Which regulator buy with around $400?

[elan]

Yes Zeagle Flathead VI is good. I use mines in very cold water on my doubles

 

[Couv]

If you are determined to keep the useless and expensive warranty intact, you must follow the manufactures suggested service interval. However, whether or not you want to keep the useless and expensive warranty intact, learning to check your equipment is very important and will help YOU determine if your equipment needs servicing. See this link for a set of checks everyone is capable of, and should be doing: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/regulators/260452-regulator-checklist-inspection.html

couv

 

[Waterskier1]

I dove Lake Michigan a couple times this summer, water temps in the high 40's, two of the guys diving Atomic regs had bad free flows and had to abort the dive. I've never once had an issue with my Oceanic.

Wow, high 40's and free flow? Cold water around here is mid to high 30's, and I know many who do ice diving, so that would be low 30's. There must be some design flaw or maladjustment that allowed those to free flow in the upper 40's.

 

[Scared Silly]

Free flows in the high 40s sound like a poorly maintained or out of adjustment the reg. I have dove my Atomics in 40 water and not had problems.

As for the Zeagle. I have dove them, I like their first stages but thought the 2d stage was bit bigger than necessary. Which is why we went with the Atomics.

As for the free parts - parts are cheap. The labor is not and it is not free.

 

[Byte Me]

Just checked my log - water temp was 40, not high 40's. We were on the Carferry Milwaukee. The one guy had Atomic primary and octo the other had an Atomic primary and something else for an octo. The guy w/ both Atomic regs had BOTH of them freeflow 1/2 into the decent (probably about 50' or so) and came back up. The other guy had his primary free flow so he spent most of the dive banging it off the wreck trying to get it to stop.

The week before we were on the Prins Willem, both of them were there, water temps were 44F and neither had issues.

Not saying it was the 4 degrees or what happened but it was really odd that they both had the same regs and all three free flowed that same time.

 

[elan]

It could also be that they had higher IP set on the regs. For that temperature the IP is usually lowered. Besides if the reg is set into high performance mode that would promote freezing. There are other factors contributing into the free flowing.

 

[marcoslnobrega]

Wow, that was amazing, I had answears for many questions I had, thank you very much. I wasn't thinking about the servicing price and that's very important too. I'm planing on diving here in south Florida so the water is warm, I have 20 dives (advanced/nitrox) and don't know yet how tech I want to get, but I plan on learning more and more.

 

[marcoslnobrega]

Nobody said anything about the Mares, I thought that was a good one....

 

[scubafanatic]

Nobody said anything about the Mares, I thought that was a good one....

...actually, Mares makes good regs...I have several Mares regs...but I also have a Zeagle Ranger BC too....so I've had success with products from both companies....the main thing that might be an issue with Mares regs is that they don't have a 2nd-stage adjustment capability (or at least one that's adjustable by the diver during the dive) which is the only thing that might bother some divers....but as far as performance, they've always performed well.....that being said, while I don't own any Zeagle regs (not for any particular reason.....nothing at all against Zeagle regs) from everything I've seen here on SB, Zeagle regs seems to perform well and seem to be widely popular
so I'm sure a Zeagle reg would work out just fine for you too.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Nobody said anything about the Mares, I thought that was a good one....

Since "nobody said anything about Mares" I have not dove the MR-32 Presitge, so I'll just talk about the Mares and Zeagle regs I do own

I own and dive Zeagle Flathead VI's and Mares regulators (MR-22 Abyss, MR-12 Proton, MR-12 Voltrex). I also service my own regs.

1.) Performance: In my diving experience Tuning plays the biggest factor in performance as far as I can tell (which includes various and sundry Aqualung and Scubapro regs in addition to Mares and Zeagle). The Zeagle with it's adjustable barrel poppet 2nd stage is easier for the average tech to tune properly than the Mares with it's "classic downstream" 2nd. Having said that, I slightly prefer how the Mares Abyss breathes at depth... but this is entirely subjective. The Zeagle is outstanding too. I've found that while an adjustable 2nd stage is nice, in practice I always adjust the Zeagel for easiest breathing: Which results in it breathing as easy as my well-tuned non-adjustable Mares Abyss If the Mares is not tuned properly, the Zeagle out-breathes it.

2.) Design and Construction: The two brands use different design philophies to acheive the same performance result. In general, Mares leans towards "simple is better" compared to other high performance regs. Their 2nd stages in particular are incredibly simple, but perform very well. But the Zeagle 1st stage is a work of art, and actually just slightly easier (for me) to service than the Mares.... but both could be rebuilt by a talented 5 year old. Quality is equal as far as I can see when taking these regs apart.

3.) Parts availability: Seem to be fine for both brands. I have purchased rebuild kits and parts online for both brands.

To the OP:

First decide where you will be getting your reg serviced. If you have decided to have it done locally, that should narrow down your brand options dramatically.... if you plan to mail it off for service, your options are unlimited... (if you decide to learn how to service it yourself, you options are only limited by parts availablity).

Best wishes.