Best 1st and 2nd Stage for under the Ice?

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Vin

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Location
Boston
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Best 1st and 2nd Stage for under the Ice?

We do allot of cold water diving here in the North East- I am regularly under the ice trying diffrent combos- but nothing I have seen is with out free flow problems....

What do you guys use?

Vin
 
I have a Aqualung Titan LX Supreme laying in my closet, it's the cold-water version of the Titan LX, never had any problems in cold water with it, but I'm sure someone has. Good bang for your buck.

That's the only cold water reg that I have had personal experience with.

I don't know if you've tried already, but you want something with a heat exchanger, and a environmental seal to prevent ice from forming in the first stage.
 
The Sherwood regs have a good reputation for cold. I use the Maximus.
 
Vin:
Best 1st and 2nd Stage for under the Ice?

We do allot of cold water diving here in the North East- I am regularly under the ice trying diffrent combos- but nothing I have seen is with out free flow problems....

What do you guys use?

Vin

Lots of Sherwoods in this neck of the woods too, mainly Blizzards. The Maximus is everything for cold like the Blizzard with a few more creature comforts.

We each have Blizzards. We may not get under the ice but we do plan to dive in cold water. After all of 19 dives so far so good. Very comfortable, I forget it's even in my mouth.

I believe many of the state police divers and other S&R teams use them heavily.

Pete
 
I have had no problems with Apeks under the ice. I've also used my Poseidon's on ice dives. They perform excellent in cold water. They should, since Poseidon is located in Sweden.
 
Apeks ATX100, and haven't had a free-flow yet.
 
I have used Scubapro Mk 2's and Mk 16's with no issues on ice dives and in very cold water (33-35 degrees) at depths to 150 ft with no problems. Their TIS kits do an excellent job with no extra maintenence and nor concerns about diaphragms or seals potentially leaking and negating the effectiveness of an environmental kit.

The older SPEC equipped Mk 5, Mk 10, Mk 10 Plus, Mk 15 and Mk 20 were also very reliable for ice diving, but the latest TIS equipped Mk 25 has some issues in cold water as it just does not work with 100% reliability on the Mk 25.

The discontinued Scubapro D400 was an excellent second stage for ice diving as were any of their metal cased second stages due to the superior heat transfer traits they posessed. The current G250 does very well in cold water as do the R190 and R390.

I have used Conshelf Supremes in the distant past and they work very well until the seal and the fluid behind it leaks out. At that point you have issues with the reg potentially freezing after water enters the ambient chamber and worse, corrosion almost always occurs in this area as the water is trapped with no place to go and no way to dry between dives. There is nothing about the Titan Supreme design that strikes me as being much different in this regard.

This is a concern with any design that uses silicone grease, oil or alcohol for antifreeze protection - they have to be maintained and checked to ensure they are still topped off and leak free.

Sherwood's design which uses as small amount of air constantly bleeding into the ambient chamber to keep it dry is a good one and like the SP TIS kits has the advantage of simplicity and low maintenence. One possible downside is that a very rapid descent can exceeed the capacity of the system to keep the ambient pressure chamber full of air.
 
Never use a MK25/S600 Reg if you are doing proper Ice Diving, they are absolutely useless in the cold. I have my Apeks regs (ATX200 and ATX50) from my doubles and either one works just as good as the other. They are great when ice diving espically in Toronto where you can go wreck diving under the ice, this is the last place you want for wreck to play up... Never had any problems under the ice with my Apeks and I have been ice diving now for a couple of years, a couple dives each season in about 32 o F Waters.
 
Thanks.
Good feedback- I have been primarily dealing with the MK25 and even with the new design it free flows with any king of presure on it... Need to shop for a new cold water set up.

Vin
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

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