Split reg hose

[beaverdivers]

Maybe someone can tell us when the hoses should be replaced?

Excellent question!

We have been shocked by the # of High Pressure ( HP ) hoses that we have seen "leak" recently. The HP hoses passed a pressure test at less than 2000 PSI. However when tested at 3000 PSI in water, the hoses would leak out of the perforations in the external rubber cover. ( If you look very close at a HP hose, you can see the tiny holes that have been part of manufacturing the HP hose so the hose doesn't bubble then blow when there is a leak. If the leak is big enough it will still bubble. ) It is "Fun" to take your dive knife and cut a bubbled hose. I would recommend doing this procedure on the surface with as many intrigued observers as possible. The bigger the " Dive Knife " the better!

As far as I know low pressure (LP) hoses don't have these perforations.

Please note, a LP hose failure can result in a depleted cylinder faster than a HP hose.

As far as replacing hoses, I heard at sometime in the many passing years that 5 years is the magic #.

We recommend inspection & testing all hoses. If there is any question, replace. Hoses are fairly cheap.

 

[KeithG]

Here are the pictures....no pressure and with pressure... And there is no leaking air and if it was under a hose protector you'd never see it unless you pull them back as you are suppose to...

View attachment 145736View attachment 145737

Jim..

Thanks for the pics. The bulge is less obvious than I thought it should be. These are great illustrations for anyone that really wants to take responsibility for care of their own equipment.

Makes me think that maybe I will discard hose "protectors" as they maybe really are "failure hiders". I feel the hose protectors only come into play during storage if some one gets a little aggressive with jamming the reg into a storage bag. I feel I am always careful to not kink the hose as it leaves the first stage. During active use I can not think of a scenario where the hose would get pinched / kinked.

In our case the failure was at reg end, so it was not hidden.

---------- Post added January 26th, 2013 at 08:58 PM ----------

Excellent question!

We have been shocked by the # of High Pressure ( HP ) hoses that we have seen "leak" recently. The HP hoses passed a pressure test at less than 2000 PSI. However when tested at 3000 PSI in water, the hoses would leak out of the perforations in the external rubber cover. ( If you look very close at a HP hose, you can see the tiny holes that have been part of manufacturing the HP hose so the hose doesn't bubble then blow when there is a leak. If the leak is big enough it will still bubble. ) It is "Fun" to take your dive knife and cut a bubbled hose. I would recommend doing this procedure on the surface with as many intrigued observers as possible. The bigger the " Dive Knife " the better!

As far as I know low pressure (LP) hoses don't have these perforations.

Please note, a LP hose failure can result in a depleted cylinder faster than a HP hose.

As far as replacing hoses, I heard at sometime in the many passing years that 5 years is the magic #.

We recommend inspection & testing all hoses. If there is any question, replace. Hoses are fairly cheap.

I have a bunch of observations:
- hose replacement is cheap: spot on! We were held hostage for the princely sum of $28, including install. This is way less than the price of a 2 4 so it is a bargain. And the swap was done fast enough that it did not delay our night dive.

- I understood the concept of visual inspection, but now have a much better "before" picture. I have read the service manual for my reg and was (still am) a little disappointed in the rigor applied to hose "check".

- I still have no concept of how my LDS "test" a hose. I know how to pressure test seamless steel tube and am fairly sure this type of test is not done on my reg set. Looking at a hose does not seem very sophisticated.

- unrelated to my world, I think the rash of recent hose failures is linked to a new unproven technology.

 

[Ayisha]

- I still have no concept of how my LDS "test" a hose. I know how to pressure test seamless steel tube and am fairly sure this type of test is not done on my reg set. Looking at a hose does not seem very sophisticated.

I have no idea either how the LDS tests the hoses but last fall my octo hose split while being pressure tested by the LDS. It was over 10 years old and I don't think it had ever been changed before. The LDS owner told me that "the hose protector is not your friend".

 

[CT-Rich]

I agree that switching to Octo is totally appropriate in this case. If the primary hose is leaking then obviously there is a problem. Without being able to examine the defect it is difficult to judge how bad it is. Any additional stress could conceivably cause it to totally fail, if the tank still contains adequate air and you have a working delivery system there is no need to consider buddy breathing, so putting it aside and using the AAS would be the right thing to do.



(Is that better)

I don't think switching to the octo was neccessary in this case. It was a judgement call. The important thing was that no one panicked. As long as she was getting air she was fine. Switching regs would not have had any effect on the rate of depletion of the tank and if the leak was exceeding the capacity of the first stage to deliver air, two things would have happened. First, her tank would have run empty within a couple of minutes and second her Octo would not have performed any better than her primary.

Unless she had an alternate airsource, like a buddy or pony, she didn't have a critical reason to switch sources. As long as she knew about the leak, was monitoring her air and planning a safe end to the she was doing fine. If she determined that air was depleting rapidly, it would have been a good idea to switch to her buddies air while they turned off and isolated the leak by shutting the tank down. The advantage of this would be more about preventing water getting in the tank when it was completely out rather than safety.

They had the option of returning to the boat on a surface swim in good conditions and decided to return underwater at a depth of 10 fsw. My guess is that the incident was managable and there was nothing being done other than a husband and wife having a squabble about a detail. If the wife decided that her system was having a systemic failure she had her husband's octo or the surface as two viable options.

