I am very sorry that you guys are having issues, but I had a great time diving today with the D420! The seas were four to 6 feet and I blew lunch during the surface interval the motion was so bad down in Key Largo, but the diving was very pleasant. Not Caribbean spectacular, but nice.
My D420 performed flawlessly. As others have noted, it breathes effortlessly in the standard position and I had no complaints in any of the other positions either. Actually, tuned as light as I had it, it was too light in the standard position, if there can be such a thing.
We're all waiting for the manual, but reading the recent posts, I would be concerned about any significant depression in that hex key. A new seat and a new knife edge just shouldn't take much pressure to seal. And that jumping from 0.5 inches to 2 inches that Buddha had, is an instability at the knife edge . The old D's used to do that with knife edge flaws, but not a new one.
My diagnosis is that you are trying to balance a high lever with diaphragm tension against spring counterpressure. That makes for real instability. My lever has a 1/2 mm separation at present, and it used to be even more, but I did raise it a little. But it's still just level with the case rim. Not above the rim. Using spring pressure to counter the desire of the diaphragm to pull in with the faceplate screwed down is not what I think Scubapro would have designed. Use my tip a few posts above, pull the purge lever pin, and make sure you can tap it just a tiny bit.
I had only one complaint today in the water. Having tuned it to 0.8" (knowing that it was too light), she really wanted to freeflow unless the Venturi lever was placed in pre-dive. I'll retune it tonight to 1.1" for tomorrow's deep dives on the Spiegel Grove. Once I removed the rig from my mouth in water to check my necklace, and even with the mouthpiece turned down she really let loose. This reg really delivers air! I mis-clipped my long hose and lost 500 PSI as it flailed around before I could pull it back in and put my thumb on the mouthpiece. Lol! My bad. Needless to say, I was the one to cut the dive short. Oh, the humiliation in front of my son! Hahaha!
That's also the last time I'll dive a Miflex long hose, but @tbone1004 could have told me that long ago.
Hey! I'm sorry for the issues, but I think you should all lower the lever a touch, and screw the hex out all the way. Then walk it in, and progressively raise cracking effort to 1.1-1.3". This is a GREAT reg, and we shouldn't minimize the risks of messing with a center-balanced mechanism without specs or manual.
Another report in a day or so after some deep tests and a proper cracking effort. 1.3" doesn't mean 1.3" in the water. Closer to 0.3" because of CGF. Perfect.
My D420 performed flawlessly. As others have noted, it breathes effortlessly in the standard position and I had no complaints in any of the other positions either. Actually, tuned as light as I had it, it was too light in the standard position, if there can be such a thing.
We're all waiting for the manual, but reading the recent posts, I would be concerned about any significant depression in that hex key. A new seat and a new knife edge just shouldn't take much pressure to seal. And that jumping from 0.5 inches to 2 inches that Buddha had, is an instability at the knife edge . The old D's used to do that with knife edge flaws, but not a new one.
My diagnosis is that you are trying to balance a high lever with diaphragm tension against spring counterpressure. That makes for real instability. My lever has a 1/2 mm separation at present, and it used to be even more, but I did raise it a little. But it's still just level with the case rim. Not above the rim. Using spring pressure to counter the desire of the diaphragm to pull in with the faceplate screwed down is not what I think Scubapro would have designed. Use my tip a few posts above, pull the purge lever pin, and make sure you can tap it just a tiny bit.
I had only one complaint today in the water. Having tuned it to 0.8" (knowing that it was too light), she really wanted to freeflow unless the Venturi lever was placed in pre-dive. I'll retune it tonight to 1.1" for tomorrow's deep dives on the Spiegel Grove. Once I removed the rig from my mouth in water to check my necklace, and even with the mouthpiece turned down she really let loose. This reg really delivers air! I mis-clipped my long hose and lost 500 PSI as it flailed around before I could pull it back in and put my thumb on the mouthpiece. Lol! My bad. Needless to say, I was the one to cut the dive short. Oh, the humiliation in front of my son! Hahaha!
That's also the last time I'll dive a Miflex long hose, but @tbone1004 could have told me that long ago.
Hey! I'm sorry for the issues, but I think you should all lower the lever a touch, and screw the hex out all the way. Then walk it in, and progressively raise cracking effort to 1.1-1.3". This is a GREAT reg, and we shouldn't minimize the risks of messing with a center-balanced mechanism without specs or manual.
Another report in a day or so after some deep tests and a proper cracking effort. 1.3" doesn't mean 1.3" in the water. Closer to 0.3" because of CGF. Perfect.
