Silly rinsing mistake. Now what?

[L13]

Dunk it in fresh water with all the ports open. Let it sit until you're sure it's flooded. Empty it from the LP side with an air gun applied to a LP port (remember - first stage valves are normally open when unpressurized). I'd do this first with a diaphragm reg, because pressurization of a fully flooded diaphragm can lock up. With a piston, starting from the LP side probably doesn't matter. But you want to empty the Intermediate Pressure chamber of a diaphragm reg before attaching to high pressure.
Then attach to a tank and dry the mechanism fully by wasting 1/4 tank of air.

Maybe repeat if you had any discoloration on a cloth placed in front of a LP port.

Keep an eye on IP in the months to come.

This is off the top of my head, since I'd be more inclined to disassemble the reg. But have I forgotten a key point that makes this a stupid idea?

Seems excessive for fresh water? but you are the expert I learned from.

To @Geo7 's question about salt water, seems ideal for some one who doesn't compulsively want to take apart any reg they can (like you or I would).

 

[rsingler]

Seems excessive for fresh water?

Concur.
Potential solution for salt water flood if you can't disassemble...

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Gread thread. I think we covered what to do with a little freshwater ingress.

We have to dinstinguish considerable saltwater ingress, like throwing it in the dirty rinse bin with no cap on. The easy answer is get it serviced immediately to avoid interior corrosion. I can't think of an alternative solution, but perhaps others have ideas?

As soon as you said “throw it in the dirty rinse bin with no cap on” I almost lost my breakfast and had to take a handful of Ibuprofen. Oh god!!!
I don’t know who would ever do that. I would rather just leave my reg unrinsed and deal with it after the trip no matter how many days/weeks I was gone. I NEVER soak a reg unless it’s hooked up to a tank and pressurized, and all my internal verdigris problems are gone. If I was diving every day the reg is only going to get so salty and as long as it stays wet…
With a few drops of salt water going into the air inlet, I would probably think about doing the same proceedure i mentioned earlier of pulling everything off and then running fresh CLEAN water through the first stage to remove the salt and purging it. But that might be difficult in a vacation setting with rented tanks, dive boats, resorts, etc.
It would be service time for sure as soon as I got home. Or at least a clinical clean out.

 

[Nemrod]

I take a bottle of Salt Away with me on trips for cleaning. My wife loves to dunk my regulators in the rinse tub with the cap not installed . I remove all the hoses and plugs, place the first stage in fresh water with the Salt Off and flood the reg out. Then I purge it by putting it on a tank. I may repeat this a couple of times and then when I get home I service the regulator. I have never found any corrosion. I also free flow air through the LP and HP hoses just in case some has gotten in there.

This is why she now has two regulators, a Legend and a Core Supreme, both with the ACD and it works. But now she has confiscated my lovely Titan LX Supreme and one of my Scubapro G250 sets and they do not have the ACD feature.

For a minor bit of known to be (clean) fresh water, blow it out, let the hoses free flow, carry on.

 

[Geo7]

Seems excessive for fresh water? but you are the expert I learned from.

To @Geo7 's question about salt water, seems ideal for some one who doesn't compulsively want to take apart any reg they can (like you or I would).

That was my point, to distinguish between those two extremes.

I'd service my reg myself, even though mine are titanium pistons.

 

[Geo7]

As soon as you said “throw it in the dirty rinse bin with no cap on” I almost lost my breakfast and had to take a handful of Ibuprofen. Oh god!!!
I don’t know who would ever do that. I would rather just leave my reg unrinsed and deal with it after the trip no matter how many days/weeks I was gone. I NEVER soak a reg unless it’s hooked up to a tank and pressurized, and all my internal verdigris problems are gone. If I was diving every day the reg is only going to get so salty and as long as it stays wet…
With a few drops of salt water going into the air inlet, I would probably think about doing the same proceedure i mentioned earlier of pulling everything off and then running fresh CLEAN water through the first stage to remove the salt and purging it. But that might be difficult in a vacation setting with rented tanks, dive boats, resorts, etc.
It would be service time for sure as soon as I got home. Or at least a clinical clean out.

One of my students did it... Well the cap was on but not tight. And of course she connected it to the tank immediately. Some people don't know, and my hope is this thread will be read by many divers just starting out.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I guess this is why some people sing praises to something like a MK2. Drag it through the mud, swing it around like a weapon to fend off bandits, flood it in salt water, whatever, doesn’t matter. Just open it up with some crude tools or your teeth, rinse it out, wipe it dry, a little luvin’with a dab of silicone on your fingertip, and put it back together. Dirt simple reg to fix and to service, but not fancy, it doesn’t need to be.
I would call it the AK47 of regulators.

 

[Geo7]

Exactly! A very underrated reg. And my student's reg was indeed a Mk2+ Evo - S270... The only thing I worried about was the SPG, as Tursiops already explained.

 

[isdjww]

Has nobody here had to perform the "assemble everything" in the deep end of the pool?
With that exercise I definitely had water in the first stage, yet it still worked. I don't know how long though. Thankfully it wasn't mine

 

[Tanks A Lot]

With that exercise I definitely had water in the first stage, yet it still worked. I don't know how long though

Regulators work just fine when flooded completely and hooked up to a cylinder, a rare exception are some diaphragm designs which may simply lock up.
The main issue is the SPG, as it will always and without a fail get damaged when a flooded regulator is attached to a cylinder.

Your second stage hoses are open ended, meaning, air and thus also water which entered the hoses can freely flow through them. If a flooded regulator is attached to a cylinder, water that is in the hoses of your second stages will just get pushed down the hose and second stage until it exits the system once the second stage is purged. The same is true for your LPI, it is also an open ended system.
Your SPG on the other end is a closed off system. There is no way for air to exit the SPG, except the same way it got in there, which is back up the hose. Unfortunately the same applies to water, it can't escape from the SPG once it has been pushed into it. Now it will quietly sit inside your SPG and not drain out.

The water sitting inside your SPG will cause it to corrode on the inside wall of it's spiral or flex tube. This process takes many month, but is inevitably once flooded from the inside. The SPG will no doubt break at some point in the future.

On unbalanced piston regulators I would also take off the end cap which surrounds the piston. Water that pooled under the piston will mostly get expelled, but never completely. A small amount of water will always remain in this area.

On all regulators, water will remain in the threads of LP and HP ports, slowly causing damage in this area. Removable orifices on second stages will also mostly retain some moisture on their upper threads, slowly causing further damage.

In short, the regulator works just fine after complete flooding, but certain parts do need attention. The only thing that will undoubtedly break is the SPG, although that takes quite some time to show.