A small leak of air can seem like a torrent of bubbles
Cutting a Scuba Divers Regulator Hoses - YouTube

 

[halocline]

Gee, it sounds to me like you did everything fine, I don't know what some of these people are griping about. A hose burst, your buddy determined that she did not need to share air or switch to her octo, and you completed the ascent calmly and safely. You even took the time to monitor how much air was lost in the process. You were diving in a way that an unanticipated surfacing was not dangerous, you knew it, due to your judgement to dive a conservative profile, and when the even occurred you just adjusted to it. Perfect!

This is yet another example of how gear failures should be a nuisance, not a life-threatening scenario, at least in OW diving.

Regardless of how well (or poorly) you take care of your gear, or how much money you spend on it, at some point there is the possibility that something will fail. That's why the most basic tenant of safe diving is be prepared in the event of a gear failure. It is a good idea to inspect gear closely, but eventually with enough diving you're going to have gear failure of some sort.

The other incident that you mentioned, where your buddy's 2nd stage separated from the mouthpiece, is actually much more impressive to me. In that case, the affected diver will get a mouthful of water unexpectedly, and that can be VERY scary to some divers. Your buddy simply calmly switched to her octo, you really can't ask for more than that. (Except maybe to use a zip tie next time, and maybe tug a bit on the mouthpiece pre-dive to make sure it can't fall off.)

 

[Hatul]

Checking the hoses under pressure is not something I do as part of every predive check. I have never seen this done by other divers either. Is this considered common practice?

As vacation divers, our gear sits for long periods of time and then gets a large number of dives in a short period of time.

Maybe it makes sense to perform a much more thorough predive check at the start of each vacation week that would include this. Simple to do, so,it makes sense to add it. Checking it 5 times a day seems a little over kill for the simple conservative dives we do.

If I was doing more advanced dives like caves or wrecks or deep I am sure I would have a different attitude and would be much more anal and paranoid.

My thinking is that gear that's used regularly, you're more likely to pick up early failures. It's the vacation divers who are at highest risk for equipment failure, as when the thing sits for months the plastics, seals, fittings and O rings insidiously deteriorate and show up for the first time when you dive.

 

[oldschoolto]

My thinking is that gear that's used regularly, you're more likely to pick up early failures. It's the vacation divers who are at highest risk for equipment failure, as when the thing sits for months the plastics, seals, fittings and O rings insidiously deteriorate and show up for the first time when you dive.

Did you see the post about the 40+ year old "CONSHELF" ...... Worked great and all the o-rings were in good shape... You just never know... And you are right about vacation divers being more likely to miss stuff....

Jim..

 

[fjpatrum]

Job well done.

It takes a bit of time to empty thru the reg hose. My poseidon reg always seemed to free flow, full on every other dive, and it always had a fair amount of gas left, even as it continued to empty at the surface. It did it in cold water, deep or shallow, never gave me warning. Big noise and bubbles but never completely empty. The shop never could fix the problem so it is now in the bin. I've switched to those fancy titanium scuba pro regulators and can relax now.

Maybe someone can tell us when the hoses should be replaced? I know sun breaks down rubber, and wonder like my timing belt in the car, is there a recommend replacement time? Cheers and safe diving

Poseidons are generally considered excellent regs. I suspect there may have either been damage during a servicing or the service tech just wasn't very familiar with tuning that particular reg. Either way, if you're happy and less stressed now, that's what's important.

Read through this and see why I think joking about that type of situation is innapropriate.Because it has been done with dire consequences.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/scuba-related-court-cases/413916-tina-watson-death-full-story.html

You are aware that he pled guilty to manslaughter (in Australia) due to negligence? When the prosecutors in GA, USA looked at the case they decided there wasn't any evidence (or at least enough evidence) to indicate that he was guilty of anything other than incompetence and dismissed the US case. Either way, the comment was obviously a joke and meant as one. You seem to be the only person taking it seriously.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Excellent question!

We have been shocked by the # of High Pressure ( HP ) hoses that we have seen "leak" recently. The HP hoses passed a pressure test at less than 2000 PSI. However when tested at 3000 PSI in water, the hoses would leak out of the perforations in the external rubber cover. ( If you look very close at a HP hose, you can see the tiny holes that have been part of manufacturing the HP hose so the hose doesn't bubble then blow when there is a leak. If the leak is big enough it will still bubble. ) It is "Fun" to take your dive knife and cut a bubbled hose. I would recommend doing this procedure on the surface with as many intrigued observers as possible. The bigger the " Dive Knife " the better!

As far as I know low pressure (LP) hoses don't have these perforations.

Please note, a LP hose failure can result in a depleted cylinder faster than a HP hose.

As far as replacing hoses, I heard at sometime in the many passing years that 5 years is the magic #.

We recommend inspection & testing all hoses. If there is any question, replace. Hoses are fairly cheap.

Please check with the manufacturer and see whether this is "normal" for the higher pressures. Those holes are there to allow some gas a way to escape rather than causing a "blister" to form. These hoses are very, very strong, and I suspect that the new ones have this built into their design. You cannot prevent all gas from escaping, especially at higher pressures, and most especially if you are using helium.

Concerning the very old hoses, the hose protectors help to keep these hoses from flexing at the connection with the fitting, which reduces the potential for wear at this point. Yes, they do keep you from seeing the hose, but that type of inspection should be done periodically. That is the theory; has there been factory information that negates this?

SeaRat

 

[beaverdivers]

SeaRat,

Yes, the holes are there to allow the gas to escape. However, this " leak " means it is time to replace the hose. The small holes have been part of HP hoses design for many years.

The whole debate of " to wear hose protectors or go naked " is an interesting two sided discussion.