What is a wet regulator?

[ColdH2Odvr]

Slightly off topic but…
Some time ago on a dive trip I started to develop a nagging cough. I didn’t have a cold, I just couldn’t seem to clear the nagging tickle in the top of my chest. After a few days it looked like I would have to write the trip off. My dive buddy hit on the idea that it was a leak in my reg. Turns out I had developed a pinhole leak in my mouthpiece.

Moral of the story: Be careful with a leaking reg, mucus + seawater = foam.

 

[DiverBuoy]

Atomic's top end is the best regulator on the market. It's been improved further with an even more improved 1st stage piston.

One key to air delivery at depth is a higher intermediate stage pressure. Medium to low end regulators may deliver 75 psi after the first stage, and cannot perform consistently.

A few quality top end models use a piston 1st stage and a balanced second stage and may deliver 125 psi or more (up to 225+ for ScubaPro MX25T/S600T) - all that pressure just sitting there waiting for you to need it

Test:
Try breathing 4 times faster than normal (approximate a heavier workload) in 25fsw - if you have to pull your breath in really hard after doing this for about 30 seconds your reg can't deliver at depth. I definitely don't recommend going deeper - if you have a problem that increases your workload - you could be in serious trouble.

 

[jonnythan]

DiverBuoy once bubbled...
Test:
Try breathing 4 times faster than normal (approximate a heavier workload) in 25fsw - if you have to pull your breath in really hard after doing this for about 30 seconds your reg can't deliver at depth. I definitely don't recommend going deeper - if you have a problem that increases your workload - you could be in serious trouble.

I'd recommend *not* doing this. Hyperventilating and going into alkalosis is not what you want to be doing at almost 2 atmospheres of pressure.

 

[redacted]

DiverBuoy once bubbled...

One key to air delivery at depth is a higher intermediate stage pressure. Medium to low end regulators may deliver 75 psi after the first stage, and cannot perform consistently.

A few quality top end models use a piston 1st stage and a balanced second stage and may deliver 125 psi or more (up to 225+ for ScubaPro MX25T/S600T) - all that pressure just sitting there waiting for you to need it

I'm not sure I understand how depth effects IP. I thought the ambient chamber in the first stage compensated for the change in ambient pressures at depth. That is, a 1st stage set for 135 psi at the surface is really delivering gas with an overpressure of 120 psi. And this 120 psi overpressure remains essentially constant regardless of depth because the ambient chamber compensates for the ambient pressure.

My edit: I guess I wasn't thinking clearly on this. If you set the IP at 135, the IP guage is already corrected for ambient. So an IP of 135 should be maintained throughout the operating range of the 1st stage, not 120.

It is also my understanding that Scubapro 1st stages (including the Mk25T) have an IP specification of 125 to 145 psi.

 

[scubafanatic]

........some have said side exhaust regs breathe " wet ".......that may be true of the Dacor Viper series, but is as wrong as wrong can be concerning Odins.....I can't get any water under ANY conditions inside the 2nd stages (unless I take it out of my mouth!)

It is dry as a bone in every conceivable position/attitude......I loaned one to a Dive Instructor during our Scientific Diving Class @ Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, TX (he was diving a Viper but wanted to try an Odin)...he actually complained it was too dry!

My Mares Voltrex MR16's and Mares Ruby are also completely dry in any conceivable position.....and these are 'conventional' 2nd stages.

My point is that intelligently designed 2nd stages will be totally 'dry' breathers.....if they breathe 'wet' then you either have a poorly designed 2nd stage......or a defective one........there is no rule-of-physics that mandates 2nd stages must breathe 'wet' under certain conditions.

 

[DNAXdiver]

Nothing wrong with Poseidon regs they are among the very top performing though they are idiosynchratic (I'll let you chck the sp on that) and pricey and hard to service. However they do have a side exhaust valve and side exhaust valves tend to let a few drops in everytime they open close and don't clear it out as naturally as a conventional reg because they don't let gravity help them. Like I said a design tradeoff. To all those Pos fans who will dispute this let me just say if the current crop are so perfect why did Pos go to a conventional exhaust valve on their new reg?

