300m dives achieved with what ?

[Remy B.]

@Remy B. again though, how do you know that they chose those regulators because they had the best work of breathing? How do you know that they weren't sponsored by an Apeks dive shop so they had to use them, or they were given to them, or that is what they chose for a myriad of other reasons that have nothing to do with them actually being the best regulator for that specific dive?

No different unfortunately than any other celebrity type who uses a specific product. You don't actually know the true reasons behind their use of a product. I'm not bashing Apeks, they're great regs, I wouldn't buy them or really recommend them unless you have some specific reason for it since I think there are better options out there, but they are very good regs and CE certified to 200m, well below your personal 70m limit

I don't know, and you either, but I think that the guys wanting to do something as absurd as breaking depth records they had considered WOB inside their planning and priorities if they wanted really to achieve a higher percentage of success.

Price, service availability and WOB, I go for Apeks / Aqua-Lung.

 

[Akimbo]

... I don't know, and you either, but I think that the guys wanting to do something as absurd as breaking depth records they had considered WOB inside their planning and priorities if they wanted really to achieve a higher percentage of success.

The problem is actual test values from EU and US Navy-level certification test are not made available to the public. Scuba Magazine publishes a lame graph that summarizes the detailed results from DiveLab's tests. Unfortunately their graphs are marginally useful to compare regulators in their annual comparison, but only for new regulators released in that year. The EU test is to 165'/50M and the Navy test is to 198' under heavy workloads. The tests that are performed on regulators at NEDU do have test data available, if you can find them.

The only regulators that are actually tested deep, like 1600', are made by Kirby Morgan because their regulators are mounted to their diving helmets used by commercial and military saturation divers around the world. Like I wrote in a recent post:

Regulators don’t come with bragging rights, just endless "mine is better than yours" arguments.

 

[northernone]

The problem is actual test values from EU and US Navy-level certification test are not made available to the public. Scuba Magazine publishes a lame graph that summarizes the detailed results from DiveLab's tests. Unfortunately their graphs are marginally useful to compare regulators in their annual comparison, but only for new regulators released in that year. The EU test is to 165'/50M and the Navy test is to 198' under heavy workloads. The tests that are performed on regulators at NEDU do have test data available, if you can find them.

The only regulators that are actually tested deep, like 1600', are made by Kirby Morgan because their regulators are mounted to their diving helmets used by commercial and military saturation divers around the world. Like I wrote in a recent post:

I love the perspective you humbly bring to these often chest thumping recreational diving threads.

 

[Diver0001]

After reading the post from Sir. Akimbo about those dives down to 300m, I got curious of which regulators had been used to achieve those extreme depths.

I can see that the 332m record from Gabor in Egypt was done with Apeks regulators, what other brands were used in previous records ?

Which regulators were used in the last attempt to break that record that ended in tragedy ?

If I'm not mistaken, Mark Eyllatt used Mares regulators.

As for Guy Garmen (the Darwin winner you were thinking about) he used Scubapro regulators.

To my way of thinking a dive to these kinds of depths on open circuit are walking a knife's edge anyway. The regulators are going to have to be very good but they are probably not the thing that will go wrong.

R..

 

[Remy B.]

I heard about the US navy using Scubapro but I don't remember from hoe, they banned some models from their line.

I look price vs value, parts availability and service, yes unfortunately I use the Scuba lab reference sheet, that is all I have to go for regarding WOB, It accounts for a large majority of most know brands but limited models.

There is people that spent a shait lot of money in exotic brand names where they can spend a lot less and possible have better performance.

Atomic is a good example of ridiculous prices with fussy arguments, sure you get an Atomic price that just nuked your walled but one does with his money what one wants and is free to do so.

There are a lot of Apeks copies with little cosmetic changes on it, they slap a exotic name to it and the price with it, but people buy marketing more and more, fancy names and colors, same performance as the original equipment.

I saw a article about Mares XR series regulators that seemed alright but I don't know how much marketing and money under the table was behind that tests or if it was a genuine and impartial test in depth and cold circumstances, Mares is bashed a lot in EU but I still have my doubts if they are marketing influenced, sure they have some not standards hose connectors sizes in their 2nd stages that doesn't make them appealing regarding O-rings availability compared to other brands but I don't know if it is on all their models.

 

[tbone1004]

@Akimbo Apeks and Poseidon both have certified to Norsok U-101 which tests to 200m. Not 500m like the Kirby's may be tested to, but they are tested and certified down that deep.
Here is the DST/XTX50 certification for anyone curious
http://www.apeksmarine.co.uk/downloads/certificate XTX50 200m.pdf

@Remy B. the USN uses a variety of equpiment depending on what they're doing, but you also have to remember that just like a lot of the divers in question, the military may not be using the "best" equipment available if the "best" doesn't fit within their purchasing parameters. IIRC the USN and Marine Corps has approved MK25/S600, MK17/G260's, and MK2/R295's but the spec ops teams don't use their regulators.

 

[Remy B.]

@Akimbo Apeks and Poseidon both have certified to Norsok U-101 which tests to 200m. Not 500m like the Kirby's may be tested to, but they are tested and certified down that deep.
Here is the DST/XTX50 certification for anyone curious
http://www.apeksmarine.co.uk/downloads/certificate XTX50 200m.pdf

@Remy B. IIRC the USN and Marine Corps has approved MK25/S600, MK17/G260's, and MK2/R295's but the spec ops teams don't use their regulators.

Because they use the Vacuum Cleaners ( rebreathers )

Interesting that the Certificate mention Heliox, not Trimix, maybe it doesn't pass with trimix ? who cares I'm not going that deep nor have the walled to pay for it.

 

[Akimbo]

Interesting that the Certificate mention Heliox, not Trimix, maybe it doesn't pass with trimix ? who cares I'm not going that deep nor have the walled to pay for it.

Exactly: The problem for recreational tech divers is that both the Norwegian and Navy (deep) procedures test are on HeO2, not Trimix which has a much higher density. The WOB is undetermined on Trimix. Very weird and hard to predict things happen when gas density changes.

The reality is that +/- 60% of the regulators manufactured "might" meet the same standards but nobody has spent the money to look. There hasn't been a significant patent in decades that would prevent simply copying any good feature that comes up.

 

[Akimbo]

I love the perspective you humbly bring to these often chest thumping recreational diving threads.

Very kind, thank you.

 

[Remy B.]

But taking today standards of WOB a side, I'm wondering what was the WOB from that regulator that used Keller in that dive, he probable wouln'd had survived the dive trying to breath from it diving with today tanks, probably would had tox out on CO2.