Swivel recall/time to change

[John_B]

All kidding aside, I see no use for a swivel on scuba hoses at all.

??? There is one on the inside of every second stage you own, where the hose attaches. Its the reason you have to have two wrenches to swap hoses. Its there to allow the regulator to adjust up or down (assuming the hose is parallel to the ground) so that it doesn't tug at the mouthpiece at some funny angle.

 

[Randy43068]

tue, so why in the world would one want to add another one?

 

[Nemrod]

Sure it makes sense. One unsafe practice upon another. What the hell, if diving solo then who cares how many failure points on has in his gear.

All kidding aside, I see no use for a swivel on scuba hoses at all. I've also seen people bail on dives because the damn thing has a problem. I've seen them leaking while underwater.. I also see no need whatsoever for the thing.

The 90 degree elbow swivel does not suffer from the potential unscrewing or O rig extrusion that the common universal swivel is prone to. There is no real increase in failure points. There is an increase in comfort.

I have a built in comfort meter, when I was a child my front teeth were knocked out (a long a gruesome story). I have implanted front teeth, any tugging on them leads to pain and nauseating headaches. This is one reason why I prefer double hose regulators, the mouthpiece does not tug and has no weight to it underwater. I also is benifited greatly by using the swivel connectors and in particular the 90 degree elbow is an excellent way to increase my comfort without any real increase in failure. I have NEVER seen a first stage failure at the swivel--ever. Now, I have seen a universal swivel fail but only once. Again, the 90 degree elbow we are talking about does not have the failure mode the universal swivel has. It is not the same beast at all.

Solo diving is not any more dangerous than any other type of diving BTW. Rants to the contrary are without merit.

N

 

[D_B]

An elbow is no different than the fitting that your reg already has, as has already been pointed out.
I have a swivel at my reg, but I did some research here and got one made by M&J Engineering (Poseidon) which is a higher quality than those low cost chrome ones
but .. with the 42" hose routed under my arm, it stays at a 90* angle and I'm ether going to replace it with one, or a Miflex hose which would render any swivel unnecessary

 

[Randy43068]

I know I rant about the "long hose" but it really is a simple device that eliminates lots of issues. Even if you never plan on donating your regulator the long hose would solve the issue you talk about.

I fully understand why people use elbows, swivels and all sorts of other connectors but INMHO they don't really need to if they just re-think the "system."

And that's all I got to say about that.............

 

[John_B]

tue, so why in the world would one want to add another one?

You probably don't. Its simply not needed with the 5' long hose for recreational diving.

But there are those that don't use the long hose (for whatever reason). In that case, to make the bungeed backup work to its best for recreational diving you need to have the primary on a 40" hose routed under your right arm (El Guapo open water style), which results in a considerable amount of downward pull on the regulator. Some people fix that with a 90° elbow that uses the exact same captured o-ring design that is in virtually every second stage on the market.

Personally, I'd rather see a purely recreational diver use a bungeed backup with that configuration (with an easy path to the long hose at some later point) than to have them use the other two "reg+octo" or "reg+Air2" configurations. Since we are talking about people who aren't DIR anyway, its IMO a matter of degrees.

 

[Randy43068]

Yes John, I agree with you. What I learned about the long hose was from DIR, however, they didn't invent the long hose. Even if one doesn't subscribe to DIR I would think common sense could play a part in equipment choice.

I have to admit that it's pretty black and white to me but I'm looking at this from an engineering perspective not really DIR. If one can make some simple design changes to eliminate a few parts then that's a good thing. The freebies from the simple design change are ( long hose, bungeed backup ) are 1) low jaw stress/fatiuge. 2) increased realibailty. 3) No need to find a way to capture the safe second because it's always close by, under the chin. I'm sure there are other advantages that aren't coming to mind at the moment.

The downside.. the long hose has to be dealt with by keeping it clipped off when not using it.

To me, it's not really DIR not DIR at all. The DIR folks didn't invent the long hose configuartion, but it's a good one.

Gee, I guess I had more to say about it afterall.

You probably don't. Its simply not needed with the 5' long hose for recreational diving.

But there are those that don't use the long hose (for whatever reason). In that case, to make the bungeed backup work to its best for recreational diving you need to have the primary on a 40" hose routed under your right arm (El Guapo open water style), which results in a considerable amount of downward pull on the regulator. Some people fix that with a 90° elbow that uses the exact same captured o-ring design that is in virtually every second stage on the market.

Personally, I'd rather see a purely recreational diver use a bungeed backup with that configuration (with an easy path to the long hose at some later point) than to have them use the other two "reg+octo" or "reg+Air2" configurations. Since we are talking about people who aren't DIR anyway, its IMO a matter of degrees.

 

[beanojones]

I guess I am just an oddball then. It's the hogarthian 5'/7' hose that I use the swivel on. I hate the way that hose tugs without it. I even bought a Sherwood Maximus with the built in swivel for just this use.

I much prefer a Air2/Shadow type backup just to keep the confusion down for the people who are trying to figure out my gear. When I have to give my long hose away, the tug of the Air2/Shadow is really no big deal. It's usually at a safety stop anyway. But that sort of tugging during a dive bugs me.

 

[Randy43068]

Maybe I don't fully understand the issue. I can't imagine pulling on your jaw with a 7 footer and it looped around your neck.

 

[beanojones]

Maybe I don't fully understand the issue. I can't imagine pulling on your jaw with a 7 footer and it looped around your neck.

I think it's pretty clear I need to invest in some Miflex hoses.