servicing equipment

[captain]

Regulators are just about fool proof. Unforturnatly they are not damm fool proof and some damm fool may work at your LDS.
I do not service my regulators every year. About every 3 years I replace all the O rings and check the IP. The O rings may take a set and may develop a slight leak. If the valve seats are not leaking I do not replace them. Diaphragms last for decades. I have 30 year old regulators with original diaphragms. Same thing with exhaust valves. Take care of them by rinsing in warm freshwater and store in a cool place.
The pressure regulator is a very reliable devise and the are everyehere. the oxygen / acetylene torch uses them. The propane barbecue grill uses one. The electronic fuel injection on your car uses one. The principal of operation is the same with all of them.

Captain

 

[DeepScuba]

Call me crazy.......

But my Regs are coming apart for the second time this year. After just coming back from Coz, I just HAVE to get the last grain of salt off of them. A FULL cleaning of 1st and 2nds plus the SPG swivel, hoses.............yuk, I hate salt water.

The BC's are already stripped to the last component.

I can tell when somethings been in salt water, even if it was "rinsed" with fresh right after.

Besides, I LUV to tinker...........

Oh yeah, all the lights are being stripped too.

 

[Vickie In Vegas]

We had our equipment serviced at our LDS here in Vegas about 2 months before our trip to Akumal this past summer. After getting it back 6 weeks later (they hard a hard time getting parts, Yea Right), my husband was getting everything ready, he checked the equipment and found that there was NO air going to my 2nd stage. We call the LDS and they said bring it down and they would check it out. The LDS tech accused us of "screwing" with the equipment, and adjusted it to work correctly. While on my 2nd cenote dive, about 15 minutes into the dive the 2nd stage began to breath hard then no air switched to backup and finished the dive.... I rented equipment the rest of the week.

On our return, my husband call the manufacturer to make sure that the LDS was indeed an authorized repair center as they state. They were, and he explained what had happened. They immediately issued an RMA to send it back to them for repair, but wanted the "flow readings" from the LDS. We went to the store with the equipment and the same person was there and again accused us of screwing around with the reg. He turned white as a ghost when we told him what happened, and asked for the copy of the required paperwork for both the manufacturer and our lawyer. He worked on the reg for about 3 hour to "check it out" to peak performance sweating like a dog the whole time. When I asked him if he felt confident in his work and would dive with the equipment, he had just worked on; he stated he "didn’t dive with that type of equipment". This told me the LDS does crappy work, and they do not trust thier own work.

Needless to say, we never returned to the shop.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Before we were doing our own we had some trouble the work that the shop did on our regs.

You can't just walk in any old shop and drop off your equipment just like you're nuts if you just walk into the closest shop and sign up for a class.

Really it isn't any different than anything else.

The air condition was out on my car for awhile. I finally had some one look at it and found out that some one who had serviced it prior left something unplugged. It was worked on when it was cold so I never checked the air.

I had a rear shaft seal put in the transmission and three days later left for vacation. I got 100 miles before the drive shaft fell off leaving me stuck on the road on a Saturday. Oh and a month earlier, I had weel bearings that were new, fall apart in almost the same spot on the 4th of July. Try getting help on a holiday!

I have dozens and dozens of examples but I have no good mechanic to work on my car.

The fact is that most people are only midway performers in what they do at best and many are flat out lousy. It just doesn't matter what the profession is. Only a very few who fall in the far right side of the bell curve are any good and you'll have to look hard to find them.

 

[captain]

Like I always say, if you want it done right do it your self. I believe any serious diver should understand the working of the equiptment and know how to service it.

Captain

 

[beche de mer]

captain once bubbled...
Like I always say, if you want it done right do it your self. I believe any serious diver should understand the working of the equiptment and know how to service it.

Captain

Problem is, to remain competent at servicing equipment, you would need to do it pretty often - more than just once a year. I don't know, but maybe special tools are needed, and parts might be expensive if you just purchase them as you need them for your own gear.

I'd like to service my own equipment, but I'm not sure if it's a practical option.

MikeFerrara said that scuba techs are no different from auto mechanics. Some are OK, some are not so good. But scuba equipment is not like an auto air conditioner. People's lives depend on their equipment. There's no place for sloppy work. Don't scuba techs have to undergo some sort of periodic assessment to maintain their certification?

I remember when I was working as a parachute rigger. There was no place for less-than-perfect work. We viewed each job as if it was our own set of kit. Each job was personally signed off, and if there was anything defective, it would come right back at you. Scuba should be the same.:boom:

 

[ElectricZombie]

beche de mer once bubbled...

Each job was personally signed off, and if there was anything defective, it would come right back at you. Scuba should be the same.:boom:

Exactly. I've had some problems with the LDS not having a clue as to what they were doing. I know of at least one shop that doesn't even replace any parts. I do my own regs unless I can't get parts. In that case, I found a tech that knows his stuff that can do them.

 

[MikeFerrara]

beche de mer once bubbled...


Problem is, to remain competent at servicing equipment, you would need to do it pretty often - more than just once a year. I don't know, but maybe special tools are needed, and parts might be expensive if you just purchase them as you need them for your own gear.

I'd like to service my own equipment, but I'm not sure if it's a practical option.

There really isn't that much to it. Servicing regs is really a matter of cleaning, inspecting, replacing parts (usually from a kit) and testing.

MikeFerrara said that scuba techs are no different from auto mechanics. Some are OK, some are not so good. But scuba equipment is not like an auto air conditioner. People's lives depend on their equipment. There's no place for sloppy work. Don't scuba techs have to undergo some sort of periodic assessment to maintain their certification?

Well, last winter on my way home at about 2 in the morning I had a front weel fall off my van. That was after having it to the mechanic to have a "noise" checked out. They didn't find anything. This happened on a country road when it was about 20 deg F outside. After walking several miles home and having the van towed the next day they replaced the weel bearing and put things back together.

On the 4th of july of this year, I was on my way to Florida. I got as far as Indianapolis and the same weel fell off again. Both times could have been life threatening.

While sloppy work on your reg cna be a pain it's rarely life threatening.

Training for techs is a joke. We've had sales reps take apart one reg out of a line and put back together in front of us and sign us off and we've had them bless us as "authorized" in exchange for an opening order.

All the special training you hear about that's required to work on "critical life support equipment" is a myth. Maybe it exists somewhere but after owning a dive shop for almost 4 years, I don't know where. I'm authorized to service several brands of regulators. I bought and paid for that authorizeation. I did not earn it in some kind of school.

Some people don't want to work on their own equipment. They shouldn't have to. Some people shouldn't. Just like some people don't want to work on their own car. If you want to, though, the only thing stopping you is that some parts are hard to get because they try to force you to have the shop do it.

Personally I won't buy a reg from a company who won't sell me parts. There's other ways to get parts but it's insulting and it rubs me the wrong way.

BTW, I have carefully read my dealer agreements. I have yet to see anything in any of them that says that I can't sell parts. To be honest I just assumed that there was since I was tought the same bs that every one else was but when I actually looked it wasn't there.