Which Regulator Should A Tropical Dive Center Carry For Rental?

[Ralph Capeling]

We have been using the Sherwood BRUT 7100 series and found it to be very reliable, rugged and easy to service. We would have been very happy to continue to rely on this reg. Sherwood has replaced it with the 9100 series Brut. What dive shops have experience with the 9100 and the 7100 and can comment? Does anyone think there is a better choice for warm tropical diving?
Regards
Ralph

 

[Fishpie]

The Scubapro MK2 R195 has to be on your short list.

 

[Pullmyfinger]

Same with the Aqualung Titan.

 

[halocline]

Are you going to service them? If I were in your situation, I'd be servicing them and buying parts. That means I'd want to be able to get generic seats and not need any special bushings etc. I'm not sure if the titan fits this, although it is certainly a bullet proof proven design. I know the MK2/R190 can be serviced with standard o-rings and seats; I would be very surprised if that's not also true with the older sherwoods. In fact, I'd make seats for the 2nd stages and try to get the servicing cost to about a dollar/reg.

To me it would be a nightmare to have a fleet of rental regs that you were paying retail cost on rebuild kits for. So I'd check that situation out before deciding. In terms of performance, what you are really looking for is reliability, so the classic designs that have been around for decades are the way to go. That means flow-by piston or simple diaphragm 1sts and downstream 2nds.

 

[Ralph Capeling]

Are you going to service them? If I were in your situation, I'd be servicing them and buying parts. That means I'd want to be able to get generic seats and not need any special bushings etc. I'm not sure if the titan fits this, although it is certainly a bullet proof proven design. I know the MK2/R190 can be serviced with standard o-rings and seats; I would be very surprised if that's not also true with the older sherwoods. In fact, I'd make seats for the 2nd stages and try to get the servicing cost to about a dollar/reg.

To me it would be a nightmare to have a fleet of rental regs that you were paying retail cost on rebuild kits for. So I'd check that situation out before deciding. In terms of performance, what you are really looking for is reliability, so the classic designs that have been around for decades are the way to go. That means flow-by piston or simple diaphragm 1sts and downstream 2nds.

Yes, we will maintain them. We are in Placencia Belize and we have to be self sufficient.

---------- Post added January 3rd, 2014 at 09:06 AM ----------

Thanks to all of you who have replied. Your comments are very helpful. I should have mentioned we are Splash Dive Center based in Placencia Belize. We are the largest dive operator in southern Belize and are pleased to be able to say that the Belize Tourism Board selected us as Tour Operator Of The Year. You can check us out at Belize Scuba Diving Packages, Snorkeling & Whale sharks|Splash Dive Center|Placencia Belize.
In addition to the BRUT regulators, we have quite a few ScubaPro Mk2 regs.

A friend of mine sent me the following advice, but he does not have any hands on experience with the regulator he is suggesting. Do any of you have hands on experience with XS Scuba?

"XS scuba has a basic piston regulator called the spirit that I think would work great for your rental program. Simple, durable and affordable. They can be serviced with little training required for the technicians . The annual service kits are very affordable also, so long term usage and expense should be very low. The regulators are very similar to the Cressi regulator. They are both very simple and durable regulators that should work very well in your rental program."

Regards
Ralph Capeling

 

[Fishpie]

I wouldn't go with the XS Scuba......primarily due to the soft purge cover of the 2nd stage. I will not hold up in the tropics and crumble away in very quick time.

Presumably you will become a dealer for the company you decide on so you can get rental prices.......are you able to get one of the big boys like Scubapro or AquaLung?

 

[victorzamora]

Another couple of things you may not have considered:

Are you sure you'll be able to get parts kits? I believe AUP only sells to AUP dealers (Aeris, Oceanic, Hollis). On that note, PiranhaDiveMfg sells a set of regs called Synchro regs. They even have a sealed option called Synchro "Ice" that are very cheap and have cheap parts kits. Not sure on the reliability, though, and you definitely don't have the "Name recognition" that gives so many divers the warm&fuzzy feelings. Higher quality regs than that would be Hog regs. They have a longer service interval and kits are available easily, but the kits are slightly more expensive than others. Getting the parts has been much harder than actually servicing my own regs. I was a Hollis-certified Reg Technician and had a HARD time finding parts. It took months to find them and minutes to service them.

