Disposable regulators

[phasechange]

Are we moving towards disposable regulators (no repair or service)? With the price of good regulators coming down and the cost and hassle of service or getting kits going up it would seem that at some point a new reg every 2 years will be cheaper.



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[DivemasterDennis]

I hardly think so. Learn to service your own reg and it will last for years and years without much cost involved at all. . More likely you will want to trade up to new more advanced gear, rather than "dispose of older stuff by neglect," which is an idea that just does not sound like a good idea to me.
DivemasterDennis

 

[tdtaylor]

I haven't found the cost of a good, sealed reg to be so cheap and so expensive to service that it would make economic sense. I see regs running from $200 to $1,100, the $200 being on sale for a reg I wouldn't buy. Say a mid-grade reg set and hoses runs $450. At our shop, who uses a guy I dive with to service the regs for the last 20 years, a rebuild is every two years at $25/stage plus the service kit- less than $100, unless something more needs replaced. The non-rebuild year just looks for wear and checks pressures, operation, etc. which was $10 per stage plus parts, if any.

With all that said, I have seen regs that looked like a truck on a gravel road ran over them- and yes, they are considerably more expensive to repair/rebuild.

On the other hand, Dennis has a great point. Learn to service your own regs- I will be doing it soon. I went to an intro seminar at one of the dive shows, and there is nothing that complicated if your are so minded.

Terry

 

[Mr Carcharodon]

I bought a HOG a few years ago on their black Friday sale for $200 which gets it pretty close to disposable. I suspect a lot of marketing dollars will be spent to avoid disposable regulators. It is just amazing how much is spent on titanium uber life support. Or the cost of the kits will go down. After all a typical kit is half a dozen o-rings and a seat which cost more to ship than the parts are worth.

 

[kelemvor]

Disposable technically means designed to be thrown away after one use. I assume you mean roughly "designed to fail in a short amount of time". I don't want life support equipment that is designed to fail.

You can get "cheap" $220 regulators (oceanic alpha 8 for example). That's for BOTH stages, and isn't even a sale price. I'm thinking I wouldn't want to trust my life to it.

On the other hand... I'm sure people buy those cheap regs, and I can't recall ever having read about someone dying from the use of a cheap regulator.

 

[phasechange]

I was thinking more of just the 2nd stages (and disposable I mean the standard 1-2 years that most seem to service the regs). I have seen some that are highly rated brands recommended on this site for less than $100 new and have seen service costs (for those who don't do it themselves) around 75-85 after shipping to have a reg serviced.

 

[Griffo]

If I was still diving HOG's i'd probably throw the second stages out rather than service them. You'd get two years out of them, and it's only marginally more expensive to buy a new 2nd stage than to service it. It's $25 + shipping for a kit, it's $90 for a brand new second stage... locally they charge $60 for a service per stage...

 

[GillScales]

I didn't take up scuba because I wanted to save money, otherwise I'd still get all my air from a Snorkle.

 

[Crass3000]

If I was still diving HOG's i'd probably throw the second stages out rather than service them. You'd get two years out of them, and it's only marginally more expensive to buy a new 2nd stage than to service it. It's $25 + shipping for a kit, it's $90 for a brand new second stage... locally they charge $60 for a service per stage...

So I've heard a lot of people comparing HOGs and APEKS. Do you think APEKS are more reliable. I want to get some more regs but don't want to be diving on stuff that wasn't meant for long service. Sounds like HOGs are pretty good no?

---------- Post added July 1st, 2013 at 11:09 PM ----------

I didn't take up scuba because I wanted to save money, otherwise I'd still get all my air from a Snorkle.

My answer is more for the one who asked the question. Unfortunate but you want to live so you should buy what makes you feel most safe. Not the reg that will get you by for a little while. You look to be from a cold weather place. I wouldn't spare much money on a regulator. Ask the people like other divers, DM, and instructors what is available around there and what they trust. Trust======= way more than money as it could be your life. Cold money regs are like gold if you need them and considering where you live I think you need one.

Disposable cameras don't work too hot. You have to be able to trust your rig. Hopefully you have something like a pony if sh*t goes bad. Diving with a pony is pretty smart. It can buy you some time.

 

[Griffo]

So I've heard a lot of people comparing HOGs and APEKS. Do you think APEKS are more reliable. I want to get some more regs but don't want to be diving on stuff that wasn't meant for long service. Sounds like HOGs are pretty good no?

.

So.. I still think the HOG's are great regs, but I had a series of issues with my regs related to the lack of dealers in Australia at the time and the apparent inability of anyone locally to service them properly. I had them serviced 3 times in rapid fashion by different shops after I broke them on holidays (where I couldn't get them serviced due to lack of parts) as they were never the same as they were when new. I then had a colleague service them for me to get them working as all 3 shop services left them in poor state. We discovered that the 1st stage had been assembled wrong and I had a damaged knife-edge, but by this time i'd spent enough to have thrown them out and bought new.

As all my fellow divers, instructors etc all dive Apeks, I had to make a decision and decided that the availability of parts, the trained service techs, and the ability to parts swap with friends over-ruled any cost saving by going HOG. This is not HOG's fault, in the US this decision may not have been valid. But after sinking nearly $20k into my dive gear, the couple of hundred saved wasn't worth missing another dive over. Again, nothing wrong with HOG, just not practical in this country currently.