Sidemount regulators?

[guruboy]

Swivel turret is certainly nice to have and highly recommended, but hardly a required feature.

The one make advantage is when deploying the long hose. But for OW, it's less of an issue than in overhead.

 

[victorzamora]

Swivel turret is certainly nice to have and highly recommended, but hardly a required feature.

To me, on the right post, in a cave....it's either a swivel or a 9ft hose. There's no way around that, imo.

If I were buying regs for SM, there's no way I'd buy regs without the swivel turrets or recommend anything without them.

 

[guruboy]

OP is diving OW as far as I can tell.

 

[victorzamora]

OP is diving OW as far as I can tell.

OW or not, my search for SM regs would absolutely start with swivel turrets on sealed diaphragm first stages. Donating without the turret can cause hose kinks and failures, which I've seen in OW and cave.

Assuming right-hose-donate: Diving with his DC3 on his left post would be fine. Sub-optimal, but fine. I couldn't recommend he dive the DC3 on his right-post, OW or not. OP is looking for SM regulators. My suggestion is swivel turrets.

 

[stuartv]

OW or not, my search for SM regs would absolutely start with swivel turrets on sealed diaphragm first stages. Donating without the turret can cause hose kinks and failures, which I've seen in OW and cave.

Assuming right-hose-donate: Diving with his DC3 on his left post would be fine. Sub-optimal, but fine. I couldn't recommend he dive the DC3 on his right-post, OW or not. OP is looking for SM regulators. My suggestion is swivel turrets.

I'm still getting comfortable with SM. I am using DR XTs, so I do have swivel turrets and bottom ports. But, I am not using the bottom ports for anything. And I am unclear on why the swivel turret is so important.

Could you not achieve the required LH deployment by using a 1st stage LP swivel elbow. Like this one (or similar):

First Stage LP 360 Swivel ,

I am in agreement that, in general, I would recommend to anyone to buy sealed diaphragm 1st stages, with a swivel turret and bottom port. Anything else has less versatility with no practical benefit that comes from the reduced versatility. That is generally speaking, of course. But, if someone specifically has, for example, a DC3/212 setup and wants to get a second one (for cheap) and adapt the set to SM, is it truly not feasible (and without a 9' hose)?

 

[tbone1004]

@stuartv if you look at the picture below, that is what most non swivel regulator setups will look like. The first stage orientation is largely determined by where the SPG's need to go, and that is usually straight up, or straight down. If you put the 360 swivel on the regulator like you linked, the hose will be making a 90* bend to go down the tank, and then another 90* bend when it gets deployed. The axis of rotation needs to be the short axis vs. the long axis to make it work properly. No real way around that without a swivel turret.

Now. You can look at the Toddy Style hose rigging which basically uses 1m hoses for the regulators *can easily put a long hose in instead of the 1m hose*, and drysuit length hoses for the inflators which functions mostly OK without the swivel, however the swivels to make the left side more comfortable because the hoses will automatically swivel to the best orientation, and if you have to deploy the full long hose, you don't risk kinking it

 

[victorzamora]

I'm still getting comfortable with SM. I am using DR XTs, so I do have swivel turrets and bottom ports. But, I am not using the bottom ports for anything. And I am unclear on why the swivel turret is so important.

Could you not achieve the required LH deployment by using a 1st stage LP swivel elbow. Like this one (or similar):

First Stage LP 360 Swivel ,

I don't believe that'd work, no. The reasons are two-fold: I don't use the fifth-port for my drysuit inflator. This means that my longhose and drysuit inflation hoses would interfere. There may be a fix to this, but it'd certainly get goofy very quickly on deployment. The other, and main, reason though is that it still doesn't rotate it around far enough. On something like a Hollis DC3 (and all other similar regs I know of), the LP ports would be on the "bottom" and the swiveling would be about an axis perpendicular to the one the swivel turret rotates on. The swivel you quoted would actually make hose routing far worse in all scenarios unless placed on a 5th port.

I also, personally, don't find 5th Ports useful. I've tried using them for inflator hoses but I'd have to lower my tanks by a few inches and run them like the Razor guys do and I'm simply not willing to dive with my tanks that far in front of me.

I am in agreement that, in general, I would recommend to anyone to buy sealed diaphragm 1st stages, with a swivel turret and bottom port. Anything else has less versatility with no practical benefit that comes from the reduced versatility. That is generally speaking, of course. But, if someone specifically has, for example, a DC3/212 setup and wants to get a second one (for cheap) and adapt the set to SM, is it truly not feasible (and without a 9' hose)?

The issue is hose donation. If you're diving a DC3, you have to put it on your tank in one of two ways. That would be either SPG up or SPG down. That fixes the position to (essentially) one of two places. This leaves you 4 LP ports - 2 facing up and 2 facing down. For your long hose, you can't have it out of one of the upwards-facing ones so it's stuck facing down. This is how tbone's right-hand bottle reg is set up. Now, your long hose routes straight down initially. When you donate it and your buddy pulls on it, they're pulling 180* from where the hose wants to be. A 7ft hose is barely long enough for me, anyway....and doesn't have tons of slack when in-line even with shorter folks (my wife at 5'8" still doesn't have tons of slack). That port pointing straight down makes you lose several inches AND gives you a great stress-point at which to kink and/or tear the hose. Tbone remedied that with a 9ft hose. That was enough, but I knew I'd have to be weary to not pull too hard if he ever had to donate to me. I've seen more than a few hoses blow out from this type of stress.

 

[guruboy]

This guy has used DST for $150 each.

Southeast Scuba gear swapmeet Public Group | Facebook

 

[LandonL]

Somewhere i saw a picture of a Deep6 2nd stage with the very same "CE1463EN250" part number etched on the bottom.

That actually isn't a part number, its a CE marking, for the standard. I imagine you can find it somewhere on many regs

 

[cerich]

I was



I was thinking about just getting hoses ($160 from dive gear express plus gauges ) but currently I have 1 yoke reg set and 1 din reg set (Hollis) I have been using the Hollis set as my primary and the yoke as a stage bottle. I guess I could get away with buying 1 reg set with long hose and keep the yoke as stage bottle for now. I was planning on getting doubles set then use existing Hollis as stage bottle. Then turn my yoke set into a pool/open water set as I am a DM and when using shop tanks they are all yoke and sucks to forget the din adapter. Now I have used rental gear in pool and they all flex hoses and I do not have jaw fatigue (I have only don't this 2 or 3 times) and let's be honest training dives are not very long.

With the Hollis from a price stand point I see them all the time with major price break. With DEMA and Black Friday Coming up I figure I can get the Hollis sidemount set for about $900. By dc3/212 I got for $199. Now it does not have swivle. I would never pay $600 for that reg or any standard 1st/2nd stage.

I should have mentioned, the DGX reg by Deep 6 at Dive Gear Express weighs quite a bit less than the Signature second, still excellent performance. Also sits different than the Signature. I suspect from what you have posted you'd be happy with them.