scubapro mk18/s600 deal

[alkis]

Hello,
there are some offers in online shops for this combo (about 200 uk pounds)
Descriptions mention an mk18 internally upgraded to mk 19 by scubapro.
I thought the mk18 was discontinued.
does anyone have any more info about this "upgrade" and what would one expect of it?? air flow?? environmental sealing???

and finallyshould this be considered as a good deal????

thanks for any ideas and info!!!!

 

[halocline]

Hmmm...I can't remember exactly what the MK19 upgrade is, but the MK18 is a MK16 with a swivel turret. I've rebuilt a few. It's not a bad reg at all. Maybe the "MK19" upgrade has something to do with environmental sealing or some other MK17 improvement on the MK16. DA aquamaster will know for sure, and you might search this forum to see if he's already posted about it.

Don't worry about the discontinued part, SP will support this reg for a long time. The S600 is the top-of-the-line 2nd stage. Assuming 200UK is about $300US, it sounds like a very good deal. If you could get a G250V instead of the S600 for the same price or less, even better, but there are many, many happy S600 users out there.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

One of the major differences between the Mk 16 and Mk 17 was the seat, the orifice and the seat carrier. The Mk 17 uses a much better metal orifice and a better alignment system on the new seat carrier making it a better performing and more reliable first stage. The other major differences are two HP ports on the Mk 17 and the sealed ambient chamber on the Mk 17. Neither of those are readily upgradeable.

The good news for Mk 16 owners is that all of SP's current annual service kits for the Mk 16 contain all the parts needed to upgrade the internal parts to the Mk 17 standard, so the upgrade gets done for free with the next annual service. (SP will probably not continue including all the parts for the upgrade after a couple years, so don't skip the next service with your Mk 16 if it has not already been upgraded.)

The Mk 18 differred from the Mk 16 only in the sense that it had a swivel cap and turret for the LP ports. The Mk 17 and the Mk 19 share the same relationship. So again a "Mk 19 upgrade" on a Mk 18 would include the upgrade of the orifice, seat and seat carrier but not the extra HP port or sealed ambient chamber.

 

[alkis]

Here
scubaboard.com/forums/945372-post5.htm
you mention that the 18 has 2 HP ports. So the only difference of an "upgraded" mk18 to the mk19 would be the environmental sealing.
How important is that specially if you do not dive in really cold waters?

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Not that important at all. The Mk 16 and Mk 18 are still very reliable in cold water even without a sealed ambient chamber.

 

[Mpscubatoytech]

The MK18 has been discontinued for a few years with the upgrad to the MK19 it is still the MK18 all that has been replace is the seat. there is no environmental sealing at all. tha air flow is still the same. Scubapro still makes the parts for the 18 and will for some time then the shops can use the 17 19 kits on them

 

[DA Aquamaster]

The benefit for SP to convert the internal parts of the 16 and 18 to the Mk 17/19 standard is to reduce the number of parts and annual service kits in the system and to reduce the number of different parts kits the company and dealers have to stock.

That logistical practice along with the philosophy of making improvements backward compatible whever possible is why you can still get 90% of the regs SP ever made since the late 1960's serviced when you are lucky if you can get a 10 year old reg serviced by some other companies.