The pros and cons of rebuilding your own regulators...

[MikeFerrara]

Genesis once bubbled...
Never mind that my challenge stands, unanswered:

I will pay you to service my regulator WHEN:

1. You sign, before taking the reg for service, a document that (a) holds you PERSONALLY and SEVERABLY liable if you screw up - no lawyers, no BS, no games. Your entire net worth and your earnings for the next 100 years are the property of my progeny if you kill me at 100' as a consequence of your mistake.

2. You show me that your "dive shop's" organization is NOT designed to evade financial responsibility for mistakes. The document in (1) above thus must include the shop and its owners, personally and corporately.


Oh, you're not willing to do that?

Gee, how's that?

You don't TRUST your own work? You don't BELIEVE that you're going to do it correctly with a sufficient degree of certainty that you're willing to put your LIVELIHOOD and WEALTH on the line, but you want me to bet my LIFE on your representations and claims?

I think that says everything that needs to be said.

Gee, I thought you said I should form multiple corps so I could fix any reg and not even need dive shop insurance. Now...you want us to have no protection at all. I thought you said anyone not using thiscorp org for protection didn't know what they are doing.

Have you ever heard of a death caused by poor reg service? I haven't and I keep a pretty close eye on scuba deaths. Nobody wants you to put your life on the line.

Actually I wouldn't make such an agreement with you because I think it is very possible the average diver will get themselves killed and they will come after me even though my reg work had nothing to do with it.

I trust my work but I don't trust your diving or the ethics of you estate managers after your gone.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Genesis once bubbled...



Never mind that I've yet to see the shop with a torque wrench calibrated in in-lbs hanging on the wall, yet virtually EVERY manufacturer has SOME kind of torque spec for at least one piece of hardware in their reg.

So much for "doing it professionally." :bonk:

Back to the torque wrench huh? If you get the training that is supposed to go with the books your reading you will understand why dive shops don't have torque wrenches.

Do your own please.

 

[Northeastwrecks]

Give it up, Mike. Genesis lives in a fantasy world.

Note that he won't even back up his claims by responding to questions regarding the scope of his investigation or his qualifications.

 

[Aquamaniac]

I am amazed this thread is still going.....

 

[The Chairman]

Everyone take a deep breath... now, back away from your keyboards... it's a new year after all.

Caveat emptor... this goes for service as well. There is NO ONE who services regs out of a shop in the Orlando area that I would trust. I did that and I got to suck water through my reg as a bonus. Then I got one that I couldn’t even breathe on when I picked it up from the shop.

As an ASE Master Certified Automotive Technician (whose certs have lapsed) I have no qualms about non-certified techs working on their own vehicles. I do have a problem with non-certified techs working on someone's regs. There should be an SSE (Scuba Service Excellence) agency that would help to self-regulate our industry. PSI has tried to do this with tanks with very limited success. I don’t think that the dive shops OR centers are interested though… hey, that’s why PSI’s success has been so limited.

Without such an agency, there is far more fiction out in the shops than fact... things like "and if I tweak this IP all the way up to 175 psi your reg will breath better, but I have to "de-tune" your second stage." Yep, that was straight from a "manufacturer certs on the wall" shop.

I care more about my equipment than anyone else possibly could. That's why I took the effort to sort through the morass of apocryphal knowledge to be able to competently service my own regs. AND, I recommend that everyone in a similar situation take the time and expend the energy to do the same. It's your life, and it's your decision! You make the call. That’s why I don’t let the professionals certify how much oxygen is in my NitrOx… or let my buddy assemble my gear. My butt… my work… my choice.

 

[montereydivemas]

all divers should know where thier towels are, I'm just wringing a bit of beer out of mine now

 

[Lead_carrier]

NetDoc once bubbled...

As an ASE Master Certified Automotive Technician (whose certs have lapsed) I have no qualms about non-certified techs working on their own vehicles. I do have a problem with non-certified techs working on someone's regs. There should be an SSE (Scuba Service Excellence) agency that would help to self-regulate our industry. PSI has tried to do this with tanks with very limited success. I don’t think that the dive shops OR centers are interested though… hey, that’s why PSI’s success has been so limited.

Actually NetDoc, most of the manufacturers put on repair clinics that all service techs are supposed to attend before they become "certified". Want to see more spitting and sputtering than a V8 running less one plug. Ask to see your service techs credentials. They should be displayed prominetly.
As to someone working on their own equipment? Have at it and rebuild til your heart is content, but please do not come to me for parts, schematics or put it back together and swear to me that you haven't messed with it. Don't ask me to replace the piston under warranty after you found out that dropping it on concrete will warp it and a file will not straighten it out. Don't tighten the hoses down as tight as they will go and then give them 2 more turns.

You want to do your own gear. Great, but please make sure you have an aptitude for it first.

 

[Stone]

Lead-Carrier,

I couldn't reconcile your response to the quote you pulled from NetDoc's post, so I looked at your profile to see if you had any special qualifications. This is what I found under your "Interests".

helping others discover scuba, wreck diving, blackwater diving, seeing how riled up I can get some people on this board.

 

[Genesis]

there's nothing complicated about overhauling a reg.

Nothing at all.

In fact, its really pretty simple, and WAY easier than doing virtually anything else of precision in any other application (like a car or boat)

The only thing that is real important is cleanliness. But that's true of working on engines too (at least if you'd like them to survive the encounter with your wrench )

 

[Braunbehrens]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...


Well I hate to burst your buble but the manufacturer doesn't use a torque wrench. The reason most dive shops don't use a torque wrench is that they were tought to rebuild them by the manufacturer and THE MANUFACTURER DOESN'T USE ONE!.

We're not reg mechanics who decided to open a dive shop we're dive instructors who decided to open a dive shop. Regulator repair was something that came later and we do it EXACTLY AS THE MANUFACTURER TOUGHT US TO DO IT.

Now who knows the right way to do it YOU or the MANUFACTURER?

Now I will repeat myself again...I am all for someone working on their own stuff if they choose. It is the manufacturer who doesn't want you to. However, when we do it EXACTLY as they tought us to do it who the bageebers are you to say we're not doing it right? If your hurt because the manufacturer won't let you play the way you want why not cut them down instead of us? We didn't make the rules.

You talk alot but when it comes to diving have you ever done anything?

The reason the tech courses don't use torque wrenches is most likely because they assume that most shops simply don't have them. I think that you can service most regs without a torque wrench, but using one it obviously better.

Some torque values are just plain wrong. The torque value on an Apeks DS4 DIN first stage, for the din connector is too low. You want that thing really tight, otherwise it will come loose. Should it come loose, you'll notice as soon as you charge the reg, so it's just a nuisance. However, take it to any dive shop, and they'll just tighten the heck out of it.

As for a magnahelic, no need to spend a lot of money. You can perform the same test by simply sticking the second stage in a sink filled with water. You want to see airflow at 2 inches, and you'll see that when the water level is near the top of the mouthpiece. If it's more than that, the reg isn't adjuste properly anyway.

Genesis has said a lot of stuff I might say, so I'll shut up now, but I just want to point out that how long you've been diving has NOTHING to do with knowing how to service your regs. A novice diver might be great at it, and a seasoned veteran might not know the difference between a turret and a diaphragm.