Soaking the first stage open....

[claplant]

I'm back from vacation, and before storing the equipment until next trip or next year, I tought that I could rinse the equipment... First stage cap was open, and it soaked for 1 min. What should I do, and long do I have to get it service, or do I need to get it service...

Thank you for the info

 

[colsonn]

Get it serviced, definitely before you put it away for next year. I don't know if any more damage can happen if it sits for a few days, but I wouldn't take any chances. Water should never get under that cap, and when it does it can have bad effects. I also wouldn't suggest hooking it up to a tank and checking it. It just doesn't sound like a great idea.

 

[dbg40]

Yup,, it's gotta go to the shop. Their pretty tough, and since it was fresh water, you should'nt have any problems. But dont let it sit, go ahead and have it serviced. Don't be tempted to hook it up to blow it out, just take it in and let them know what happened.

 

[redacted]

Clean fresh water is the last rinse your reg gets when it is serviced. It is then dried, lubed, and assembled. It is unnecessary to get it serviced. It does need to be dried though. Remove the HP hose so you don't force water into your SPG. If it looks dry, your SPG should be fine. If not, remove the SPG from the hose and reconnect just the hose to the 1st stage. Best at this point to also remove all LP hoses. With or without the SPG hose, put it on a tank and run some air thru it to dry the HP & LP sides of the reg. With the 1st stage dry, reconnect the HP hose or SPG, reconnect all LP hoses, and connect your inflator hose to an inflator. Pressurize it again and run some air thru each of your 2nd stages and the inflator to blow out and dry the LP hoses any water remaining in the LP side of the first stage. Some may say that the inadvertent flooding may wash away the lube and they are not totally wrong. But the lube is fairly water proof and is little effected by what you did so it should be fine. I would not waste too much time getting it done. Even FW may leave deposits if left to evaporate. It should not be enough to be harmful in any way, but no reason to push it.

If that sounds like more than you want to do, take it to your LDS and see what they will charge to dry it out. I would think a fair charge would be around $20. More if they insist on disassembling and relubing the O-rings.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Just get it serviced, you'll need to do it before next season anyway, so just beat the rush and avoid any possibility of corroision problems over the winter.

Awap is correct in saying that drying is the last step of the cleaning process, but it's a lot easier to dry the unassembled parts than it is an assembled first stage. On some designs it is possible for water to find it's way into places with little airflow where no reasonable amount of air going through the regulator will remove the water. The compression chamber in an unbalanced piston design is a good example of where water can be trapped and be almost impossible to remove without dissasembling the regulator.

I see a few regulators each year that have extensive damage do to water getting into them during a rinse. It usually happens on a boat where the "rinse" tank invariably has a fair amount of salt in it (as well as some urine from the inevitable moron who feels the need to rinse his/her wet suit.)

General advice....

Never rinse on the boat, wait until you are back in the hotel at the end of the day - the wait won't cause problems and the water in the hotel bathroom is (probably) cleaner. Plus you can use warm water which will be more effective anyway.

Be sure the cap is tightly in place and be sure to use a good quality cap with an o-ring seal. If you own your own tank, rinsing with the reg connected to the tank is much better and it allows you to blow any water out of the second stage poppet assembly when you are finshed.

After a trip is a good time to get your reg serviced as it prevents any damaged from an unnoticed flooding or from water that may have been in your rental tank on the trip. It also usually means the reg will sit a few months so that any excessive seating groove and under adjustment problems will be found when you check the reg a week or so before leaving on the next trip rather than in the middle of the trip as can occur with a reg serviced just before your trip.

 

[claplant]

Thank you all for the info and mostly for the boat rinse and the urine... that one I never thought about it! :11: (Since I don't rent wet suit any more I forgot about what people can do in them). Now I know what was the sweet and salty taste ... :07:

I was mostly scared by the reaction time (send it to the lds) that I had. I was quite sure that it shouldn't be that bad, not suggested by the manufacturer... Of course I knew that I would have to make the annual anyway... will be sooner then expected, but at least I don't need to run to the lds ...


Once again thank you all.