What gear malfunctions have you ever had?

[alewar]

Me:

Flooded cheap light
Broke the line of a brand new spool. (It turned out it was glued together in the middle...)

my buddies experienced while diving with me:

SPG o-ring blown out
Mask strap breakage
Dry zip leakage

 

[Kharon]

Equipment - none. Me - plenty. Early on - forgot my compass, forgot to turn on air, forgot ... You name it. Just yesterday - I forgot that their was a tiny bit of air in my BC and didn't remember to void it. It was a shore dive so I didn't inflate it to do a giant stride. I thought I was slightly underweighted because the tank I was using has 1½# less negative bouyancy and I forgot to add weight. Turns out weighting was fine. I was just dumb. Old age - early onset lack of attention. Can't let that happen again.

 

[ssidiv3r]

I guess I've been lucky so far in that I've only had one gear malfunction in the form of a frozen second stage that caused a free-flow. Of course, my brain wasn't working right on that dive because I was at 95' when it happened and I decided to push on down to 115'; I ended up surfacing with under 100 psi and promptly went and bought some better regs. Turns out the regs I had been told would be ok in cold water were not, and since then I've never had a problem with my new, actual cold-water regs or any other gear. There was one other incident on a trip to NC but I'm not quite sure it counts; I had just managed to get back onto the boat in a stiff current, got my gear off and took a step away to reel out the line that was supposed to be out to help us get back on board. The bungee I thought I had pulled over the first stage apparently came off so the whole rig took a dive onto the deck with the next wave and cracked the reg between the first stage and the yoke attachment.

 

[scubadada]

None, thanks

 

[String]

Not had that many but thinking back:-

(i) Problem:- Broken mask strap
Cause:- No idea
Solution:- No problem, don't really NEED a strap anyway. Changed it after the dive

(ii)Problem:- Glass fell out of the mask
Cause:- Most likely someone dumping a box on it somewhere
Solution:- Backup mask out of pocket. Continue dive

(iii)Problem:- Uncontrolled freeflow and resulting OOA
Cause:- Purging a reg in cold water trying to inflate a DSMB BSAC style
Solution:- Switched to redundant air source and ascended. Next time don't purge the reg in cold water even if BSAC say you have to!

(iv)Problem:- Corrugated hose ripped in half on a dive
Cause:- Grabbed too hard/possibly already weak
Solution:- Alter angle in water to retain air, continue dive as it was shallow

(v) Spring strap broke on fin. Pin fell out
Cause:- No idea. Fatigue or impact maybe
Solution:- Continued with 1 fin. No current

(vi)Problem:- Torch caught fire underwater
Cause:- Salt water leaked in and triggered fire
Solution:- Give torch to student and swim away

(vii)Problem:- Fairly gradual flooding of CCR loop
Cause:- Tiny hole in the mouthpiece
Solution:- Better pre dive checks of mouthpiece

(viii) Problem:- HP hose bursting underwater. 4 times in a year.
Cause:- Miflex HP hose
Solution:- Never, ever use Miflex HP hoses again!

 

[Tigerman]

"**** this torch is on fire... You take it" brilliant solution

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

A few various ones over the years but nothing too serious:


Blown high pressure hose - once on surface and once about 10m into descent so controlled ascent to surface and swapped reg out for a spare.
Other than that just your usual mask & fin strap scenarios. Solutions to all of these just having spares available & continuing the dive as planned from there.

One other time, the push clip on my bc (Aqualung Pro QD) cracked and shattered during predive safety check. Nothing a couple of cable ties couldn't fix for a couple of dives until I could get it in to be replaced, but if I'd had to ditch my gear quickly for whatever reason it would have meant I could only quick release on one side. The solution? Always use the chest strap to alleviate stress on buckles, and avoid hanging additional clips/lights etc off off of the D rings that my put more stress on the buckles.

 

[wspalding]

To-date, I've had my BCD losing air at depth (user error), flooded computer, flooded dive light. The computer flooded because of a faulty seal to the battery compartment, the BCD leaked because, like and idiot, I didn't screw the inflator hose connection on tight. I am sending the light in for service, have no idea why it flooded as the o-ring seems fine.

 

[decompression]

Funny, just recently lost a wingnut on my BP at the beginning of a dive......challenging to say the least.

 

[AfterDark]

Long ago had a complete regulator failure to deliver air, because the nit wit I borrowed it from serviced it himself and F'itUp!

I've had a few regulator free flows nothing violent just an over tuned SP 109 but air loss none the less.

Put my wing's dump valve back together wrong just before my deep dive for AWO and spent the dive bouncing off the bottom because the wing leaked.

The battery on my PDC died during the dive leaving me with 50 min bottom time at 95FSW.

The slider on my wet suit zipper broke.

Tried on of those new snorkel holders and lost a snorkel I had for 25+ years, back to the TAB.

The knob on my dive watch pulled out, all the way, last time I tried to set the date on it.

I've got 44 years of equipment failures. Do you want them all?