To much Beach Diving bad? V16 leaking..

[FastAttack]

Well to my demise ,
I had to abort a beach dive yesterday since It started leaking out of the 1st stage.

The wierd part is that it was leaking out of the actual body of the 1st stage. ( checked O rings and hoses, and caps, everything basicly checked out)

History of the regulator :

I bought this reg in early june of 2006 ( as a package
This is on a V16 Proton Metal Reg , Proton Octo and a MC1 console) ..
It has aprox 50+ dives on it .. most of them at depths around 30 feet or so.
lowest depth I've gone so far has been 80 feet.

I am very uptight on maintenance of my equipment. Post dive , I usually connect my regulator to a tank , pressurise it and clean it with warm water ( at the 2nd stage).
and then dry it as much as possible ( without me sticking my finger or anything on it).

as far as the 1st stage, I make sure that when I prep my equipment , the dust cap is the last thing to go off prior to putting it on the tank. Post use , I dry the 1st stage before removing it from the tank, and imidiately after removing it I clean it with some air ( I tend to do this in a clean area, usually inside my trunk of the car or in a non sandy area).
If doing a 2nd dive, I move it quickly to the 2nd tank, and I never let the 1st stage ever hit the floor.

Storage :

I leave it hanging off a special dry storage area in the house , which contains almost to no dust ( primary's cap is always on)

Air:

All fills are done at World of Watersports ( Divers Direct) and have not switched to any other fill places, they are pretty up tight on filtration

So the "cause of the leak" :

According to my LDS , is due to me doing to many beach dives.. and that "surf" contamination can cause particulate matter or sand to be introduced into the 1st stage. And not only that but in doing beach diving it will cause me to service my reg more than once a year. ( the other statement I got was that I put in more dives in this regulator than most people do in several years)

Anyhow the LDS will be servicing my regulator , ( not even a year!)
and I will be paying for the labor.

I am kinda suprised on the statement that beach diving can cause failures like this.. And honestly, I know several other regular beach divers that have well over 100 dives on their regulator.

i don't feel like paying rebuild charges ever often due to me beach diving to many times. I don't want the feeling of being uncomfortable with my own reg thinking that it might just fail on me at anytime ( either on a boatdive or beach dive)

anyhow I am just wondering if any of these statements hold true and if its a known problem ( I didn't see anything on the instructions about beach diving causing the reg to leak)

thanks!

 

[spectrum]

Don't blame the beach, there was either a defect or foreign mater entered the system.

Depending on where you do cylinder swaps sand and salt can be a trick to avoid. Even exiting the water via a stired up surf line can have sand clinging here and and there. When I dive I leave a few bottles of fresh water under the back bumper. I use them to rinse my car keys and our first stage/cylinder connections.

Pete

 

[DennisS]

I've never had a problem with years of beach diving. I do rinse the first and second stages when I get to the car. Doesn't sound normal for beach diving.

 

[FastAttack]

do you guys rinse it with the dust cap on right?
just making that part clear thanks

 

[Zak OHara]

fast attack,
Sounds to me like you take very good care of your gear. It also sounds very strange that the 1st stage just started leaking. This is not normal. Considering the way you are attentive to your gear pre and post dives, you should not IMO have problems doing many beach dives. All I can think is that some how something got into the 1st stage, or something went wrong internally maybe an Oring? (the latter would be very unusual). As you can see the only exposed part of the 1st stage is the Spring at the top. Sand in there shouldn't cause the casing to vent air. There are no moving parts to the 1st stage, so there wouldn't be any pinching of orings etc. Your sure the air wasn't leaking past one of the orings at the LP or HP ports?

I think this sounds like a 1 time unfortunate event. I feel after this service you wont have any more problems, especially if you continue to take care of your gear the way you described above.

I hope this eases any apprehension you have re: our product or reocurring future services. Let us know how it goes.

Zak

 

[FastAttack]

Thanks Zak,

LDS checked each port and orings and checked all HP/LP hoses, the leak still occured out of the body.

They haven't emailed me yet to let me know the status of the rebuild ( they said up to a week) so I'll know later on.

Just trying to comprehend how the regulator leaked if proper care was used.

LDS owner was "This happens when you beach dive to often , you might save money beach diving since its free, but you will end up paying more in maintenance in the long run vs just boat dives."

thats what concerned me the most and well the comments that I shouldn't be beach diving in the first place :\

 

[mattroz]

It sounds a lot like he's trying to sell you a charter.

 

[FastAttack]

It sounds a lot like he's trying to sell you a charter.

I might switch my servicing to Divers Direct instead.. just gotta bring all documentation to them to show them that I bought it from an authorized mares retailer

 

[Ed Palma]

did you note which part of the 1st stage it was leaking from? I don't think beach diving would affect a balanced diaphragm in the way you describe. Did it breathe differently? was there a change in the IP? Its either a leak from the diaphragm or a nicked o-ring in the HP side of the reg.

 

[FastAttack]

did you note which part of the 1st stage it was leaking from? I don't think beach diving would affect a balanced diaphragm in the way you describe. Did it breathe differently? was there a change in the IP? Its either a leak from the diaphragm or a nicked o-ring in the HP side of the reg.

when looking at the regulator dead on , the leak was coming from the HP side right where the plastic meets the metal portion of the 1st stage ..
the 0 ring to the hose was fine as the LDS put a metal cap in there to see if it was the actual hose O ring.. but it wasn't the "External O-RING"

as far as breathing? nope same breathing with the leak.

I wasn't paying attention when they did the IP check.