FWIW ...
Kit for oddball corrugated hoses: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Aquatics-Adapter-Three-Available/dp/B07HDFLLHR
Recommendation for a Reliable Power Inflator
- Thread starter kablooey
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Kit for oddball corrugated hoses: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Aquatics-Adapter-Three-Available/dp/B07HDFLLHR
fmerkel
Contributor
No, those were the replacements. Maybe they got better. This was probably 18-20 years ago. I just gave up on Zeagle PI after that.
Laugh at me if you will, but I bought the $200 Ti Atomic for myself. Last one I'll ever need to buy. Period.
1) Better buttonology than the standard inflator. I'm tired of crooking my wrist around the corner to inflate, or holding it backwards to use thumb and forefinger, but having the mouthpiece facing away. Simple thumb press for both inflate and deflate, or two fingers if it's in your mouth. But Scubapro can claim the same thing.
2) More important - you can't avoid water retention on the seal around the valve stems. Corrosion on the non-titanium metal designs, or fatigue breakage on the plastic designs was something I was tired of servicing on others' BCDs.
3) Titanium. Yeah, you rinse your bcd, but salt just seems to hang inside that mechanism, and one thing I never want to have is a stuck inflator. Zero corrosion on my Ti inflator. How many folks get their regs serviced, but never bring their bcd in until it fails?
So like I said, laugh at me if you want to, but that ridiculously expensive inflator was a good value in my mind. I bet you've wasted $200 on something scuba-related once in your life, too. And yeah, it comes with connectors for all hose sizes.
1) Better buttonology than the standard inflator. I'm tired of crooking my wrist around the corner to inflate, or holding it backwards to use thumb and forefinger, but having the mouthpiece facing away. Simple thumb press for both inflate and deflate, or two fingers if it's in your mouth. But Scubapro can claim the same thing.
2) More important - you can't avoid water retention on the seal around the valve stems. Corrosion on the non-titanium metal designs, or fatigue breakage on the plastic designs was something I was tired of servicing on others' BCDs.
3) Titanium. Yeah, you rinse your bcd, but salt just seems to hang inside that mechanism, and one thing I never want to have is a stuck inflator. Zero corrosion on my Ti inflator. How many folks get their regs serviced, but never bring their bcd in until it fails?
So like I said, laugh at me if you want to, but that ridiculously expensive inflator was a good value in my mind. I bet you've wasted $200 on something scuba-related once in your life, too. And yeah, it comes with connectors for all hose sizes.
JamesBon92007
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aquacat8
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Air2... on my wing. It gets serviced with my reg. Flame on y’all. Had it for about 18 years and still love it.
I'll be contrarian and say that I really don't like the Zeagle inflators (and I have 5 Zeagle BCs in the family).
I find that they are less reliable than the simple tech-style inflator you can buy from DGX. The Zeagles use a little Shrader valve to control gas flow that is far more susceptible to corrosion, sand, whatever getting in there and causing a slow creeping flow of gas. The basic tech style inflators are much more robust and don't depend a 10 cent Shrader valve with a tiny little opening that is vulnerable to sand or whatever.
The basic inflator is also easier to field repair. The Zeagle service kit has a whole big plastic module with a new Shrader, which is about your only recourse, whereas with a simple inflator you can often fix those creeps in the field. The inflation mechanism is much bigger and easier to clean out or, usually at worst, swap out the o-rings.
I pulled the Zeagle inflators off everything. The only advantage they offer is the hose thing, which is no big deal. It hardly takes any time to run hose water into conventional inflator. By the you've unscrewed, attached hose, run water, unscrewed hose and reattached the inflator, you've probably spent even more time. Better yet, save the money on the fancy inflators and buy one of those attachments that screws onto the hose and has a LPI female on the other end. Then you can flush through the LPI and not just clean out the bladder.
I find that they are less reliable than the simple tech-style inflator you can buy from DGX. The Zeagles use a little Shrader valve to control gas flow that is far more susceptible to corrosion, sand, whatever getting in there and causing a slow creeping flow of gas. The basic tech style inflators are much more robust and don't depend a 10 cent Shrader valve with a tiny little opening that is vulnerable to sand or whatever.
The basic inflator is also easier to field repair. The Zeagle service kit has a whole big plastic module with a new Shrader, which is about your only recourse, whereas with a simple inflator you can often fix those creeps in the field. The inflation mechanism is much bigger and easier to clean out or, usually at worst, swap out the o-rings.
I pulled the Zeagle inflators off everything. The only advantage they offer is the hose thing, which is no big deal. It hardly takes any time to run hose water into conventional inflator. By the you've unscrewed, attached hose, run water, unscrewed hose and reattached the inflator, you've probably spent even more time. Better yet, save the money on the fancy inflators and buy one of those attachments that screws onto the hose and has a LPI female on the other end. Then you can flush through the LPI and not just clean out the bladder.
It's NEVER too late to spend money! The guy who dies with the most toys wins, don'cha know?If I was younger I might consider getting one
I have two Atomic titanium inflators on my doubles backmount bladder. One on the primary and one on the redundant bladder. No problems whatsoever. However, the nonstandard design with the dump button on the side versus the top takes some getting used to.
I did this after some of the standard k valves impressed me with their ability to corrode under harsh conditions, despite daily rising.
There are actually several different versions of the seemingly identical k valve. Some have serial numbers and some don’t. The internal mechanism cartridge is also different. Some use a brass nut and some use a plastic socket for disassembly. Some also seem to corrode just looking at salt water. The whole design trapping the salt water and sand inside with that small oring doesn’t help. You have to use a vice grip on the button head to disassemble it. The DGX version is disposable.
Here’s a tip to disassemble the inflator for servicing if you don’t have the tool. Bent the two center prongs 90 degrees out of the way on a four pronged fork. The two outer still straight prongs will fit down inside the spanned wrench grooves and allow you to remove the cartridge from the housing.
I did this after some of the standard k valves impressed me with their ability to corrode under harsh conditions, despite daily rising.
There are actually several different versions of the seemingly identical k valve. Some have serial numbers and some don’t. The internal mechanism cartridge is also different. Some use a brass nut and some use a plastic socket for disassembly. Some also seem to corrode just looking at salt water. The whole design trapping the salt water and sand inside with that small oring doesn’t help. You have to use a vice grip on the button head to disassemble it. The DGX version is disposable.
Here’s a tip to disassemble the inflator for servicing if you don’t have the tool. Bent the two center prongs 90 degrees out of the way on a four pronged fork. The two outer still straight prongs will fit down inside the spanned wrench grooves and allow you to remove the cartridge from the housing.
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