Why did they stop making metal regs?

[John C. Ratliff]

...it was made of plastic and decomposed...:mooner: Get a metal one next time.

Couv,

I haven't been mooned for a very long time

I'm not necessarily "for" plastic over metal, but just recognize the different characteristics of the two types of materials. I have more metal than plastic, because the early metal regulators are interesting to me from an engineering perspective. But I started looking very closely at plastic regulators in the 1975 when I dove with Sonny Cockrell on the Warm Mineral Springs Underwater Archeological Project. There was a huge amount of minerals in the water (15,000 ppm, as I recall), and everything chromed turned black almost instantly. But my plastic Sportsways second stage did very well (I put it onto an MR-12 first stage). In the 1980s I got a new regulator, a SP AIR-1/Mk5 5 port regulator, which is a plastic second stage and will stand with anything currently on the market. I just looked through the 1980 Experimental Diving Unit report, and almost half the second stages were plastic by that time. Some did very well, and some did poorly. The Scubamaster regulator (Scubamaster, Compton, CA) did very well, but I don't know what happened to the company. Some metal regs did very well too (USD Calypso/Conshelf), and some not quite so well (Dacor Pacer). Some plastic regs did very well (Scubapro AIR-1, for instance) and some not so well (Sportsways regs did not fair well in those tests).

SeaRat

 

[Ed Palma]

ZKY, that is a FABULOUS avatar!

I still can't get over the fact that its an al80!

 

[Nemrod]

My current Titan and Legend regs are both plastic, they are great regulators, they would be better regulators if made entirely of metal but they are great regulators nonetheless, so far. Let you know in another 30 years how good they really are, lol.

N

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Another factor to those already mentioned is a lot more design freedom for engineers to optimize flow characteristics. This is not to say that it could not be duplicated in metal, but the cost gets insane and manufacturing tolerances are sloppier.

Over time, there will be plastic-body regulators that emerge as classics. The advantages of plastic are slowly becoming more pronounced now that 3D solids modeling, desktop prototyping, and computer flow (gas and mold) simulation have become viable and affordable. My current all-time favorite is the original Oceanic Omega that is around 28 years old, and has a plastic housing.

I think what you've said was true 10 or 20 years ago, but it's on the verge of being outdated.

The military is doing some interesting things with metal forming that at present is restricted to large items, but will I think soon be viable on scuba reg sized parts.

However, until then I think you are correct - the A700 case is very well made withe very good flow charatceristics, but it is not cheap.

 

[Greg Barlow]

I would have prefered that Scubapro used a front cover that was removable by hand. A screw on cover similar to the Mares Metal Proton might have been an option.

Greg