What's the history of Aqualung single hoses?

[elmer fudd]

I know the double hoses from the Broxton's to the round label heavy yokes, but it seems like there are literally dozens of AL single hose regulators out there. Googling this, I even came across a Conshelf30, as well as the various SE models, Calypso's, octopi, Aquarious, Deepstar and Titan, and I'm sure I missed a few.

I've got a Calypso VI, (1st and second), as well as two plastic octo's that appear to be Conshelf based.

I'm just kind of wondering what order they came out in, approximate time periods and which ones were home runs and which were duds.

There doesn't seem to be anything like the Scubapro museum when it comes to AL/USD products.

 

[Mike Lev]

Hello Elmer,I don't have the time to look through my catalogs.All you have to do it check them yourself.Go to the other lame site with all the downloaded catalogs from people like me.The Spaco catalog was mine.The first U.S.Divers catalog came out in 1953.They have them most of them there.:cool2:

 

[elmer fudd]

I guess what I was more after were peoples subjective opinions of them. I gather the Conshelf used a diaphragm first stage and the Calypso a piston, and that the early Calypsos followed the Aquamatic. What I was hoping to do was to spark a discussion more about why things developed the way they did, which regulators didn't pan out or measure up to the competition and which ones did, than just a simple timeline.

Catalogs are great for seeing what was available back then and when, but they were basically just a sales pitch and IMO, not worth half as much as the opinions of those that actually used the products. Also, I haven't seen a lot of discussion regarding the early AL single hoses.

 

[Sam Miller III]

Marie Le Barre of the US Divers customer service department and I made a compliation of all the US Divers regulators about 15-20 years ago. Surprisingly at that time US Divers did not have a complete set of their catalogs so had to relie on my collection

The compliaton was organized into a horizontal gant type chart on two pages. It was distributed to the US Divers sales representatives with a few slipping into the hands of dealers. Might check with your local LDS or US Divers Customer service department. It may still be in their files and may or may not have been updated.

Marie Le Bare left US Divers when they moved from Santa Ana to San Diego Area

I have a set "some where?"


SDM

 

[herman]

Sam, if you can find copies of the charts, a PDF of them would be greatly apperciated by a lot of us.

 

[elmer fudd]

Sam, if you can find copies of the charts, a PDF of them would be greatly apperciated by a lot of us.

+1

That would be a great resource. Just being able to see the progression from year to year and knowing the different models that were made really helps, especially when you're trying to identify something or date it.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Elmer,

The first was the Aquamatic, of which I have one for my collection. It dated between 1957 and 1961. It "morphed" into the Deluxe Aquamatic (1959-61) which had a snorkel built into the mouthpiece, and the Professional Aquamatic. The Professional Aquamatic (1960) had a all-metal second stage which looked like the early Calypso, but had slightly different levers inside. There was one recently on E-Bay that I bid for but lost. All these had the same diaphragm, unbalanced first stage. The first (original) Calypso followed (1961-62, and was used by Cousteau during filming of World Without Sun (there is a photo of him using it in the book of the same name, but not in the movie), with a balanced first stage (classic diaphragm, ) and a slightly different lever system in the metal second stage. The Hydro-Lung Supreme came out with the Calypso, but as an unbalanced first stage. The Aqua-Div Deluxe (1962) had both plastic and metal first stages. I'm not sure, but think the Conshelf came out from the hydro-Lung Supreme, and became a balanced diaphragm regulator about the time that the Calypso changed the first stage into a piston regulator. Sam Miller may be able to give better insights into this evolution of the Conshelf regulators.

SeaRat

 

[Double Diver]

Hey John that Aquamatic on Ebay went for real money didn't it? Any way I did buy the Voit version last week and I plan to rebuilt it. It needs the 1st and 2nd stage diaphragms as well as the exhaust but the rest looks good. FYI Elmer, if you decide to add an Aquamatic to your collection just assume that the 2nd stage diaphragm has turned to dust. Other than that, mine breaths OK and between the pool and ocean I probably have 3 hrs on it since my rebuild.

 

[elmer fudd]

I would like to get an Aquamatic, but as you noted, they seem to go for nearly as much as double hoses, and I believe they used a billows type diaphragm that might be hard to reproduce. edit: After looking at photos of one, I see that I was wrong about that. I was thinking they were more along the lines of the Rose Pro.

I'm a bit more interested right now in the various Conshelfs and Calypsos. Those seem to be very common, reasonably priced, good looking regs and by most accounts the Conshelfs are bulletproof and good breathers to boot. The main reason I asked was because they made about a dozen or more variations of either one and I'm curious about the differences between them.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Hey, just wondering since you guys mentioned Conshelfs. I have an XI I've been talking about and finally rebuilt and love it BTW, what was the year span of that reg? I'm not asking how many years it was produced in total, but what years was it produced literally like for instance 1962 through 1967? , not that those are the actual years but you know what I mean.