Does anyone else notice the humor in most of these posts? "regs servicing is not rocket science..." "...idiots at the LDS dont know how to service a reg" "....take a simple class from the manufacturer and they think they know everything..." "I'll just DIY next time..." Ok hold on now! If these pasty handed idiots do this for a living after being "trained" by the manufacturers and goof up, what makes you think that you can do it yourself without the training and tools? Ive sat through some regulator classes, some good, some less than good (Oceanic on their Posideon copy "...if the valve is working, don't mess with it! Its too easy to screw up!") in the past couple of years. I also used to work on regulators in the aerospace industry for several years so regulator design and function is not new to me. Guess which regs give me the hardest times to get set... the ones where the owners thought they would save money and DIY. I had one reg come in with completely wrong orings installed, pieces completely bent, nothing tightened... and they said "I dunno, it worked fine the last time I used it...no I didnt open it up..."
People are also complaining about the cost of having your regs serviced. The LDS around here charges $30 a stage. Wow thats $90 plus parts on maybe a $300 reg... fine now lets look at what is needed... first being a retail center, rent is not cheap, electricity, ya need a compressor too, hard to test a reg with no air!, tools (Ive spoke with some scary LDS owners at DEMA "yea these specialty tools are a rip off, I just use different size wooden sticks I buy at the hardware store...") which the cost add up quick, just look at scubatools.com if you don't believe me. Oh yeah the tech, kinda nice to pay him. No given most LDS dont pay employees crap in the way of wages, but how long do you think it takes to service a reg? First you need to hook up the rig, check the IP, check the crack pressure on both 2nd stages, log it all, note hose routing and other assembled doo-dads on the reg, disassemble, ultrasonic, rinse, and then reassemble all three stages. After all three stages are put back together, each stage must be retested and adjusted. Don't forget about the oh so popular paperwork, checking inventory, ordering parts, blah blah blah.