Sydney_Diver once bubbled...


Hi there
Two things
What is wrong the Poseidon Regs? The Jet Streams are one of, if not the best deep regs on the market, and I will take them above most others.

Secondly, can you please use a spell checker before posting on here, I have never seen so many spelling mistakes in one post

 

[scubafanatic]

.......well, I've had the good fortune of having a Poseidon expert service my Odins, so I've never experienced any of the 'quirks' some have reported......I would think any badly tuned reg would exhibit 'quirks' .......so such problems are common to all regs if poorly maintained/serviced.

........I'm not a blind Poseidon loyalist, and I'm not really impressed with the new Extreme series, since they've reduced the number of HP and LP ports on the 1st stage, which is a step in the wrong direction......another 'issue' I have with the Extreme series is the 2nd stage purge button is somewhat 'hidden', which to me is a step backwards, since I think it's important in an OOA situation for another diver to immediately and instinctively be able to find the purge button.......Poseidon made a similiar mistake with the now-discontiuned Triton....they put the purge on the 'top' of the 2nd stage, which flew in the face of traditional practice, making it difficult to find in a panic situation.

....I don't know why the Extreme went to a "conventional exhaust valve" on the 2nd stage, but, as I've said before., I've never had a speck of trouble with any water whatsover getting into the Odin 2nd stages.

As far as price, the real world price of the Odin is competitive with the world's other 'mid-priced' regs.....Leisure Pro has the 1st stage + 2 2nd stages for sale for about $400, which is the same as other 'mid-priced' regs.

 

[oxyhacker]

You are absolutely right. The IP setting for a 1st is above ambient, and since all regs (SC rebreathers notwithstanding) are ambient compensated should remain consistently so as long as there is enough pressure in the tank to do so. That is to say, at 100 feet the IP measured in psia (absolute pressure, includes ambient) of a reg with a 125 PSIG (gauge pressure) IP should be about 125psi (IP setting) + 15 psi (sea level ambient) + 45 psi (one atmosphere/15psi for each 33") = 185 psia. And just about all regs except some very old ones and a few Poseidons run IPs in the same range, as you point out.

So what is Diverbuoy talking about? I don't have a clue, but he may be alluding to the fact that the "official" IP of a regulator is set in a static state, and that in actual use, high demand situations especially, a reg may never actually achieve its IP because the air is being taken out so fast the the IP never fully recovers, and this can cause a major performance hit. Take a cheap/old reg (a Dacor Dart works great!), put it on an IP gauge and breath it quickly, and the IP will drop down 20-30 psi. Do the same thing with a top balance piston or diaphragm reg and it will fluctuate maybe 10 psi and recover much quicker. However, only the cheapest and oldest regs are really bad in this regard, and neither BP or SP regs have any clear cut advantage in this regard.

Oh, and the 2nd stage being balanced or not has no effect on the IP.

awap once bubbled...


I'm not sure I understand how depth effects IP. I thought the ambient chamber in the first stage compensated for the change in ambient pressures at depth. That is, a 1st stage set for 135 psi at the surface is really delivering gas with an overpressure of 120 psi. And this 120 psi overpressure remains essentially constant regardless of depth because the ambient chamber compensates for the ambient pressure.

My edit: I guess I wasn't thinking clearly on this. If you set the IP at 135, the IP guage is already corrected for ambient. So an IP of 135 should be maintained throughout the operating range of the 1st stage, not 120.

It is also my understanding that Scubapro 1st stages (including the Mk25T) have an IP specification of 125 to 145 psi.

DiverBuoy once bubbled...

One key to air delivery at depth is a higher intermediate stage pressure. Medium to low end regulators may deliver 75 psi after the first stage, and cannot perform consistently.

A few quality top end models use a piston 1st stage and a balanced second stage and may deliver 125 psi or more (up to 225+ for ScubaPro MX25T/S600T) - all that pressure just sitting there waiting for you to need it