SPG of choice?

[Rhone Man]

Thinking ahead to a potential trimix course this year, I am wondering if the SPGs that I have on my regulators are inadequate. I tend to buy cheap Sherwood SPGs and just replace them regularly. For the depths I go to, that is fine, but I worry that going deeper they may "stick", or worse yet, implode.

Any views on the subject?

 

[Tortuga68]

I own OMS, Highland, 2x Dive Rong and 2x Halcyon brass and glass 2.5" SPGs - they're all made by the same company, Termo Industria in Italy

So my suggestion would be to buy the cheapest 2.5" B&G one you can find, as it will probably also be made by them... you can find them for <$50 if you look around

If you use PSI (ick) you can get HOG-branded ones from http://www.piranhadivemfg.com/item/HOG-White-Face-2-Spg-w--One-Spool-2357 when they have their next sale

 

[Cave Diver]

I've taken standard DiveRite brass and glass below 200' on numerous occasions and even one jaunt below 300' with no issues. I can't recall ever looking at a Sherwood, but spg issues probably wont rank that high on your list of concerns under normal trimix depths.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I like the old 3500 psi (on stage and deco bottles) and 5000 psi (for back gas) Scubapro SPGs. They come in black and white faces and the black ones are great for cave diving.

They are normally very cheap on e-bay ($5-15) but sometimes they may require some work. The crown is normally badly scratched and it takes about 5 minutes work with a dremmel tool and a buffing wheel to polish the crown and restore it's clarity. Being a used gauge, you also need to test them for accuracy (they are well built and in my experience any given ebay purchased SPG of this model has about an 80% chance of being accurate within +/- 50 psi.) The biggest potential issue is that the o-ring sealing the crown to the base may be cracked and will then leak. If so, it can also be very difficult to remove the crown to replace the o-ring.

I did have one leak on a sub 200' dive and by dive buddy noted what he thought was a glycerin filled SPG at depth and thought it was pretty cool. One thing to note here though is that flooding one of the old Scubapro SPGs does not result in it failing to work - and as long as you drain it within a day or so, rinse it and dry it before repalcing the o-ring and putting it back in service no harm results.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

This doesn't seem at all like T2T thread....

 

[Cave Diver]

This doesn't seem at all like T2T thread....

The forum is open to posting. Feel free to start a thread on something you'd like to discuss and be the change you'd like to see.

 

[Rhone Man]

The reason I thought to post it here related to a story I had read in a British diving magazine about a diver who found at about 450 feet that his SPG 'stuck' because the glass pressed so hard against the needle. I was hoping to get a sense of how deep one has to go before that becomes a potential problem (if you have a cheap SPG).

 

[Dive-aholic]

Does Sherwood even make a brass & glass?? If not, then, yes, you need different gauges.

 

[PfcAJ]

Get some good, brass and glass spgs. The little ones are good for stages.

The plastic ones break, but are super light. As far as sticking goes, I've heard the same thing, but never experienced it.


This post is in honor of SuPerBuGmAn, because he things the entire thread is silly

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I hear the ones with H's on them are good for any depth, unless at that depth with air... in which case they collectively decide not to participate in any gas reading shinanigans anymore.