used reg, the same as 300 dives on the primary? Not being a smart a**, just wondering what the consensus is and if this fits into the consideration of rotating.
 
I'm not sure how much advantage there is to rotating your regs. If they are rebuilt annually, then I wouldn't bother. If they are rebuilt/replaced as they break, then I wouldn't bother swapping them either. That leaves the grey area inbetween- I suppose if I could detect a performance difference then I might swap them, but if it were really bad, then why not rebuild them?
 
How about this:

Completely rebuild (replace parts) every two years - alternating posts. The complete rebuild always goes on your left post and you take the former left post reg and take it apart, clean, lube, and inspect it. If all looks good, which it will barring any neglect, transfer it to your right post. Both regs get annual cleaning and inspections, but you are only replacing seats and o-rings every other year on each reg. That way, both regs are in pretty much new state all of the time and you are only doing a complete overhaul on one reg each year.

Hunter
 
How about this:

Completely rebuild (replace parts) every two years - alternating posts. The complete rebuild always goes on your left post and you take the former left post reg and take it apart, clean, lube, and inspect it. If all looks good, which it will barring any neglect, transfer it to your right post. Both regs get annual cleaning and inspections, but you are only replacing seats and o-rings every other year on each reg. That way, both regs are in pretty much new state all of the time and you are only doing a complete overhaul on one reg each year.
I am assuming you are runnning your long hose primary off the right post. If so, then you are always using the older reg as your primary and, even with a fresh cleaning and inspection, you are living with a high pressure seat with a season's worth of pressurization, even if not many cycles and a second stage with a well developed seating groove that in most cases costs you slightly higher inhalation resistance.

Plus it's a major mistake to ever dissassemble a reg and then re-install old seats as unless things line up perfectly and with zero relative rotation if the parts involved in holding the seat and orifices are less than 100% concentric, you can end up with overlapping seating grooves and eventual leaks. Seats are cheap, if the reg gets dissassembled, replace them. In some cases you can flip them over and use the other side, in which case switching seats is essentially free.

If you use the switch the regs on the posts apprioach, I'd suggest doing the opposite. Put the freshly rebuilt reg on the right post where it will get maximum use and break in quickly. Then after 6 months, 1/2 season, etc, switch it to the left post and put the newly rebuilt backup reg on the right post as the primary.

The same thing works if you rebuild both at the same time - swap them mid season with a new one on the right post followed by the less used backup being rotated to the right post mid season. It will even out any wear occurring due to number of cycles. Some regs when used only as a primary reg can have a higher probability of a problem after 100 dives or about 50 hours of primary use underwater. So if you do more than 100 dives per season, swapping them mid season is a good idea. Otherwise, there is no significant advantage to it.

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I also think that using your primary or backup regs to the point of a problem occurring is pretty stupid if you are doing overhead dives. In my opinion, if you needed to swap regs during the dive, you screwed up. The backup reg should be totally redundant and only along for the ride in the event your buddy screws up and goes OOA (likely the last dive with him or her until he or she gets their stuff together) or unless you have a tank related gas loss of some sort (but those should also be very rare if you change burst discs at least at every hydro and change tank neck o-rings at each VIP.) Delaying service until you need it is liek planning to use your gas reserve during a dive - it is a practice that will eventually bite you.

Technical diving is expensive, but skimping on reg service is not the place to save money. You can reduce service costs by learning to do it yourself - which is a good idea for a technical diver you usually end up owning at least 4 or 5 regs and also as knowing how they work will help you prevent and resolve problems if they occur.

You can also save money and extend the "safe" interval between services with proper maintainence, storage and thorough pre-dive inspection, but you need to know what warning signs to look for and also be willing to cancel a dive if you find a problem rather than dive with it.

-------

Personally, my thoughts are that it makes sense to get them both done at the same time, or one right after the other. If you have an opportunity to do a few quarry/training dives right after the annual service, get them both done at once. If not, get one rebuilt and then 3 to 5 dives later get the other one rebuilt.
 
