Welcome back to the Poseidon Forum!

[rsingler]

I want to know what the urban myths are. People should not tease juicy gossip and then not share!

Well, @Bigbella teased a common one in the second post - that Poseidon "blows at you", implying that the breaths are huge and less controlled than designs you can "sip" from.

The Xstream first stage design, coupled with a servo controlled second stage has unparalleled deep water performance. Indeed, the sheer size of the total gas outflow track in the second stage

(all credit to @Fibonacci for the wonderful art work)
allows for smooth gas delivery even at high gas density (say 135' on EAN28 on the Spiegel Grove in Key Largo, like thousands of divers every year).

So where did the myth come from?
The spec IP for the Xstream is 123. If you're from Texas, bigger is better, and everyone else is using 135-145, so "I'll just leave my first stage IP where I'm used to it, at 135 psi." When you do that, and the valve opens, you get lots of gas quickly. On top of that, going from 9 bar to 1 bar at the surface means a 9-fold expansion in gas from the hose. And on top of that, collapse of that blue valve insert against a higher IP is much more abrupt.
Now "sipping" from your reg is bad breathing technique anyway. Several little breaths exchange more "lung dead space" than a single, slower deep breath. But if that's what you're used to, when you open the valve in a high-IP Xstream you're going to get more gas than you expected, and you may become a hater. It's not wrong; it's just different.
At depth, the ratio of gas expansion falls way off, and the abruptness disappears at any IP. But if you tune the reg properly to 123 psi on a full tank, the design tendency of the first stage to have a slightly lower IP as tank pressure falls (like a piston, even though it's a diaphragm) means that it's much smoother at the beginning, and even better at the end.
Yes, it's an "on-off" breath cycle, but nothing like the urban myth would suggest when the reg is improperly tuned.

 

[pisauron]

Congratulations Robert that's great news!
And I am looking forward to joining the classes. This is definitely the way to go for Poseidon and I wish them luck and success in this path.

I wish we had Poseidon dealers in our country today, after all we are a major part of the brand origin.
In 1950's the first diving club in the Red Sea, Aquasport (Poseidon's old name) opened up by a Swedish-Israeli dive group & Elfstrom. The club still stands there today and the logo is still the same.

Come visit!

 

[happy-diver]

What an achievement

No ramps in your house anytime soon Boss!

Magnificent!

 

[Ezh]

Congratulations! That's funtastic!
Does that mean that we are going to get Regulator Geeks 5 with Poseidons?

 

[VsubT]

As good as Deep6 and HOG courses can be, some do not provide enough theory and tool handling basics to satisfy this major brand manufacturer.

@rsingler You've piqued my curiosity with this. I took the Deep6 regulator service course with @LandonL recently, and it covered everything I would expect for theory and tools over 2 days. Plus, there was an opportunity to service additional stages under supervision after the main sessions.

I'm a mechanical PE, so I tend to be a little more detailed in these areas. Is there anything specific you'd recommend that the Deep6 reg service course or materials doesn't cover?

Lance

 

[rsingler]

I feel a little badly about having even said that about Deep6 and @LandonL 's magnificent training operation. He and I had a chat since that first post, and he confirms that, just like your course recently (and just like my own Deep6 course, some years ago) the in-person training his instructors deliver must cover critical basics first, before moving on to the particulars of his regs. When I made my statement, it was as a hypothetical, and I was wrong. I wish my old HOG course, a long time ago, had had that level of instruction. Luckily, I was already a shop tech.
The point is, I've taken some really horrible manufacturers courses over the years. And Aqualung trains techs by e-Learning with no live instructor even present. So if you haven't been taught how to handle a pick, you're going to do damage, irrespective of how well you know the assembly steps. Manufacturers courses assume that you have the basics, and many of my courses had 30-50% of attendees who had never opened a reg before that morning! If they go back to a shop where they're now the only certified technician, that shop is going to have trouble.

