Yep, you’re good. XTX50 is more affordable and just as good a reg. They’re often used for tech.
Upgrading to using a Pony tank.
- Thread starter CharlieW.112
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Yep, you’re good. XTX50 is more affordable and just as good a reg. They’re often used for tech.
caruso
Banned
This is a perfect situation for a BCD mounted regulator. It's always there, one less hose - which can get rather cumbersome on a recreational dive when you add the pony with it's own regulator, and for dives that might be more challenging you're going to be using the pony bottle so the odds of being in a situation where you'll ever even need to use the BCD mounted regulator are remote.
yep it would be nice to have the best reg you can afford as a primary... if using it on pony one will rarely ever get to use it except for training purposes.
the reason I am using the xtx50 on the pony is the left hand hose option which makes it easier to use as a pony reg on left side and I can differentiate it immediately from other regs in zero vis. If not wanting to have it left handed I could just as well change my current main reg (atx40) to the pony and have the xtx50 as a primary.
one thing to consider when purchasing multiple reg sets for primary and pony is that they are easier to maintain and one can interchange the parts quite freely if purchasing compatible sets from the beginning. For example I could mix and match all the primaries and secondaries to different setups if needed, just making sure that the intermediate pressures are fine tuned correctly (the main set apeks ds4 +atx40 primary and octo, the pony setup apeks dst+xtx50) and it is very straightforward to get them serviced (or service them by yourself if that is an option) .
I have understood that it is usually possible to mix different manufacturer 1st and 2nd stages if fine tuning them enough to work together but it is nice to have for example all the spare parts compatible with all your reg sets etc so I would stick with the compatible models from same manufacturer just because of that when multiple sets are needed. Apeks would be nice for British and Northern European diving and should be easy to purchase for a good price in GB
Both methods have their advocates. Regardless of which method you choose, figure out exactly how you're going to handle an out-of-air scenario, both when you are out of air and when someone else is out of air, and practice it. If you have two secondaries to choose from--one supplied by your back gas and one supplied by your pony--you shouldn't have to spend even a second thinking which one to grab; it should be ingrained as a result of practice.
Depends on the size of the pony. If your second reg is only on the pony and the pony is an AL19, then it can be limiting in some circumstances. For example, I had an instabuddy new diver, first dive in ocean and first dive after OW, whose mouth piece came off, thought it was broken, and could not find her secondary. Captain had stuck it in her pocket and she was used to it being on a clip. Anyway she came to me quickly with out of air sign. Gave her my alternate and waited for her to calm down. Then we sorted things out and I found her regulator in her BCD pocket and put her on that. We were both on my HP 100 at 60 ft so plenty of time to sort things out. Once she was set up and relaxed we continued our dive. If I or her would have been on my pony which is an AL19 we would have had less time to deal with everything.
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