One thing to consider is this: some manufacturers offer special deals to dive centers for their rental fleet. I know Oceanic was offering a HUGE discount on their Alpha9 regs if put into a rental fleet. I'm just not sure what the deal is with that in terms of requiring you to be dealers or not. It doesn't seem like you sell gear, so maybe partering up with a retail store on the island is an option? "We'll buy rental regs from you guys and send prospective customers your way, you sell them to us for cheap including servicing."

 

[Jim Lapenta]

If you have been using sherwoods why not stick to them? You know how they work for you, how to service them, and you can probably get parts easily as I am assuming you already have a network set up. I don't know how easy it would be for your techs to get training on other brands if you are also not a dealer. The brut is a good basic rental reg that works well. I am partial to another line but don't know how the supply chain would be for you. If you were in an area with unlimited resources you'd have no issue switching brands. But your location makes me say to stick with what you know.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Ralph Capeling]

I wouldn't go with the XS Scuba......primarily due to the soft purge cover of the 2nd stage. I will not hold up in the tropics and crumble away in very quick time.

Presumably you will become a dealer for the company you decide on so you can get rental prices.......are you able to get one of the big boys like Scubapro or AquaLung?

Thanks for the view on XS Scuba. We are a dealer with Scubapro, Sherwood, Cressi, Mares and Tilos.

---------- Post added January 4th, 2014 at 08:01 PM ----------

Another couple of things you may not have considered:

Are you sure you'll be able to get parts kits? I believe AUP only sells to AUP dealers (Aeris, Oceanic, Hollis). On that note, PiranhaDiveMfg sells a set of regs called Synchro regs. They even have a sealed option called Synchro "Ice" that are very cheap and have cheap parts kits. Not sure on the reliability, though, and you definitely don't have the "Name recognition" that gives so many divers the warm&fuzzy feelings. Higher quality regs than that would be Hog regs. They have a longer service interval and kits are available easily, but the kits are slightly more expensive than others. Getting the parts has been much harder than actually servicing my own regs. I was a Hollis-certified Reg Technician and had a HARD time finding parts. It took months to find them and minutes to service them.

One thing to consider is this: some manufacturers offer special deals to dive centers for their rental fleet. I know Oceanic was offering a HUGE discount on their Alpha9 regs if put into a rental fleet. I'm just not sure what the deal is with that in terms of requiring you to be dealers or not. It doesn't seem like you sell gear, so maybe partering up with a retail store on the island is an option? "We'll buy rental regs from you guys and send prospective customers your way, you sell them to us for cheap including servicing."

Victor, thanks for the comments and ideasWe have no problems getting spares from the companies that we are dealers for and as we are a high end service provider, we need to stick with name brand major manufacturers.
We are the only scuba retail store in the southern half of Belize but we don't sell a lot of regs. Most of our customers bring their own to Belize or rent from us. Our main market for selling regs and other big ticket scuba items tends to be to locals as Belize is a poor country. We mainly need them for rental and we currently have about 50 in our rental pool and need to order another 20 or so. We seem to be likely to get "deals" for gear for our DMs and Instructors as the manufacturers consider them to be walking (or swimming) bill boards - and I think with good reason as we see the vast majority of our customers buying Splash T-shirts of the same color as the dive crew they went out with!
Regards
Ralph

---------- Post added January 4th, 2014 at 08:06 PM ----------

If you have been using sherwoods why not stick to them? You know how they work for you, how to service them, and you can probably get parts easily as I am assuming you already have a network set up. I don't know how easy it would be for your techs to get training on other brands if you are also not a dealer. The brut is a good basic rental reg that works well. I am partial to another line but don't know how the supply chain would be for you. If you were in an area with unlimited resources you'd have no issue switching brands. But your location makes me say to stick with what you know.

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Hi Jim, yes we would like to stay with the manufacturers we now use but a technician we sent to the Sherwood service seminar came away with the view that the improvements did not provide a measurable benefit to us and servicing is more complex. I would not be asking the question if Sherwood had not made this improvement - we were very happy with the BRUT pre-improvement. We will be ordering more regs shortly and we can't order the old BRUT.
Regards
Ralph

 

[52brandon]

Same with the Aqualung Titan.

that's what they had in the Bahamas when I went. Worked fantastically


IMO though, almost evey MFR makes a good reg that can take some rookie abuse. Make a list of those, then get what's cheapest/easiest to service