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Well, they're finally done! almost....
I've been in the middle of moving and I've been waiting to get these done for almost three months except for the Kraken which is only a week old. First time dealing with the 109's, so had some interesting moments.
Kraken was set up with @herman and when I got it home, found out the IP wasn't exactly where I wanted it. Took it apart and get the IP tuned to 125psi to play nice with my Poseidon's. Huge thanks to @OWIC647 @Luis H and @herman for this beautiful piece of kit. Kraken is staying naked until it's new case comes in on Wednesday. Saw that a lot of people use flight helmet cases for their double hoses so grabbed one of these
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NBQ9USS/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I1WFTMLYK5MB9Q&colid=1F0GOGJ0MWXFR
The Dacor is my dads regulator and has been used on my O2 bottle for a while but needed a lot of TLC. I got some new exhaust diaphragms from @DA Aquamaster and it's exhaling a lot better. The seat has a bit of a ridge in it but not sure if those are available... Will be digging around to see if I can't get a replacement seat for it, i.e. harassing Larry and Herman. Lots of sentimental value in that regulator so want to get it all the way back. It breathes pretty well though.
The 109's were given to me by John at NESS and @herman and are almost completely back together. Missing the exhaust t's which I haven't had the motivation to heat up to get on, and haven't figure out which mouthpieces I want to go with yet. As of now, they are tuned to 125psi to play nice with the rest of my regulators and I'm quite excited to get these on deco bottles and a loaner singles reg set. I also was recently given another 109 and a 108 on a MK5 that will be getting some TLC here shortly as well after I place another order with VDH.
I went all out with these and replaced everything. New poppets, springs, exhaust covers, diaphragms, diaphragm covers, and mouthpieces. Not the cheapest way to do it, but glad I shouldn't have to worry about them ever again. Wish i could get them rechromed and may figure it out at some point, but they definitely have character!
Some fun thoughts and observations.
Inline adjustment tools are amazing. I haven't been able to/had to use one for many years diving Poseidons, and the one from VDH is great, especially for the price.
When tuning multiple second stages, having an inline shutoff would have probably been useful... Having to do all of the tuning on the floor and shutting the reg off was rather annoying. Not a big deal, but will be acquiring one to keep with the inline adjuster once these things take a set and need to be retuned.
Don't be a moron and put the front of the reg on before you put the exhale diaphragm in.
109's apparently have different screw pitches. Two of them took the replacement screws that came in the kits, two of them did not. Quite strange indeed.
The NOS diaphragms are a bit big and won't seat properly until the diaphragm covers are on.
Ball peen hammers work quite well for reshaping the outer metal covers where they were dented. A little tap tap tappy and they're straight and flat again
All in all a very productive day. Now off to getting my regulators reconfigured for the summer after dealing with open water training and a bunch of regs getting moved around
I've been in the middle of moving and I've been waiting to get these done for almost three months except for the Kraken which is only a week old. First time dealing with the 109's, so had some interesting moments.
Kraken was set up with @herman and when I got it home, found out the IP wasn't exactly where I wanted it. Took it apart and get the IP tuned to 125psi to play nice with my Poseidon's. Huge thanks to @OWIC647 @Luis H and @herman for this beautiful piece of kit. Kraken is staying naked until it's new case comes in on Wednesday. Saw that a lot of people use flight helmet cases for their double hoses so grabbed one of these
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NBQ9USS/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I1WFTMLYK5MB9Q&colid=1F0GOGJ0MWXFR
The Dacor is my dads regulator and has been used on my O2 bottle for a while but needed a lot of TLC. I got some new exhaust diaphragms from @DA Aquamaster and it's exhaling a lot better. The seat has a bit of a ridge in it but not sure if those are available... Will be digging around to see if I can't get a replacement seat for it, i.e. harassing Larry and Herman. Lots of sentimental value in that regulator so want to get it all the way back. It breathes pretty well though.
The 109's were given to me by John at NESS and @herman and are almost completely back together. Missing the exhaust t's which I haven't had the motivation to heat up to get on, and haven't figure out which mouthpieces I want to go with yet. As of now, they are tuned to 125psi to play nice with the rest of my regulators and I'm quite excited to get these on deco bottles and a loaner singles reg set. I also was recently given another 109 and a 108 on a MK5 that will be getting some TLC here shortly as well after I place another order with VDH.
I went all out with these and replaced everything. New poppets, springs, exhaust covers, diaphragms, diaphragm covers, and mouthpieces. Not the cheapest way to do it, but glad I shouldn't have to worry about them ever again. Wish i could get them rechromed and may figure it out at some point, but they definitely have character!
Some fun thoughts and observations.
Inline adjustment tools are amazing. I haven't been able to/had to use one for many years diving Poseidons, and the one from VDH is great, especially for the price.
When tuning multiple second stages, having an inline shutoff would have probably been useful... Having to do all of the tuning on the floor and shutting the reg off was rather annoying. Not a big deal, but will be acquiring one to keep with the inline adjuster once these things take a set and need to be retuned.
Don't be a moron and put the front of the reg on before you put the exhale diaphragm in.
109's apparently have different screw pitches. Two of them took the replacement screws that came in the kits, two of them did not. Quite strange indeed.
The NOS diaphragms are a bit big and won't seat properly until the diaphragm covers are on.
Ball peen hammers work quite well for reshaping the outer metal covers where they were dented. A little tap tap tappy and they're straight and flat again
All in all a very productive day. Now off to getting my regulators reconfigured for the summer after dealing with open water training and a bunch of regs getting moved around
