Those of you with two or more..

[JohnnyH]

I use my wife as the ultimate excuse. I purchase two of everything - one for her and one for me. Then, when I config for tech, lo and behold - what's this!? Why, Amy - I could just use YOUR gear in my kit and not have to purchase more stuff. See, you've saved me money. Thank you for being sich a good wife...

Now, if I only had kids I'd be able to play with all those toys I'm missing out on...

john

 

[911Diver]

I use them all regularly.

The downside to owning that much gear is that it's bloody expensive ... or time-consuming ... to keep it all maintenanced.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

You raise a good point... doing annual maintenace on them has to be ridiculous.. unless you do your own, but still parts must add up after a while. Now do you still do the annual on items that you do not use every year.. is that good owning practices.. do you do each item each year or do you keep some items only on a need by need basis???

 

[do it easy]

You raise a good point... doing annual maintenace on them has to be ridiculous.. unless you do your own, but still parts must add up after a while. Now do you still do the annual on items that you do not use every year.. is that good owning practices.. do you do each item each year or do you keep some items only on a need by need basis???

If you've already racked up thousands of dollars worth of gear, a few hundred dollars in parts each year is a very small part of it.

The hard part about DIY maintenance is the time! I just spent a little over 3 hours O2 cleaning and rebuilding a pair of AL80s. I have 8 tanks, so that's 12 hours of tank service alone. I must be the slowest O2 cleaner around.

Some items get serviced yearly. I was experimenting with longer service intervals for some things, but I think that is a little on the long side for as often as I dive.

 

[Vie]

Those of you with two or more sets of BC's/Regs/.. equipment in general. I have a question.

What is your reason/motive for keeping extra?

Well, it's always good to have spares, imho. I have extra wings and regs (identical to my primary sets) that I can use as spares for myself and my team (when we pool our spares, we pretty much end up with at least one extra of everything, except fins...), especially during trips (liveaboard, for instance) where a quick/temporary repair to certain items is not possible. Of course having a bunch of friends all using compatible gear helps.

Also, I can lend my spares to visiting friends so that they do not have to bring dive gear when they visit me.

 

[Damselfish]

I tend to keep the smaller stuff or things I might take as spares when traveling, including a backup reg. But I'm trying not to be a packrat and actually have a pile of stuff set aside I mean to sell one of these days.

I don't keep BCs as they take up more space, and since I don't dive locally anymore I wouldn't have much use for them. I've sold a couple, and I had one that one that was so beat I cut it up for parts for my sewing stash - I got tons of straps/buckles/rings off that thing.

 

[Rick Murchison]

You raise a good point... doing annual maintenace on them has to be ridiculous.. unless you do your own, but still parts must add up after a while. Now do you still do the annual on items that you do not use every year.. is that good owning practices.. do you do each item each year or do you keep some items only on a need by need basis???

DISCLAIMER - If you pay any attention to me you'll void your warranty, ruin your gear, and DIE! The following is provided for entertainment purposes only - I do NOT recommend that any of you do stuff my way
Let's see here... how to say this without sounding flippant or careless or overly cynical... maintenance schedules are for the lowest common denominator. They are designed to maintain safety in the neglected and abused product, to protect the manufacturer from lawsuits and to give the maintainer steady business as much as to actually cover needed parts replacement. A regulator that hits the salt water a couple of times a year and then gets thrown in a closet needs annual maintenance. But frequent inspection, diligent care in handling, cleaning and storage, and attention to performance and minor adjustments can cut way, way down on "scheduled" maintenance.
Warranty issues aside (you must comply with the maintenance schedule if you want to maintain your warranty), many pieces of gear that are properly cared for can go many years between overhauls. I have a regulator, for example, that's had two overhauls in over 35 years of reliable service, and one of those was because of an intentional salt water flood while changing a blown tank valve o-ring on a stage at 90'.
So... by paying attention, and doing my own, I can keep the maintenance issue manageable. And I have my tanks spread out so that I do a couple of VIPs every month and have one or two in hydro every quarter.
I will say this - if you're not a born futzer* who relishes constantly "messing with" equipment, you don't want to accumulate anywhere near the pile that many of us have accumulated over the years.
Rick

*futz - v. to constantly inspect, adjust, tweak, improve, clean, polish, examine, adjust, tweak, improve, adjust...
futzer - n. one who futzes. see Hogarth, William ... Main

 

[ClayJar]

I have different gear for different applications (a jacket for pool classes, a BP/W for my own diving; fins for wet, dry, and speed; et cetera). Of course, that also means that I can equip a buddy if I need to.

In the past week, I've had opportunity to load or use just about *everything* I have on one dive or another. The ongoing utility is far greater than the meager one-time price used gear might get.

 

[leapfrog]

1. I need to be good to go at an hour's notice.
2. Piece of equipment most frequently lost: mask during teaching on the surface. I always take 2 everywhere.
3. I use very low profile masks for teaching (less water to clear) but I prefer my MAUI for pleasure.
3. Sometimes it's great to take some of the old equipment back out for a dive. Reminds me of "the old days".

 

[Garrobo]

Being a Dacor freak, I've bought a lot of first and second stages and kits off Ebay and rebuilt them. I planned to keep a couple just for backup but can't seem to let go of the shiny chrome stuff. Same with wetsuits. I've got eight different wetsuits from 1/2 mm skin to 3 mm shorties and full bodies. Just can't let them go. Same with fins. I've got four sets in different configurations. Two Catalina tanks and two BCD's also. Here comes three knives and two sets of sausage kits. There's much more. Help me. Please.

 

[Jimmer]

I have 8 regs and 2 backplate systems. Same reason as most, one setup for tech, with double tanks and regs as well as an argon reg and stage regs, plus one backplate with a single tank wing and a reg. I actually have 2 single tank regs, one is "conventional" with a standard length octo and primary hose, the other is hogarthian and is the one I use 95% of the time I'm diving a single tank.