SP Freezing

[Scuba_Steve]

Ah DA my friend, don't talk too loudly.....at the end of the day, my money would still be in it's rightful place.......no not your pocket! Mine!

Of course I've had the silly things apart,......like a zillion times......how else so you think I know what these folks are talking about......

Seems like I'm right, STOP TUNING the $HIT out of them, and 90% of the problems are solved!

Read Compressors answer directly from S/Pro themselves, and then read my initial posts regarding the big cause for all these F/Flow we hear of.

Of course, I just do this funny mechanical stuff for a living, so what would I know about designs, good and bad......and all the band-aid fixes in between

Harder to breathe is a relative term. Most of these top end regs can flow way too much anyway, so detuning isn't a concern in reality, although I will agree, a bench test would show a difference. No biggie, any way you slice it.

Oddly enough, of all the freefows I've seen, I think 75% of them had just been serviced.......makes ya wonder doesn't it?

Can you say Shop Monkey?

Steve


hehehehe

 

[ShakaZulu]

Why not buy the right equipement to go with your diving conditions..........APEKS.

 

[Compressor]

Why not buy the right equipement to go with your diving conditions..........APEKS.

This is an intellectual discussion. I do not want to invest in another regulator. If I wanted an APEKS, I would have bought an APEKS. When I was diving deep, my student was diving with a MK16/R190. His setup was fine. Thats what I will do; dive with the same setup (Yup I have 2 of these). When I dive with my Mk20/S600 or MK20/S550 @150 feet, the gas delievery is flawless; there is no feeling of air starvation.

Bottom line is I will adapt to the dive conditions by selecting from my arsenal of regs. The answer is not buying another set although I do respect your opinion.

However I am not happy w/ ScPros answer. They may have a problem with the high performance regs that is probably inherent in similar designed regs. We can adapt tot he conditions.

 

[aquaoren]

Well I am glad we got this thread back on track.
When I teach my advance courses, I take the students down to 100-130 feet. The water is very cold as the lake is spring fed.

I rather use a different regulator now that I have found both piston and diaghram regulators will free flow rather than detune my own SPs. Any of our European friends here who dive in the cold fjords of Norway orin the very chilly North Sea? I wonder if the SP regs there have the same problem? and I also wonder what our friends use there for regulators.


Also I think I am going to call SP and see what they might say about this? One can't dive like this? what would happen if you had to do a deco and you did not have enough gas?

I learned diving while I was living in Germany. It's not Norway or Sweden but the fresh water is as cold.
As a novice diver I was asked frequently with what kind of reg I dive if I asked to tag along.Reason being, they wouldn't take me along if I was using Scubapro.
Scubapro doesn't have a very good reputation in Germany for cold water diving. There will be always people that never experienced a problem but the frequency of freeflows among Scubapro users is higher.
Higher end Apeks, Mares, Aqualung, Beuchat as well as Poseidon are considered more reliable cold water regs.
Just a report of personal experience

 

[Scuba_Steve]

I agree generally with Shaka.....but since I have 5 SP's, I'm not about to re-invest in something that doesn't give me problems, just because a few (or possibly more than a few) have problems with.

I still say it comes down to detuning the damn things, and then the obvious techniques for breathing/inflation that go a long way as well.

I've yet to have a problem even once, that I haven't purposefully done (after a dive) when it's really cold, just to see if I get her to flow. Yes I can.

Very dry breathing gas is nice too. I think we have exceptional gas around here. But that's purely subjective, as I have no evidence of it.

Darn Ole DA, got me thinking of a test that I will run, at a later date....another "just to see" type scenario. Anyway, I just took a quick look at something, and I just realized that some/now all? have composite pistons......so again, the O-ring thing is, or would be, the second layer of defence, since even IF the piston bottomed in the bore (Which by looking again I'm sure it doesn't (that will be the test)), that it doesn't go metal to metal anyway, as there's already a teflon "washer" (Not sure if it truly is teflon) as part of the top of the piston (integral). I looked at couple other pistons I have, and they are the same as well. I do believe at one point the pistons were made of something different that what I have, but I can't for the life of me remember.

Good thing this monkey tunes his own!

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Sp has used 3 pistons in the Mk 20/25 series. The original stainless pistons had a knife edge seating surface and were pretty much the same as their Mk 15 predecessors.

Then SP "improved" the design with a brass tipped rounded seating edge piston. The rounded hard seat and concave soft seat combination increased flow rates but resulted in a really mushy IP lockup and generally poor longevity. (These pistons are replaced under warranty when problems achieving a good lockup occur.)

The latest design has returned to the reliable knife edged hard seat and incorporates a stainless stem and some sort of plastic or nylon piston head. The primary benefit is that it limits head transfer through the piston head and reduces the area where ice can form on the piston. The other benefit is that it prevents the ss piston from eventually wearing the chrome off the top of the compression chamber.

 

[kmorley]

Is this "extra O-ring floating in the chamber" method official SP or something some tech has come up with? If it's official, does anyone have the SB on it? it would be interesting to know SPs explantation and rationale.

Oh can anyone explain why Atomic regs which are so similar to SPs don't have the problem? Is it because there just aren't that many or is there some subtle difference between them?

 

[matt_unique]

Is this "extra O-ring floating in the chamber" method official SP or something some tech has come up with? If it's official, does anyone have the SB on it? it would be interesting to know SPs explantation and rationale.

Oh can anyone explain why Atomic regs which are so similar to SPs don't have the problem? Is it because there just aren't that many or is there some subtle difference between them?

The o-ring sits at the base of the cylinder. I would need to see it again to explain how it remains there. My shop called SP and was told by a tech at SP to make these adjustments.

I have not had a repeated free flow incident since my one experience. I have been deeper at the same temps (155' in 46 degree water) without problems.

--Matt

 

[DA Aquamaster]

SP is not exactly prolific in the release of service bulletins even though I cqan think of several areas where new or updated service bulletins are sorely needed.

The last one I received, and the last one on their site is SB 279 in April 2004 regarding the Uwatec quick disconnect.

 

[Bigzy]

Was diving in Lake Superior this weekend and had a partial free flow om my MK25 (Got it to stop by ascending 15 ft and really controlling my breathing). The next dive it free flowed and it ended up terminating my dive.

I was certified in 1976 and used the MK VII with out this problem even for ice diving because we filled the water chamber with silicone. Obviously this is not a practice that can be easily performed with the MK 25 but is there some type of after market enviromental kit out there made by SP or someone else??