Another Noob 'What should I do' thread

[fweber]

Just a thought: If you were to spin your Conshelf 180 degrees, the HP hose would be coming off the left side, you would have a horizontal lp port on the right for a bungeed backup, a down ward slanting lp port for a long hose primary, and the only thing you would have to find an appropriate routing for would be your lp inflator, which would be coming off the left but at a slight downward angle.

But, if you really want a new reg, I have to agree with others that a DS4 and tx,atx,xtx, 50 is a great starting point and will fit seamlessly into any tech rig configuration. However, for tech diving you're going to want that as a din connection. For recreational diving you may end up with either an additional yoke fiting or a din to yoke converter.

Simply, both myself and my friends have found that trying to make gear perform double duty between rec and tech results in a lot of palava. We've mostly ended up with a complete rec setup and a complete tech rig.

And $200 for service feeding straight into a sales pitch is a bit harsh. Time for a polite conversation with the owner about the fact that you would like to support his business but not mindlessly.

Cheers,

 

[halocline]

Since you're diving in open water with a single tank and no canister light, you'll probably find that a 5' hose is more convenient than a 7'. The longer hose is to allow single file travel through tight overhead spots while sharing air.

I had a look at a few other conshelf 14s on ebay, just to see if the port arrangement is like yours, and they are. If it were mine, I'd turn it around so that the yoke knob is facing your head, that fixes all the routing issues. As I said, I dive like that all the time. It actually presents less on an entanglement hazard.

 

[David P]

rotate the reg 180 so the hoses point down behind your head instead of up. Swap your inflater hose and the yellow reg hose and you're set! I'm assuming you're breathing the metal reg, if you put the 7' hose on it it will point down and be perfect. If you stick with a short hose then you should have the octo on a 40" hose pointing down, coming up under your arm, and have the primary pointing out straight and coming over your shoulder. Those regs are very easy to service, however lets say the shop wants $30 a stage, X 3 stages = $90 plus parts.... $10 a stage?(Im guessing on this one, chances are they have bulk orings and seats...) you're now at $120... oh yeah $80 sales pitch. I personally would recommend staying away from Mares. I think they are an ok design reg, but the company is horrible! I order a bunch of rebuild kits, they send me about 3/4 of the order. A day later they send me one or two more parts (plush shipping), a day or two later another part plush shipping.... then I order a part and I have to wait weeks to get it. When the part shows up, its an empty envelope! Instead of just sending me a new part for free, they have to credit the first part, and start a whole new order for one lousy part! I think there are much better regs, with much better designs, from MUCH better companies out there. Id like to say buy American but Scubapro is Italian owned, Apeks is British, everything is made it Taiwan I think, oh I guess you can buy Atomics, they are a very nice reg, just a bit pricey.

By the way, interesting auto top off, or is it a really big collection jug for your protein skimmer? I am the president of the Los Angeles County Marine Aquarium Society (funny part is I don't remember every saying that I wanted the position....) so I too am a fish geek(actually much more interested in the corals).

 

[GTRio]

I sent my regs to Phil at Divesports to get checked out.

If I rotate the first stage the only problem I see is the LP inflator hose will be pointing down and it needs to go up over my shoulder. I guess a longer hose would solve that.

Its an auto topoff on the tank. I use RO/DI water in the jugs and start a syphon down to a float valve in the sump. As water evaporates both the main tank and the sump stay at the same level and the level in the jug drops. Works Awesome.

 

[Ed Palma]

GTrio. FYI, overhaul parts for the Conshelf 14 range from 20-50 dollars. For the 2nd stages, they're like 6-15 dollars, depending where you look. There are kits available on eBay every now and then. O rings themselves can be bought from hardware stores - and whole sets of the most commonly used o-rings can be had for less than 10 dollars. Couple that with the fact that I learned to service my own gear, so that's more or less all that I pay.

IMO, 200 dollars is just too much. I related this with your other posts in the "what did you regret" thread, and i think that your other LDS was pulling a fast one on you.

 

[GTRio]

Hi Ed, I brought up the high price with them and was told that they get the service kits cheaper in the states from the manufacturers; I'm not about to question that.

They also said that the conshelf is dated so when I found a place that likes them and thinks they are decent regs (Divesports) I went with them.

I'm sure I could service them myself, the way I fixed the initial freeflowing problem was to lap the seat in the first stage with some machinist compound, this was after they had been serviced twice and then I was told that they were "unserviceable."