nitrox din reg fitting

Hi

i almost bought an apeks xtx50 nitrox reg today for use on deco gas when i was told that it had an m26 fitting? never heard of this, what is it? if i bought this reg (Apeks XTX 50 Nitrox Regulator | Simply Scuba UK) would the first stage fit a standard din tank? as i won't be using it in europe (it will be used in Hurghada, Egypt) will it work or not? really confused

thanks for the help
Craig Thomas Chamberlain

Go to this link and it should answer your question.

NITROX CONNECTIONS Which way will the M26 take us? - Divernet

Hope this helps.....

Ah yes, the infamous M26 fitting. It serves no purpose whatsoever, and solves no issues whatsoever. About as useful as an 'oxygen-clean' sticker on a tank. The idea here is to make anything but regular air use a different fitting, and it was made into a European standard. While people often love to moan and point at EU bureaucracy 'thinking up these things', they rarely just develop out of the blue. I suspect some industry lobbying behind this, and my conversations with some European manufacturers on the subject has done little to tell me otherwise. A funny side-effect is that some regulator manuals literally say they're good for use with recreational nitrox everywhere in the world except for Europe, where you'd need the M26 model... which is incorrect. This norm is essentially a specification, not a requirement (or at least, it wasn't a year ago). As such, given the large user base of regular DIN and Yoke fittings, which have no real or theoretical downside over M26, there is no reason to use M26.

M26 tank valves are rare even in EUrope, but you're unlikely to find them outside of Europe.

The regulator is exactly the same, just the fitting is different and it won't fit on a normal M25 tank valve.

As for the M26, as far as I know nobody in Europe is taking this nonsense seriously. The M26 is EU bureaucracy at it's dysfunctional best. It has literally zero added value to divers or businesses in terms of reliability or safety and accomplishes nothing apart from introducing an unnecessary complication.

In fact, I can't for the life of me think of any party who could possibly benefit from its introduction. So without someone wanting it and pushing for it to go to law then I very much doubt if national governments will ratify/implement the norm on any short term time scale (if at all). They simply have better things to do... things that people *do* want to happen.

Even in the Netherlands (where I live), where the government does everything in their power to be the most obedient kid on the block I don't see any signs of them taking this ridiculous norm seriously.

My advice would be to order your reg with a normal DIN fitting or swap it out. I don't see the M26 being pushed to market any time soon.

R..

Diver0001:

The regulator is exactly the same, just the fitting is different and it won't fit on a normal M25 tank valve.....

Click to expand...

I hope not. M25 is the neck thread size

chrisch:

I hope not. M25 is the neck thread size

Click to expand...

Ach.... of course, you're right. I knew I should have looked that up. Was it clear what I meant at least?

R..