Titanium piston for atomic t3?

[jdevic]

I recently sent my T3 for service for the first time and the technician advised me that he had to replace the piston due to corrosions. He found the IP unstable and eventually found the issue with the heavily damaged piston under the microscope. I suspect water got in on occasions when I left my gear with the dive shops I frequented to be taken care of after a dive day…

Curious - is the original piston made of titanium for T3? Or is it some generic metal part for all atomic regulators? Does it impact the service intervals?

Thanks very much!

 

[Johnoly]

Does it impact the service intervals?

There's several good threads on this issue by doing a search. But I started one thread with pictures that talks about the piston and the creep you mentioned.

Thread 'B2 regulator piston & IP creep'

Feb 23, 2025

This is just a fun post, nothing much to learn and really a 'show & tell' if you just want to skip to the pictures below instead. I don't rebuild my B2 regs myself and I leave it to a couple of techs when my IP starts slowly creeping from 135 up to 150. Then I'm swapping to another B2 reg set until my favorite primary can get rebuilt. In the last couple of rebuilds, instead of the IP lasting 250 dives at 2 years, I was only getting about 125 dives & 1 yr til the 'Creep' showed up. Scotch pad buff & cleaning sometimes just won't work on scratches. I had read and watched @rsingler 's...

• Johnoly
• Replies: 13
• Forum: Regulators

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[jdevic]

Thank you. I think my main curiosity is that if the piston itself in T3 is made of Titanium - in that case i assume Atomic would cover it under lifetime warranty.

I just found a service diagram for T3 - it seems the piston has Monel printed on it. Thus, i guess it is not a titanium part to begin with.

I have no issue with the technician replacing it and me paying for it.. just didnt want to lose out a titanum part due to the replacement.

 

[emoreira]

Reading the T3 specs in the Atomic Aquatics web site Atomic Aquatics T3 Regulator many of those promises were false, at least in your case. Nice to have a Titanium first stage if all parts were made of titanuim so as the remarkable properties of titanium and price are kept consistent.
If only the exterior part is made of titanium and the parts in contact with water are not, what is the use to spend such a price if it will rust as any other ?

 

[jdevic]

Reading the T3 specs in the Atomic Aquatics web site Atomic Aquatics T3 Regulator many of those promises were false, at least in your case. Nice to have a Titanium first stage if all parts were made of titanuim so as the remarkable properties of titanium and price are kept consistent.
If only the exterior part is made of titanium and the parts in contact with water are not, what is the use to spend such a price if it will rust as any other ?

https://scubaboard.com/community/attachments/t3-din-first-stage-pdf.713946/

Yes, I was surprised it was Titanium/Monel for first stage.
So far, I felt my buddy’s scubapro Ti reg is a lot easier. I constantly had to worry about the diveshop and helpers on liveaboard to soak my reg by accident.

 

[lexvil]

Monel is great for the piston and higher O2, the swivel bolt too so it doesn’t go into never coming apart lockdown that happened with some ti Atomics .

 

[jdevic]

I just got the reg back from the shop. Based on the part number 01-0102-5P on the box and included printout of Service Bulletin #4B from 2008, the piston is 01-0022-00 instead of 01-0022-MO (newer version with Monel printed on it - same as the old part they replaced). I assume it is okay?

The old bulletin in the box says 01-0022-00 is for "Jet seat system starting 01/2002 - All B2, Z2, M1 & T2".
But this one on Scubaboard below says 01-0022-00 is for B1/B2, and 01-0022-MO for T1x, T1, M1?

https://scubaboard.com/community/attachments/atomic-1st-stage-pdf.576289

I assume they are all interchangable? but maybe different materials, e.g. brass vs monel?