I happened to get my secondary three months after my primary got serviced, as I was using it for singles till I got into doubles. I just service them annually when they are due. As for rotating the regs I've not thought about it till I read your post. But for me I consider it a non issue as when I'm diving doubles in addition to s-drills I'll sometimes(every other dive or so) clip off the primary and use the secondary for deco or on my ascent and deep stops just to keep in practice of deploying the long hose. While the secondary may not get equal use it's kinda close. ANd since I service my own I keep pretty close tabs on how many dives I have on each and take notice if one seems to act up and take care of it immediately. I just redid the octo on my singles rig after doing the annual service in September on it and I've pretty much been using it just for pool. And the other night the octo developed a free flow. Turns out the seat got grooved in such a way that it was just enough out of adjustment that it needed torn down and tweaked. But I still changed the seat even though I was told a field repair can be done by just turning the seat over. Parts are cheap, labor is cheap, peace of mind is priceless.
 
I am assuming you are runnning your long hose primary off the right post. If so, then you are always using the older reg as your primary and, even with a fresh cleaning and inspection, you are living with a high pressure seat with a season's worth of pressurization, even if not many cycles and a second stage with a well developed seating groove that in most cases costs you slightly higher inhalation resistance.

Plus it's a major mistake to ever dissassemble a reg and then re-install old seats as unless things line up perfectly and with zero relative rotation if the parts involved in holding the seat and orifices are less than 100% concentric, you can end up with overlapping seating grooves and eventual leaks. Seats are cheap, if the reg gets dissassembled, replace them. In some cases you can flip them over and use the other side, in which case switching seats is essentially free.

I don't know if I agree, although I'm sure you've seen the guts of many more regs than I have. Below is directly from a tech service manual from Aqua Lung:

SCHEDULED SERVICE
[FONT=XWIGRY+Helvetica,Helvetica]If the regulator is subjected to less than 50 dives per year, it is permissible to overhaul it every other year with an inspection procedure being performed on the "off" years. For example:[/FONT]
[FONT=XWIGRY+Helvetica,Helvetica]Year #1: Inspection; Year #2: Overhaul; Year #3: Inspection[/FONT]
[FONT=XWIGRY+Helvetica,Helvetica]Year #4: Overhaul, and so on.[/FONT]
[FONT=XWIGRY+Helvetica,Helvetica]Both Inspections and Overhauls need to be documented in the [/FONT][FONT=MBODTU+Helvetica-Oblique,Helvetica]Annual Service & Inspection Record [/FONT][FONT=XWIGRY+Helvetica,Helvetica]in the back of the Owner’s Manual to keep the [/FONT][FONT=MBODTU+Helvetica-Oblique,Helvetica]Limited Lifetime Warranty [/FONT][FONT=XWIGRY+Helvetica,Helvetica]in effect.[/FONT]
[FONT=XWIGRY+Helvetica,Helvetica]If a regulator is subjected to more than 50 dives per year, it should receive the complete overhaul.[/FONT]

Because of this, I do my regs the way I mentioned in my post above. I am relatively new to doubles but I have serviced a few regs. Based on the regs that I have serviced I think the recommended annual service is arguably too often. The seats easily have more than a year as do the other "replaceable". The recommended annual service is to prevent a problem with those people who neglect their equipment or don't know how to do general preventive maintenance and are much more likely to need a good cleaning more than anything else. "Slapping" a kit in during annual service is done by the LDS in an attempt to pass the liability back to the manufacturer as well as sell about $3 worth of parts for $20+.

As far as overlapping seat grooves I have yet to see it be a problem. Perhaps the tolerances in my regs are tighter than in others or perhaps I have been lucky, but you're right, in some regs you can flip over the seat. A leaky seat is much more of a concern in the 1st stage however it rarely just fails. If you are attentive then you should notice the IP creep for quite a while prior any chance of failure.

The reg on your left post rarely gets used, so as long as you are taking care of your gear then it should fall under the "50 dives" classification. By taking it apart, inspecting it, cleaning it, and re-tuning it then you are following at least one manufactures guideline for annual service. IMHO, it is as good as a reg with a new kit in it. So to me it makes perfect sense to move it to your right. And if your are tuning your regs properly anyway then a new seat should already be relativly broken in prior to diving with it so I don't understand your comment about that.

I only had about 80 dives last season and most all were in fresh water so YMMV. I also service my own regs, take very good care of them, and check for IP creep regularly.

I agree with you that it's an insignificant savings and I am not recommending doing it that way to save a buck. If you are tech diving then annual rebuilds are a minor expense especially if you are doing it yourself. I always have kits available if I see anything wrong in the "inspection" but I see no reason to replace a perfectly good part.

Hunter
 

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