OW course and regulator failures

[LeadTurn_SD]

I did have a regulator fail closed but it was because the wrong parts were used to assemble it, so it wasn't built to design; which is an example of how hard it is to get a closed failure, it requires human intervention.

Yes.

Every catastrophic regulator failure I know of, by which I mean a failure that resulted in NO AIR being delivered to the diver, were the result of servicing errors, defective / wrong parts, or all of the above. They were not normal "wear-and-tear" type of failures.

So can a regulator fail in such a way that it just stops delivering air? Yes!

But it is exceedingly rare, and "normal" failure modes are almost always a "leak" (freeflow) rather than a stoppage.

Still, new divers should be told it CAN happen, and this should reinforce good buddy or self-sufficiency training.

Best wishes.

 

[EastEndDiver]

It wasn't my class. I just overheard an instructor saying this to his students at a place where I went to dive.

Why didn't you ask that instructor if you are so concerned?

 

[petIQe]

Still, new divers should be told it CAN happen, and this should reinforce good buddy or self-sufficiency training.
Best wishes.

Totally agree.

---------- Post added November 24th, 2014 at 08:29 AM ----------

Why didn't you ask that instructor if you are so concerned?

I'm not an instructor (yet), especially not a PADI instructor.
I'm not conserned about a reg failure. I just don't get why people should not be told the truth about it. And again, if all of you agree that it should not be told to beginners (it isn't the case), I'm ok with that. I just wanted to know if it's a Padi thing or this instructor's thoughts. I got the answer.

 

[Diver0001]

Totally agree.

---------- Post added November 24th, 2014 at 08:29 AM ----------



I'm not an instructor (yet), especially not a PADI instructor.
I'm not conserned about a reg failure. I just don't get why people should not be told the truth about it. And again, if all of you agree that it should not be told to beginners (it isn't the case), I'm ok with that. I just wanted to know if it's a Padi thing or this instructor's thoughts. I got the answer.

Yeah, you'll find that there is a lot of mixing of evidence and opinion in this sport. This applies not only to equipment discussions, but also to practices and protocols, equipment configurations and right down to the colour of the gear. On the internet this is even more rampant than in courses.

The take home message here, which I think you've received loud and clear, is that remain skeptical and question what you hear. That's good advice generally and good advice in diving too. Ask a lot of questions, collect evidence, weigh it and decide for yourself.

As for the role of PADI, I would like to say that from all of the materials I've read PADI is the one agency that tries as best it can to stick to the facts. I personally think that this is both a strength and a weakness. The strength being that if you read something in a PADI book then you can be certain (at least more certain than by most training agencies) that they really have looked into it and verified it. This is powerful, of course, because you can rely on what they're saying and they are not at all prone to jumping on a fad. The down side is that they are sometimes non-committal and slow to adopt emerging "best practices". This can put them somewhat behind the curve in terms of integrating the latest research. For example it took them years to back off off the 18m/min ascent rate while research and best practices throughout the rest of the industry had already standardized on 10m/min. They did this because they hadn't scientifically verified 10m/min against the RDP.

This is all to say that I have a high opinion of the PADI materials because they go out of their way to verify what they're saying. (full disclosure, I am a PADI instructor and generally very happy with their system).

R..

 

[Six Feet Under]

I found an easy way to prevent myself from having to worry about this... diving doubles.

If both regs go simultaneously, it must just be my time. lol

 

[RJP]

If both regs go simultaneously - and so does my buddy - it must just be my time. lol

Fixed

 

[Peter69_56]

They can give low air flows in the primary. Had a new Oceanic CDX-5 and it would slightly free flow the Occy on the surface but not when under water, but the deeper I went the less air it provided. After getting it serviced, it was found to have swarf (machining material when built) inside making the mechanism stick thus only provide a small amount of air.

Surprise surprise, got my new reg test bench in today and as an after thought decided to test a reg set my wife complained was free flowing when in strong current. I thought it was probably just due to current it free flowed. Put it on the test rig and there it was, IP creep. Guess which set it was? The one I mentioned in my last post, it has been serviced twice since the initial IP creep due to swarf issue. Will pull it down tomorrow and see if its just time for a service or if it has an inherent problem from birth.