Regulator care and cleaning.

[Instructor_Tom]

I love posts by guys who don't put enough information in there profile to verify there background or knowledge level.

dust caps will not prevent water from entering the 1st stage. period. water will get into your second stages if not pressurized.

I have seen the damage first hand on 1st stages and regulators where the diver did not know any better.


Sent using Tapatalk HD

 

[buddhasummer]

I love posts by guys who don't put enough information in there profile to verify there background or knowledge level.

dust caps will not prevent water from entering the 1st stage. period. water will get into your second stages if not pressurized.

I have seen the damage first hand on 1st stages and regulators where the diver did not know any better.


Sent using Tapatalk HD

My money's on Halocline...

 

[lamarpaulski]

I try to rinse ASAP and if possible will bring a sm. cooler of very warm fresh water along to soak second stages (beach dives)...At home I hook up to pony bottle and immerse entire regulator in warm fresh water with air in system..I don't really trust dust cap much either. I try to clean off dust cap thoroughly before putting it back on the reg too. I have thought of sonic cleaners too and use vinegar once in awhile.

I saw some type of study on this issue and one important point was to get them rinsed or soaked as soon as possible out of water.

 

[kelemvor]

Hmm well basically I use the rinse bucket on dive boats or on shore when I'm on a trip. I put the dust cap on, mine is clamped down onto the DIN connection with a yoke adapter. I definitely can't blow air through the reg with the cap on. When I get back from a trip I clean everything in my pool. Often I'll just gear up and dive in the pool to clean the pool. Then I rinse the gear on the steps. I generally spend an hour or more cleaning the gear when I get home from a trip. It's tedious, but I THOUGHT the effort was worth it.

I keep the pool at about 2ppm fc, and care for it enough that there is rarely more than 0.2ppm CC. Actually, the pool water has less chlorine in it than my tap water. The city adds it, I've tested my tap water, and they report it in some annual report.

Moisture in the reg wasn't specifically a problem they identified. Just crystals; I presume salt crystals - in the seconds. A fair amount of it. They told me I could remove the purge to clean and then failed to be able to do so themselves without some special tool. I haven't tried to remove it myself since then.

Once I'm done, I hang things up in my garage and run a dehumidifier for a day until all the gear is bone dry. Then I spray silicone on most of the gear. Not the reg, although I did do it once when I first got it after what was apparently bad advice from another diver. Maybe the silicone spray last spring caused the problem?

I was thinking of taking it to the LDS and paying them to work it over just in case there is a real problem brewing inside. Anyone have any instructions on how to remove the purge cover on a 2013 S600 (and 2012 r295) without that special tool?

 

[herman]

I love posts by guys who don't put enough information in there profile to verify there background or knowledge level.

dust caps will not prevent water from entering the 1st stage. period. water will get into your second stages if not pressurized.

I have seen the damage first hand on 1st stages and regulators where the diver did not know any better.


Sent using Tapatalk HD

Not to be rude but you are wrong. If the dust cap is the kind that has the oring in it....the kind I use, it absolutely will seal the reg. If the oring is missing then it will not but that is an operator error, not a failure of the cap. If you stop to think of it for a second, the seal is exactly the same one that is used for both DIN and yoke connections.....seems to hold 3000 psi fine so one would think it would do great at 1/4 psi or so.

Water will not get into second stages UNLESS you somehow press the purge button...this is assuming you don't have one of the new gimic regs that hold the seat open. If you understand how a second stage works, it is obvious that water can not enter the second stage since the valve is being held shut by the stage springs.....the same one that holds 145 psi of IP in...
My backgound.....active DM- not that that means anything, hold a couple of manuf certs, a cert from a major repair shop that does tech training and I restore old regulators including manufacturing obsolete parts. I also build one of a kind custom regs just for fun....I know the internals of regs.

 

[phoenix31tt]

Agreed at above... We all use the dust caps down here with no issues

I guess ensuring that first is always higher than the second can mitigate flow from the second stage into the first stage as well

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920

 

[Instructor_Tom]

Herman ;

dust caps are not engineer with the tolerances of the tanks or made out of a rigged material like metal. they are dust caps.

as I have stated, I have seen the scaring inside the first stage of some customer regs who have a habit of putting on the dust cover and then dunking the regs at the dockside dunk tanks or out home to clean them.

it's a bad habit if not pressurized, it will effect the fist stage and second stage and over time they will need to be replaced.

this has become a religious discussion, so rather than keep ratcheting it up. this is my final post on this thread.

T.


Sent using Tapatalk HD

 

[buddhasummer]

Herman ;

dust caps are not engineer with the tolerances of the tanks or made out of a rigged material like metal. they are dust caps.

as I have stated, I have seen the scaring inside the first stage of some customer regs who have a habit of putting on the dust cover and then dunking the regs at the dockside dunk tanks or out home to clean them.

it's a bad habit if not pressurized, it will effect the fist stage and second stage and over time they will need to be replaced.

this has become a religious discussion, so rather than keep ratcheting it up. this is my final post on this thread.

T.


Sent using Tapatalk HD

O rings, diaphragms and exhaust valves are not made from metal either and they seal just fine, just saying.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Add me to the "religious soaker" cult.

Also, heresy of heresies, if I cannot immediately wash (or preferably soak!!) my regs, I try to keep them from drying out... I'll plop them inside my damp wetsuit, and happily dive them the next day.... my theory (which as with all theories is subject to being dis-proven!) is that it is best NOT to let salt water dry in the cracks and crevices if possible...

Anyway... back to the perennial "I soak 'em!!" / "No! You'll die if you soak 'em!" argument.

Best wishes.

 

[halocline]

I love posts by guys who don't put enough information in there profile to verify there background or knowledge level.

Me too!