failure rate of Scuba equipment and BCD

[beaverdivers]

Almost 1,000 dives. Original jacket BCD. Never had a problem. We have Scubapro, and get the air2s serviced every year.

I have never had a B.C. failure. The key is proper maintenance & service!

Without it your gear will fail, it is just a function of time.

 

[TMHeimer]

I'm just shy of 500 but will say that I did have my LPI stuck inflating once (replaced it). That was when I had maybe 100 dives or fewer. My BC was bought used 9 years ago.

 

[knotical]

Just over 1000 dives.
Rejected one rental BC pre-dive for a leak at the inflator.
Just retired my venerable personal BC for a minor bladder leak. It had about 500 dives.
Only cylinder issue I ever had was slow leaks at the O-ring.
Never had a regulator issue.
PREVENTION

 

[thedragon]

That depends a lot on where and how you dive. Around here, it's a lot more common to dive your own gear than rental gear if you dive locally, while vacation warm-water divers often rely on rentals.

My first post-cert dive was in my own gear (bought used).

My first "pre-cert" dive was in my own gear bought used. I didn't know any better at the time but thankfully I only dived once and it wasn't deeper than 20 feet.

I had my first jacket style BCD dump valve fail. It was a used sherwood and it was due to corrosion. It was the dump valve thats attached to the oral inflator via a small metal cable. It rusted through and failed. I also have had several leaks from old hoses which were breaking. The breaks were hidden by hose protectors which also were hiding a considerable amount of corrosion to the hose connections. I had a depth gauge flood due to a crack which probably happened when the previous owner dropped it.

I also have had a cylinder condemned recently and thankfully! Much better to be condemned while its still intact and while I'm still intact. It was an AL80 that appeared to be in great external shape. Had it hydro'd and VIP'd and 6 months later, getting it O2 cleaned and it had a pretty scary big crack in the neck. It was one of the old 1987 cylinders made of 6351 alloy. The scary part is how quickly the crack grew after the hydro and VIP and it was never overfilled either.

 

[sphyrnidus]

I have never had a leak of my BCD, but I had a Mares jacket and lost a weight pocket three times, the first time was during a training dive and I could hold on to a wreck (I was just observing). After I replaced it, the next dive, it fell out as I entered the water. Then it was fixed by Mares, but a year later I lost it again (always the same pocket). I think I used the Mares BCD on approximately 500 dives. As this really annoyed me I replaced it after this last incident. Sold it to a dive shop btw.
I had an unstoppable free flow twice with the same Mares Proton regulator. It was serviced. The shop told me I should ditch it as fixing it would not solve the problem in the long run. Something with coating that had come off. I bought it at the same time as the jacket so it died too after approx. 500 dives as it was around the same time as the BCD failure.
My wife had an inflator replaced some years ago. It wouldn't inflate during a dive, so she used her drysuit for buoyancy. so This was once in 1500 dives. It was her first BCD and she had used it for 12 years. As the part were no longer available it was replaced because of this (it was worn too)
She also had to replace her neoprene dry suit after 14 years as it was leaking so badly she came out wet on every dive. At a test they inflated it, and this was filmed, we saw that most of the seams were leaking.

So all in all we had very few failures.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Take care of your gear and it will take care of you. I've had 3 issues that are too insignificant to mention.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

This questions are for the 500+ dives experts

In your own dive experience, how many times did you had failure of your Scuba or BCD.

How many dives did you had with that equipment that failed.

For the BCD failures can you mention if it was the filling valve stick open, or loss of air

Thanks for your time.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/dive-rite/395282-dive-rite-venture-wing-failure.html

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/accidents-incidents/365071-bc-failure.html

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...80-video-scuba-failure-80-feet-yesterday.html

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/accidents-incidents/492659-still-finding-new-ways-screw-up.html

 

[redacted]

I had one BCD failure. A new Oxycheq wing had the T-nut split in half on the pull dump. It apparently was overtorqued during assembly and let go after a few days of use. It probably would have leaked before it split but I never put enough air in it to tell. After I broke, I removed all pieces, taped over the hole with duct tape, and completed the week of diving with no problem.

I have had 2 regulator failures. Both involved extruded LP hose o-rings at the 1st stage due to my failure to check and tighten. (I do my own service and tend to go light on the torque for those type connections so they can work loose with usage.) Repair is simple: TURN OFF GAS, reposition o-ring, and tighten.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The only thing I've had happen was a pinch flat in one of my Oxycheq wings. Fixed it with a peel and stick urethane patch from West Marine (which I keep in my scuba tool box everywhere I go) and continued diving. That was 8 years ago.

I have between 500 and 1000 dives, something like that,...who cares. I quit logging 12 years ago at around 300.
I don't consider number of logged dives much of status symbol. To me it's the amount of years diving, experiences, and unique diving environments that count.
A person can rack up thousands of dives doing nothing but baby sitting students or diving the same 40' dive spot year after year, or they could have a fraction of that but have dove some really advanced spots or maybe have done some very challenging exploration dives.
A person with 100 gnarly dives may have more to say than a person with 500 benign dives.

 

[Searcaigh]

Used a TUSA Xpert BCD for over 500 dives until the LP inflator system was getting sticky frequently and becoming a bloody nuisance, in the end I replaced it with another TUSA Xpert BCD when it began to not hold air so well and that was replaced with a Mares BCD after around 300 dives for reasons I don't quite remember but I still have it in a box somewhere. Sold the Mares a couple of years ago after I bought my Dive Rite Wings.