horsemen:
i sitting hear looking at diff website at diff regulators and octos and all this good stuff and i have no clue how to hook all the hoses up because this wasn't covered in class ya i know how to put it on the tank but buying it and and hooking all the hoses up no clue i sure its easy but i think it should be covered
I don't teach my Open Water students how to change out hoses in a regulator. It's beyond the scope of the class, and we have a lot of other material to cover in the time frame allotted for the class. This is something you can either ask your LDS staff to show you, or learn from a mentor, or learn in a follow-on class. To use an analogy, when you took driver's ed, did they teach you how to fix a flat, or change the oil in your car? Probably not. That doesn't mean they should ... it's not the purpose of the class.
On the other hand, I would have no problem showing a student how to do it outside the scope of a class, where we could spend a bit of time in the shop just sitting around asking and answering questions like the ones you're posing here. But in OW class, there's already so much going on that most students have difficulty retaining it all.
horsemen:
and a just wondering thing
has anyone used a 2 regulator as a octo i know they cost so much more but wondering if anyone used 2 regs or to octos instead of a reg no i would not do the to octos but just wondering if anyone has
Yes, I use two regular second stages on most of my regulators. The difference between an regulator and an octopus is generally that the octopus is "detuned" to breathe less sensitively. That's to prevent it from free-flowing when you get in the water. But many regulators come with "tuning" knobs where you can set the adjustment on the diaphragm that determines how well the regulator will breathe. You can set it all the way tight, so that the regulator won't free-flow. But if you do that, as part of your normal buddy check, you should explain that to your buddy ... because if you have to use it, it won't breathe very easily and you have to loosen up the knob in order for it to perform properly.
If you breathe off your regular second stage, then breathe off your octopus, you'll often (depending on model) notice that the octopus is noticeably harder to breathe off of ... that is why.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
