Scubapro regulators under Ice

[BoltSnap]

My instructor/ friend at my LDS won't "seal" the Atomics or other piston style regs with anything if they're being used in saltwater. He says they still get some water intrusion and it causes corrosion issues. He said it isn't as much of a problem in freshwater.

I have been using (and sold for several years) sealed Atomic regulators since 1999 and nothing but sealed first stages and in nothing but salt water (ocean and sea) and NEVER had ANY corrosion or ANY water intrusion. What he is saying is just pure intrusive and corrosive BS!!!!

---------- Post added January 20th, 2015 at 06:23 PM ----------

Your friend is correct. Even if it is done correctly without bubbles in the beginning, over time some of the grease does work its way out. Especially as Tbone mentions if you use the same regulator for tropical diving where it is going to see heat.

I have used my SEALED Atomic in tropical and very hot locations around the world with VERY hot summers (UAE, Libya, etc.) and NONE of what you are saying is true at all. Stop spreading this BS!!!!

 

[MichigandiverJon]

I have been using (and sold for several years) sealed Atomic regulators since 1999 and nothing but sealed first stages and in nothing but salt water (ocean and sea) and NEVER had ANY corrosion or ANY water intrusion. What he is saying is just pure intrusive and corrosive BS!!!!

---------- Post added January 20th, 2015 at 06:23 PM ----------




I have used my SEALED Atomic in tropical and very hot locations around the world with VERY hot summers (UAE, Libya, etc.) and NONE of what you are saying is true at all. Stop spreading this BS!!!!

I certainly haven't been in enough different conditions to experience it myself. My LDS has sold Atomic for years as well. I have a B1 and that's what I was told when I wanted it sealed for diving in Lake Hurons balmy 39* water. He did seal it for me though.

 

[BoltSnap]

I certainly haven't been in enough different conditions to experience it myself. My LDS has sold Atomic for years as well. I have a B1 and that's what I was told when I wanted it sealed for diving in Lake Hurons balmy 39* water. He did seal it for me though.

I use the Atomic regulators with sealed first stages in addition to their other characteristics allowing me to use them for several years (generally 4) before I have to send them in for service. They breath like new always.

The Atomic M1 is a top tech and cold water regulator.

 

[tbone1004]

and I'm glad you have had a good experience with them and while the water intrusion I haven't actually seen in person, the fact of the matter remains that to seal these regs you have to pack them with expensive grease, and it is a quite large added expense during service and sealed diaphragms are superior for cold water and nasty environmental conditions, not that they can't work, but the sealing on piston regulators is not quite as good as diaphragms and comes at a major added expense

 

[halocline]

Actually, packing piston environmental chambers with grease is a tried-and-true method of preventing freezes AND keeping corrosion out of the environmental chamber. The grease is held in place with a rubber boot, much like the environmental fluid is kept out of the environmental chamber of diaphragm regulators with an extra rubber diaphragm. There's really almost no difference, and although PTFE grease is expensive, tribolube makes a less expensive grease that works great for packing chambers, and silicone is cheap and is actually fine for anything except high concentrations of O2. It's not in the air pathway at all.

There are some older piston regs, like for example the later model MK5s, where there is no boot and the grease can start to leak out the chamber. I packed one of my MK5s and dove it for about 5 years, last time I checked the chamber it was spotless.

I'm sure plenty of careless techs throughout the world have not done a good job making sure the chamber is fully packed, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea. It's just a bad idea to do it poorly.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Divernet did this test on regulators and Atomic M1 was reported to be leaking grease/christolube.

http://www.divernet.com/Diving_Gear/group_tests/158643/coldwater_regulator_tests.html

"John Bantin: This gave what I considered to be the best breathe of all of the regulators tested alongside it. It proved very good upside-down. Alas, the silicone started to leak out of the first stage after the third day and it became very messy, so it was probably not ideal for use in these conditions."

I am thinking if this is due to bad annual service than faulty regulator design?

 

[tbone1004]

unlikely, it's just the design. It works well when it works, but like was also said, you're trying to keep the grease in with a glorified elastic band, could have been the band got nudged a bit during storage or during use. Lots of things that could cause it, but the point still stands, they can be made to work in those conditions, but you can't deny that the sealed diaphragm is much simpler and certainly less expensive, and Poseidon has even broken that mold and the MK3 doesn't actually require an environmental seal for use under water. CE has certified it to 29* water without an environmental seal

 

[ams511]

and I'm glad you have had a good experience with them and while the water intrusion I haven't actually seen in person, the fact of the matter remains that to seal these regs you have to pack them with expensive grease, and it is a quite large added expense during service and sealed diaphragms are superior for cold water and nasty environmental conditions, not that they can't work, but the sealing on piston regulators is not quite as good as diaphragms and comes at a major added expense

I have seen it on some eBay MK-5s and MK-10s I purchased. The chamber did have some corrosion in it, on one reg it was rather nasty but nothing the ultrasonic couldn't take care of. However I did lose part of the plating. The worst was when I put a sealed reg on a tank to test and the first stage had a leak and the grease shot out. What a mess.

 

[tbone1004]

was referring to the MK25's and Atomics, no one I know ever bothered to seal the other pistons, they just went to diaphragm if it was cold or muddy

 

[DA Aquamaster]

The salt water intrusion allegations are due mostly to techs not understanding the proper way to pack an ambient chamber without leaving significant voids. As I said before it's something of a lost art. If you just squirt some silicone in the ambient pressure holes (and I've seen techs do exactly that) you're going to have problems.

It differs on models like the MK 10 and the Mk 5 as the ambient chamber is in the reg body on the Mk 9 and 10 and in the swivel cap or cap on the Mk 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 15, 20 and 25. With the 9 and 10 you have to work a little harder to ensure the the bottom corners and sides of the ambient chamber are covered as they are less accessible, but in all cases you need to fully fill the spring and the space between the spring and piston stem and the piston head, then insert it in the regulator body so that you leave no voids. Again it's a lot easier with first stages other than the Mk 9 and Mk 10, as with the others you can insert the piston than finish the fill build the silicone up around the spring before seating the piston in the swivel cap. In any case, you should be extruding silicone when you screw the cap or swivel cap on the regs, and you should be extruding a lot more out from under the SPEC boot when you pressurize the reg.

The Mk 3, Mk 5, Mk 9, and early Mk 10 first stages just had small ambient pressure holes with no boot. The later Mk 5 and 10 had a groove cut in the reg body to accommodate a tight fitting boot, but it didn't work much better. In both cases water enters and exits the holes as the piston cycles, and the primary function of the small holes was just to retain the silicone between dives - something that worked less well in hot weather.

The Mk 15 and early Mk 20 used a wider flexible boot that allowed for extrusion of silicone as the reg cycled with the silicone in the boot moving back and for the into the reg through larger holes while being contained by the boot. It worked a lot better and I was quite happy with that system.

The general mess and overflow that occurs with a properly packed and void free ambient chamber also means you have some waste, or at lease some less than pristine silicone. When the move came to Christolube, few techs would have wanted to "waste" that much christilube.

And in any event, it wasn't, missed by techs as cleaning out old silicone was not high on the fun list - especially if the customer had waited a few years between services, and particularly, if he had waited a few years between services with a poorly packed or poorly maintained silicone filled chamber. In general, I'd properly back mine and then still top them off or repack them entirely mid season.