What is the best regulator for cold water?

[a22shady]

Scubapro MK17/G250V works wonders for me here in the Northeast. I also own a set of Atomic M1's which I had into the Low 40's with no issues. BUt I believe the Scubapro set is a better coldwater as it is a true sealed reg Vs Atomic Enviro sealed Piston which basically packs it's chamber with Tribo/crstolube and acts as anti-frereze protection. It works well and have not had an issues with either just more of a chance albeit very slim one for water to enter into M1 and freeze. I do dive with both and have no worries when on either one. Just asked for the best coldwater so can only be one Just my opinon

 

[Crock]

Anything other than Apeks will kill you...

As you can see by the above posts there are lots of great cold water regs. Make sure you know what sorts of temps you'll actually be diving in. Some folks classify anything less than 70F as cold water (and therefore parts of Mexico - which I find ridiculous) but I call my waters cold water (~50F) and then read about some Quebec divers routinely in 35F. :shocked2:

Look for environmentally sealed, a good track record of cold performance, ease of service in your area. A diver adjustable knob (venturi assist, breather booster, whatever) on the second stage - to help reduce chance of free flow - is probably a good idea, but I'm not a tech and I could be way off base with that one. There are many good regs, new and old, that fill the bill for a decent price.

VI

Thank you all for the posts. I do dive in the great lakes and need a reg that will not fail in the middle of a December dive.

 

[Crock]

The ultimate for cold or even ice diving is the Poseidon Xtreme, in this navy test article I read before, it was the only reg to never freeflow:

"At the other end of the spectrum, the Poseidon Xstreme was the only regulator that suffered no free flows at McMurdo, and is also the only regulator that never free flowed during NEDU's rigorous 2004 testing program for cold water regulators." (about 80% down in the article)

The United States Navy Experimental Diving Unit: Testing in Antartica

The best answer yet. Everyone should read this article it answers it all. Thank you for the link.

 

[Graeme Tolton]

All of my cold water dives to date are in the great lakes. That being said, any regulator can fail. Any dive in water that is in the 30's or low 40's, you should have a redundant air source, such as doubles, a pony or a stage.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

The Royal Aqua Master (or Phoenix RAM)... both the first stage and second stage are environmentally sealed. During normal operation, water never touches any moving part.

Nobody bothered to comment on Luis' post on the Royal Aquamaster or Phoenix Royal Aquamaster. I wonder why? Is it that you can only think of the regulator in today's terms, and not in terms of the double hose regulator? The Aquamaster has been proven in Antarctica, the Arctic, and anywhere else that there is extremely cold, but still liquid, water. When Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the Potomac River in 1982, according to the news reports I read at the time the US Navy started diving in dry suits through the ice with the new diving helmets, and resorted to thick wet suits with double hose (Aquamaster) regulators to finish the job. This was because the dry suits were cut to shreds by the aircraft wreckage, whereas the wet suits when cut only cooled the specific area of the cut. The double hose regulators did not freeze as the new equipment did. I have done a bit of on-line work, and not found any specific references to this, but remember it from seeing the news reports and the footage of the salvage efforts on national TV.

There is simply no way that any single hose regulator (even with backups) can be as safe from freeze-up under ice as an Aquamaster, as the second stage mechanism is always subject to the diver's moist exhalations. They can be made better (Dacor coated their second stages with teflon, and Sherwood has the Blizzard with its heating element). But none of these single hose designs has the first and second stages totally and completely isolated from water like the Royal Aquamaster does.

Carson Dive Report

Footage.net - Search Results for Air Florida 90
(This has footage of the recovery attempts, but I don't know how to get into it.)

SeaRat

 

[Thalassamania]

Up until fairly recently the only regulators approved for use in the Antarctic were double hoses, but there are single hose regs that will serve as well.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Up until fairly recently the only regulators approved for use in the Antarctic were double hoses, but there are single hose regs that will serve as well.

Thalassamania,

Do you know whether the O-rings used in single hose regulators are tested and work well in cold water temperatures (below 35 degrees F)?

I ask because it occurred to me that one thing the Aquamaster and Royal Aquamaster have in common is that they contain no O-rings (actually, I think the RAM has one O-ring in the first stage for the balancing of the seat). I also remember Physicist Richard Feynman's finding after the Challenger accident that the O-rings used for the solid fuel rocket boosters were hard at freezing temperatures and would not change shape.

YouTube - Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion - O-Ring causes accident

YouTube - Richard Feynman talks about the O ring

SeaRat

 

[NC Wreck Diver]

I've had no trouble with my ScubaPro regs in cold water. The MK-25/A700 was great, and my MK-10/G250, which is now my octopus reg on my isolation manifold worked flawlessly. Tested at Dutch Springs, starting in early April 2010. Reported water temp at depth was in the low 40's.

The MK-25(open to the enviroment) is new, and the MK-10 is 20 years old.

 

[Gilldiver]

This site is from 2000 but goes into McMurdo diving with Sherwood Maximus regs.

Diving Under Antarctic Ice

 

[Swampdonkey]

GS 2000 from Genesis. I have only dove those in Lake Superior and found they perform flawlessly in the low 30's and high 50's of summer diving in Superior. The shop owner use to dive the titan version of the that reg till he received as a gift sr 1 but he still talks about how good the gs2000 is in cold water diving.