Water in 1st stage

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ChrisA

Contributor
Messages
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Location
Redondo Beach, California
# of dives
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We've all been told to put the dust cap on the first stage before soaking the reg in a rince tank because it's not good to get water in the first stange. Well, I admit it. I have forgotten a couple times. I know water will get forced down the HP hose and into the SPG

Questions:

1) How harmful is this, after all its fresh water

2) As a feild repair I removed the HP hose, put the reg on a tank and cracked the tank valce open. A bit of fresh water came out and then no more. replaced HP hose and it seems fine.

The reg is an Apeks ATX50 with about 50 dives on it over the last 6 months.
 
It's a good idea to not just blow out the droplets, but run a lot more air through it, by hooking up the 2nd and purging it repeatedly, and the very dry scuba tank air will dry out the inside of the stage very efficiently - just blowing out the droplets may still leave subtantial amounts of moisture inside. However, if you just go diving again soon, it will accomplish the same thing.

Salt water is a whole different ball game...

I can see maybe forgetting once, but " a couple times" ? The dust cap should be in there anytime the valve isn't. It's not something you should even have to think about, or leave for later.
 
Most rinse tanks at the docks are brackish by the time you soak your equipment in it. If salt crystals form on the inside you 1st stage they will damage your o-rings. If lake water is left in the 1st stage or hoses then you may have problem with bacteria and who wants to breath that.

Just as oxyhacker says you should blow your hoses out 1st depressing the purge on the 2nd stage and also blow air through your first stage with no hoses on it as well. Leave the hoses off while your 1st stage drys inside. The best solution is overhauling it though. It can cost a few bucks but next time you will remember not to leave the cap off...=)

Brian
 
I would rip off a couple port plugs and vent it. If you take it to a service center a nice guy will look inside and tell you what you need without charging you. I would :) But it only takes a couple seconds and can save you a bundle if there is more water in there than you think.
 
You did good! That's really the trick is to remove the HP hose so you don't blow water into the gauge. When a reg gets rebuilt, it gets soaked in solution in a sonic cleaner, then fresh water rinsed. So as long as you don't let that water get into the gauge, blowing it all out with dry compressed air will do the trick.

In fact, I had a customer drop a rental reg into salt water on the first day of a trip - no dust cap on. Had to dive down to get it, it was in the water for about 10 minutes. We ran fresh water into it, then blew it out, then more fresh and blew it out again. When we got back state side where we had things like tools.... we cracked it open and it was fine.

Fresh water won't really hurt something, if you dry it off... just don't leave it in there.
 

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