Rubber or braided hose?

[jd950]

FWIW, I tried to find a source for Polyether braided scuba hoses, but was unsuccessful. Based on the recent posts and articles about the manner of failure in the braided hoses, I have abandoned them and gone back to rubber. I don't have the interest, time or eyesight to be frequently examining the interior of my hoses for deterioration and I find diving more enjoyable when the reg is dispensing air as anticipated. If someone starts making the Polyether hoses, I will consider them.

 

[jd950]

Actually, I was just on the Dive Gear Express website and they have this information:

"...We've reached out to all our hose suppliers and they assure us we are not receiving any hose constructed with an inner lining of Polyester-TPU. That material can undergo changes, called hydrolysis, which cause the rapid failure of the hose especially in hot and humid conditions. Miflex branded hoses are constructed with an inner lining of Polyether-TPU. Dive Gear Express flex hoses are constructed with an inner lining of High Syntactic Polyvinyl Chloride. Regardless, neither Polyether-TPU or HS-PVC is Polyester-TPU and in our history with all the double braided flex hoses we've sold, we've never seen anything we think could be the hydrolysis problem described in the Alert Diver article."

Anyone have any thoughts about this? I thought it was Miflex hoses that had the problem with a decomposing lining.

 

[kelemvor]

Rubber for everything except sm long hoses. Braided is easier to route along the tank there.

I do the exact opposite. I discovered during an air share drill in a cave that braided hoses are easy to kink shut. Actually, I have a barely used braided long hose that I should put up for sale someday.

 

[waves_221]

I started using braided hoses shortly after they became available and have used several brands including Miflex and Phantom Hose, but have started migrating back towards rubber hoses. For years, all or most of my regs had braided hoses. A few years ago I had 1 one of the high pressure braided hoses blow off of the crimped fitting on the first stage right before a dive. I took photos and sent it to the distributor, the hoses were recalled a month or so later. I've also had a few instances where the low pressure and high pressure hoses failed and started leaking along the hose before or during a dive. I didn't like how my long braided hose wrapped around or scratched on my neck. I don't mistreat my gear, but i don't baby it either. It's heavily used, rinsed and stored well, and inspected each day before dives. But I do appreciate being able more easily identify wear and tear (crack, bulges, etc..) with the rubber hoses. I've had a high pressure rubber hose fail on me during a dive and leak through the perforations on the hose, but that was my only failure with a rubber hose during a dive. I'm not against braided hoses. If the dive shop only had that as a replacement I'd be okay. I like that they are light and super flexible. But if i were to re-hose my whole set I'd look for rubber hoses first.