Scary message written after reg. service

[DiveTub]

I say it time and time again

Always rinse your regs connected to the cylinder and the air on!! I just pick my whole kit up and dunk it in fresh water for a minute or 2, then purge any water from the second stages, before taking the regs off the cylinder.

Rinsing this way will save your regs as it means you will never get water in the hoses, First or Second stage.

Rinsing or soaking Regs without pressure in the lines is a great way to well shorten the life of your regs.


Cheers
Chris

 

[cyklon_300]

primate to keep his opinions to himself. He's being paid to repair a regulator, not scold the customer. I'd complain to his boss about his jerkwad attitude.

I've worked in the mold industry...not sure what mold would be utilizing for a food source inside a reg. You usually don't see fungi growing on bare metal; fungal colonies typically require something like cellulose as a substrate. Also, the hyper-dry air from a scuba cylinder would not promote fungal growth. They need moisture to exist and reproduce.

These tactics are used to frighten people into spending money in their stores. Like pescador says, annual rebuilds are overkill and mostly unnecessary for the average reg. They simply don't get used enough to wear anything out.

It's analagous to the dentist having you come in every 6 months...hey, the guy has med school loans and a BMW to pay off, of course he's gonna tell you that you need his expertise every 180 days.

 

[Blueskys4ever]

Used Car Salesmen often emply "mechanics" to evaluate a customers goods. Surprisingly they find something hazardous about it and then the salesman makes the pitch. Sound familiar? Buy a new regulator and scrap your old one before it kills you!

Dude, if someone was rude to me, I would take my business elsewhere.

By the way, I service my own regs so I am not at the mercy of someone else's word. Would you let someone else pack your parachute?

I am 46 and have been diving since 1971. I must be doing something right!

I am also of the opinion that there a 100 good techs out there, for every not-so-good one. Walk!

 

[Poseidon8118]

Well, I have some pretty old regulators and after a decade or more some parts start to degrade (parts of the first stage body and so on), even after annual service. The techs I use will replace any part of the regulator if they feel it warrants it. They bring the extra cost to my attention (if any) and explain why they needed to replace it. They do not lecture me…because any part that needs replacing gets replace…end of story.

Over the years I have requested (at my own expense) if a part isn’t up to spec or in doubt; “order a new one I will pay for it.” My point is when you receive your rig back it should work in like new, therefore, no need for the lecture.


You should have asked your tech, “why weren’t the parts replaced if you were in doubt?”

 

[Tom Smedley]

There was a guy in Texas that serviced Nikonos cameras. He always put in a sarcastic note that told you how utterly sorry you were about cleaning your cameras and how hard he had to work to undo your carelessness.

I had a Nikonos V serviced one year and got the standard note and felt really bad about how I mistreated my stuff. Well, the camera sat on a shelf for a year and was not used. I wanted to go on a big trip and decided I would get an annual on the thing before the trip to ward off problems. I got the camera back with an even harsher note about how nasty my camera was and how it didn't deserve to live in his pigpen.

I guess the moral is that you can't always put a whole lot of stock in scolding notes.

 

[Zaphod]

My guess would be that the "mold" is actually oxidation from an aluminum tank and he most likely saw it on the filter. It's that nasty green sticky crap in your tank after a little water gets in it. I wouldn't really worry about it, but certainly find another shop.

 

[Avic7]

Your points are all valid, but maybe the way the tech wrote his message was to make certain that his points were taken seriously. He would rather insult and get the client's attention about the dangers of not taking care of his gear than write a message tactfully and have the client think it's hogwash. I'm assuming that the tech rarely has the chance to meet the gear's owners face to face and explain the inspection in great detail.

Btw, just to make sure there isn't any misunderstanding....I am in no way saying you don't take care of your equipment. All I am saying is that the tech might feel strongly about his job to make sure to remind his clients to remember to take excellent care with his/her equipment. Afterall our own lives depend on good working equipment.

Anyways this is a great post, I'll have to remember to purge my regs with the air on after I finish diving to get rid of the excess liquid inside. I haven't been doing that at all because it never occured to me. I've just been rinsing and soaking it in fresh water and then allowing it to dry in the bathroom.

 

[Puffer Fish]

All great replys - thank you. Aside from the liveaboard, I rinsed & soaked both my BC & reg set after each dive, & in the case of my earlier resort trip in Roatan, I would bring my reg set to my room each night & soak it in the tub for a few hours & drip dry overnight over a chair. Great tip on liveaboards - I always have a full Nalgene bottle of fresh water. Pouring that over the valve & 1st stage before removing, blowing & capping makes sense. As for the mold - who knows. I did some fall dives in Lake Superior since my summer liveaboard trip, w/ some challenging factors (cold, deep, etc) & reg performed flawlessly w/ no musty smell (?). What are opionions on the comment about servicing more on a so-many-dives basis? How many? (kinda like oil changes w/ a car "3000 miles or 3 months?!)

