The New Atomic TFX

[RobPNW]

It’s only money

With the build quality and materials, it appears to have an advertised 300 dive maintenance cycle which sounds like 2-3 times recommended on other EOM regulators. Yeah, I know people get more dives than the recommended cycle, but trying to compare apples to apples. Maybe doing the maintenance half as often offsets the upfront cost a little.

PS- notice how I'm trying to talk myself into it?

 

[lexvil]

With the build quality and materials, it appears to have an advertised 300 dive maintenance cycle which sounds like 2-3 times recommended on other EOM regulators. Yeah, I know people get more dives than the recommended cycle, but trying to compare apples to apples. Maybe doing the maintenance half as often offsets the upfront cost a little.

PS- notice how I'm trying to talk myself into it?

I think they do the 3 year thing on all of the titanium models, i think you should just do it.

 

[Joneill]

I think they do the 3 year thing on all of the titanium models, i think you should just do it.

Yup — same as T3

 

[BoltSnap]

notice how I'm trying to talk myself into it?

Yeah, keep up the good work

 

[buddhasummer]

With the build quality and materials, it appears to have an advertised 300 dive maintenance cycle which sounds like 2-3 times recommended on other EOM regulators. Yeah, I know people get more dives than the recommended cycle, but trying to compare apples to apples. Maybe doing the maintenance half as often offsets the upfront cost a little.

PS- notice how I'm trying to talk myself into it?

I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't buy one

 

[RobPNW]

I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't buy one

Dang enablers

 

[buddhasummer]

Dang enablers

You're welcome

 

[RobPNW]

Question on the "seat saver" feature on the 2nd stage. If you wash the reg after removing from the tank (ie depressurized), is there a chance of water getting back into the hose? Obviously, you don't want to touch the purge valve. I just talking about the actual seat saver feature.

 

[rsingler]

Question on the "seat saver" feature on the 2nd stage. If you wash the reg after removing from the tank (ie depressurized), is there a chance of water getting back into the hose?

While the seat saver feature is not spring-loaded like on the T3, the orifice is indeed not held in place, but "floats" on its o-ring. That said, the spring-loaded poppet above it still presses down on the seat from above even when unpressurized. It may be that the seat moves back ~0.5mm when unpressurized, but I think that only decreases spring force on the seat by an insignificant amount.
Bottom line is, I don't really know how much ambient water pressure in your sink that residual spring pressure would withstand.

But as an owner of barrel design Atomic second stages with the "Wave Spring" that actively separates the orifice from the seat, I don't sweat it anyway. I don't soak things pressurized. The only care I take is 1) to not let boat crew dunk the whole reg set in the wash tank upon return, and 2) to soak the first and second stages separately.
By that I mean first soaking the first stage in the sink with the connected second stage up on the counter. You can squeegee flush the ambient holes and soak it overnight (assuming, God forbid, that your first stage is unsealed). In my case, I just rinse off the exterior of my sealed firsts, and move on.

Now just switch! Leave the first stage up on the counter and soak the second. Push the purge button all you want. Water is only going to rise in the hose a few inches.

I then hang everything from a towel ring and let it drain. The first stage is high and the seconds are hanging low.

As for the TFX, all this care may not be necessary. The spring may apply enough pressure to keep things closed. After all, when I inhale on my unconnected TFX, I can draw air, but only after an initial slight resistance, unlike my T3. So I think the spring is good for 6" of sink water.

 

[rsingler]

Well, I tested the regs on the magnehelic with no first stage attached. As expected, the T3 flowed air on gentle inhalation, and I was able to measure flow a low as 0.6" WC. There was probably flow even lower than that, confirming the open valve due to the wave spring.

The TFX registered flow but not before 1.5" WC of suck (the valve is tuned to 0.8" with IP present). There's clearly no seat saver in that floating orifice, but instead just a light spring typical of center-balanced valves. So if you carefully flooded the regulator from the side so as to not inadvertently open the valve with the diaphragm low in the water column, water pressure at the bottom of the sink from the mouthpiece side would add to the spring pressure and keep the valve closed. In other words, with careful immersion (due to the novel shape of this reg) there's no problem that I can see dunking everything in the sink together unpressurized (obviously with a first stage inlet plug).