pakman
Contributor
Had an interesting dive Sunday. Was doing a couple of local dives with my dive club. About 5-10min into the first dive, my reg flooded resulting in me taking in a big mouthful of water. Even after purging, I was just getting water... Switched to my backup on my bungee and thumbed the dive. The regs are going in for a thorough check up/ servicing today but curious to find out what could have caused this.
I'd like to think I'm pretty religious about taking care of my regs... Anyways, here are more details. Apeks ATX200 (less than a yr old but has about 100 dives on it). ATX200 2nd stages on a long hose and short bungeed backup.
1. Haven't used the reg since early May when I was doing some deep wrecks.
2. Night before, I switched out the DIN adapter for a yoke adapter
3. Set up my kit, do a predive check of the regs topside, buddy check, etc...
4. Giant stride entry and descend to approx 10m
5. About 5 min into the dive, notice the reg is making a strang popping noise on inhale.
6. Reg is slowlw start to breath wet. Try purging a couple time.
7. Finally around 10min into the dive, I get a full mouth full of water instead of air, start gagging from taking water down my air pipe, eventually switch to my bungeed 2nd stage. Swim over to my buddies, signal reg malfunction, and thumb the dive and do a controlled ascent. Forgot add, my backup 2nd stage was also breathing a bit wet but at least I could get some air...
Topside, took a look at the reg. The filter on the yoke adapter was soaked and appeared crushed (strange, almost looked melted/ indented in the middle vs what the usual porous flat disk usually looks like). Took the 2nd stage apart to inspect the diaphram. Didn't see any pinholes. (**I didn' think to check the exhaust valve) Tested the 2nd stage with air off on the tank and didn't feel any leak when sucking on it (w/ valve off). I put the kit back on and did some controlled testing behind the swim platform of the boat while holding onto the bottom of the swim ladder. If I inverted my head (head below body), I was able to recreate the flooding. Otherwise it "appeared" to be functioning OK...
On our second dive, I borrowed another diver's 1st stage (used my 2nd stages) and completed a normal 45min dive (5m-13m depths) without any problems. Soooo its looking like something is wrong with my 1st stage. Wonder if I did something while installing the yoke adapter. But there was no sign of an air leakage there. Will take it in the shop today for a thorough inspection/ servicing especially considering it was flooded with sea water... Anyways, probably about time for the servicing.
I'd like to think I'm pretty religious about taking care of my regs... Anyways, here are more details. Apeks ATX200 (less than a yr old but has about 100 dives on it). ATX200 2nd stages on a long hose and short bungeed backup.
1. Haven't used the reg since early May when I was doing some deep wrecks.
2. Night before, I switched out the DIN adapter for a yoke adapter
3. Set up my kit, do a predive check of the regs topside, buddy check, etc...
4. Giant stride entry and descend to approx 10m
5. About 5 min into the dive, notice the reg is making a strang popping noise on inhale.
6. Reg is slowlw start to breath wet. Try purging a couple time.
7. Finally around 10min into the dive, I get a full mouth full of water instead of air, start gagging from taking water down my air pipe, eventually switch to my bungeed 2nd stage. Swim over to my buddies, signal reg malfunction, and thumb the dive and do a controlled ascent. Forgot add, my backup 2nd stage was also breathing a bit wet but at least I could get some air...
Topside, took a look at the reg. The filter on the yoke adapter was soaked and appeared crushed (strange, almost looked melted/ indented in the middle vs what the usual porous flat disk usually looks like). Took the 2nd stage apart to inspect the diaphram. Didn't see any pinholes. (**I didn' think to check the exhaust valve) Tested the 2nd stage with air off on the tank and didn't feel any leak when sucking on it (w/ valve off). I put the kit back on and did some controlled testing behind the swim platform of the boat while holding onto the bottom of the swim ladder. If I inverted my head (head below body), I was able to recreate the flooding. Otherwise it "appeared" to be functioning OK...
On our second dive, I borrowed another diver's 1st stage (used my 2nd stages) and completed a normal 45min dive (5m-13m depths) without any problems. Soooo its looking like something is wrong with my 1st stage. Wonder if I did something while installing the yoke adapter. But there was no sign of an air leakage there. Will take it in the shop today for a thorough inspection/ servicing especially considering it was flooded with sea water... Anyways, probably about time for the servicing.