If you can get past the jerky note (made much worse because you did not have the ability to "see" any of the issues that were presented, there is a very important issue being addressed here.

There are a whole bunch of "things" that can live inside a second stage of a regulator. This list gets a lot bigger if one has been to the tropics. If every one just washes out their second stage with fresh water, about 1 person in 1,000 would come down with some sort of sickness from them. Of those, only 1 in a hundred that got sick, would have anything life threatening (That is guessing that a regulator acts similar to respirators made from similar materials) per year. Pretty small odds, so small in fact that one could believe that there is no risk.

If you wash the second stage with any common detergent, you have roughly doubled your chances of getting something - still really small though.

If you assume that there is nothing for anything to grow on in a regulator, you would be wrong.

If you assume that this is just a mold issue, and that the regulator would smell musty, you would also be wrong.

What can grow in a moist, organic area (this includes plastics and all of the various types of natural and synthetic rubber are:

1. Fungus (mostly molds, but yeasts and actual bigger members of this family)

2. Water/Slime molds (not a mold at all).

3. Bacteria.

The fungus family is known for the alergy issue, but some members of it can live in lungs. Rare, but not something anyone would ever want to get. I have seen 5 cases, 4 in Panama and one a year ago in Michigan (sold fire wood as a hobby and wore a resporator when cutting, but never really cleaned it well)

Slime molds are common almost everywhere, but very little is known about how they effect humans. They do, as a family, usually only live in low pH enviroments, so they are the least likely to get.

Bacteria are the big worry. One of the most common US ones forms a black sticky substance, that looks a lot like oil. The bad ones are really bad, typically have no smell and can kill.

On a dive trip, there is almost no chance of this being a concern, there is not enough time. The concern is when one puts the stuff up and then comes back months later.

For a dive shop, not telling you could potentially make them libel for that 1 in 100,000 chance.

If you want to remove this concern, then soaking in a real bactericide/fungicide at least once a year should be done and twice a year is a really good idea. I don't use a retail product, so I don't know if any of them work better, but I see they are available.

I assume the discoloration that was listed was from soaking in a bleach/peroxide solution, or similar product.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Regulator service is overdone. I used a MK 10 for 10 years before the first service. There wasn't anything wrong with it except the IP was off (165 psi). That's why I took it in, it was honking. After five more years, I took it apart to drill out the tiny holes in the first stage to make it easier to wash out with a hose. It was clean inside and looked near new.There is hardly anything that can go wrong with the things. The newer mods have more O rings and plastic parts which look scary but no more so than the plastic buckles on today's fins and masks. If you are looking for a hazard, start there.

Don't soak regulators. Just rinse them off. If fresh water is not available they can go salty for several weeks with no problem at all. When replacing the dust cap make sure there is no salt water on the cap face.

I agree with you but only to a point. With proper preventative maintenence a first stage can go a long time without an thorough "annual" service. But it's life support equipment and I am not sure there is really much economy in doing that.

In your case, an IP of 165 was 20 psi over the max allowable IP and is high enough to cause problems with a slight freeflow in the second stage, except of course in a 10 year since serviced second stage the odds are pretty good things have to be cranked down pretty tight already to compensate for the worn LP seat. So you may not experience freeflow issues, but the second stage won't perform well either.

With regard to the honking sound, in a piston first stage like the Mk 10 that is always caused by inadequate lubrication of the HP o-ring and piston stem. In a Mk 10 that can very quickly aggravate issues with HP o-ring pinch and result in a very large leak past the HP o-ring. Not something that I would consider safe.

Similarly, with proper rinsing salt is not a probem, and can even be tolerated for a while inside the ambient chamber of the reg, but in a moist climate corrosion can occur very quickly with enough pitting resulting to require some pretty expensive parts replacement. With rental tanks it's possible to get one with water in it and this can do very bad things to the inside of your regulator that can be caught early with an annual service but may be much more expensive to fix later.

I do agree that soaking is not a good idea unless the reg is attached to a tank and pressurized. Rinse buckets on boats are horrible as in very short order they contain a lot of salt and who knows what else. You are better off waiting until you get back home or to your hotel room to rinse your regulator(s) thoroughly.

 

[bottomrunner]

hi mn
yea i agree that he could of givin you the info in a better manor
but he does have a point
also a service should remove all gremlins
if you do alot of liveaboards
here is a tip
after each dive blow off the dust cap only
put it in it's place and tighten the screw to hold it in place
then leave your regs in a bucket of fresh water inbetween dives
that way there is no chance of salt buildup.
when you get back home then give them a good cleaning
the silicone lube that is used in the service's will disapate over time
whether you use them or not
a service once or twice every year is still a good idea.
i once serviced a reg that did not have a service in 12 years and had been in salt water all the time and not taken care of
he had complained that his reg stopped giving him air
the filter had blocked compltely it took 2 days of soaking to open the reg
after a service and changing a few o-rings it was back to a1 condition
hope this helps