Folks just don't learn how to service a reg at many manufacturer courses. They just learn what part goes where, what the torque values are (but not how to properly torque), and the company warranty rules.
It's tough since COVID that so much live instruction has gone to video format. On the good side, it extends training to areas of the world that have no access, and reduces your cost for travel and lodging.

When Poseidon implements its training of non-dive-shop-employee reg owners interested in certification, we need to come up with a way of ensuring that the basics have been covered first. An on-site seminar like Deep6's makes that easy, but logistically challenging to extend to more than a few folks. A few of us offer online training courses that cover theory and basics, that make an excellent prerequisite to a Poseidon initial certification course. But realistically, they're too long for someone who only wants to service one brand of reg.

I'm in discussions with Sweden to see if a tailored online course on the basics will be acceptable, to qualify for initial certification training without having worked in a dive shop or had other experience. More info to follow!
But if you've had a Deep6 in-person course, you qualify to take a Poseidon initial certification course.

 

[Bigbella]

Folks just don't learn how to service a reg at many manufacturer courses. They just learn what part goes where, what the torque values are (but not how to properly torque), and the company warranty rules.
It's tough since COVID that so much live instruction has gone to video format. On the good side, it extends training to areas of the world that have no access, and reduces your cost for travel and lodging.

Sadly, that assessment also extended to Poseidon, when Salt Blue was the distributor, and was the last in-person refresher that I attended, prior to the pandemic.

We disassembled and reassembled two pre-loosened first stages -- a 3960 and a 4790 model of the Xstream, along with Jetstream and Cyklon second stages; and the Xstream second innards were that of the VI or VII rebreather mouthpiece. My kit was actually missing a few parts, including a lower pin guide and the spring from the OP valve on the Xstream.

Who needs that?

Never mind, that most of the regulators that I had serviced in those previous few years, were not even covered, even though there was still manufacturer's support for them and plenty of older stock then for sale; so boning up the night before from the old manuals wasn't even necessary -- and there was no longer any short-answer test for expedited renewal of "recidivists" of years past.

Some service kits were replaced, but no one handled a torque wrench, aside from the instructor (who claimed that they otherwise had a habit of "disappearing"), via an overhead projector; and there was never any requirement to tune anything, though there was a brief demonstration on a portable bench.

Amusingly enough, a single Cyklon Assembly Tool was eventually passed from student to student for use, that day, in hot potato fashion -- all for US 250.00 . . .

 

[rsingler]

PDL is currently going through all the training kits in detail. I've got two on their way to me now.
My last course at DEMA was similar, sad to say. Given the price I used to pay as a Service Center for parts and kits, I think the focus of the prior US distributor may have been elsewhere.
Within reason, and given the propensity for expensive tools to occasionally sneak out of the meeting hall, PDL is committed to fixing this for all of you.
@PoseidonDiving.US

 

[TheCatFish]

Poseidon Diving Logistics, LLC, @PoseidonDiving.US has been given responsibility for Poseidon regulator and rebreather distribution, service and training in the US.
My name is Robert Singler, and I am Poseidon's Senior Technician Instructor Trainer for the US.

We want to welcome you back to the Poseidon manufacturer's forum! Going forward, we hope that this forum will be a place for you to get answers to your questions from folks who have direct contact with headquarters in Sweden.

We look forward to gradually dispelling some of the myths out there, to explaining why the unique designs of Poseidon's regulators have made them a reg of choice for many of the world's militaries, and how they meet certification standards at 600 feet.

I plan to gradually extend technician training beyond dive shops, so that interested owners can service their own gear and not have to rely on an unknown to service their life support equipment.

I will personally try to ensure that going forward, the technicians I train will service your regs with the same care and skill that I give to my own equipment.

Here's to the disappearance of urban myth!

I have been interested in learning regulator service skills. Wanted to get my LDS partnered but they were unable to set up a partnership so sadly I wasn't able to take the service course. If I could take the course as an individual without having to set up a sales agreement with my local shop and Poseidon then that would be fantastic!