BCD Clean Out Procedure

so you get out of the water whether it's fresh water salt water and you wash all your gear up but really how clean is the bladder on the inside of your BCD let's find out together what's up guys this run again from Lake kicker scuba marina and in today's video we're gonna be going over how you can clean out the internal part of your BCD I'm gonna be showing you several different ways to do that whether it's through the inflator valve whether it's through one of your OPV valves and I'm gonna show you a couple of tools that may assist you as well but Before we jump into that if you are new to our channel do me a huge favor make sure you hit this little subscribe button over here and ding that little bells well that way you guys will be notified every time we upload new content so without further ado let's get in today's video alright so start the video out I didn't really need to show you two different types of BCD so that you have a better understanding of what the bladders look like now I've got a back plate and wing here and I've got a jacket style with the back plate and wing typically your bladder system the material that's made is not actually the bladder itself I know we call them wings and we'll call them doughnut letters but the bladder is actually inside of it I want you to kind of think like a an inner tube on a bicycle tire so if I unzip it here you'll see that it's a vinyl or a PVC or some type of plastic housing or a bladder in short it's a balloon as what it is and if you think of it like that you'll kind of understand how they can expand to contract if we look at a different style of BCD if we take this jacket style here one of the unique features about it is it has a fusion style bladder so what we consider the lifting part of the BC that surrounds around you would be the same as the back plane wing but there's no actual bladder on the inside and I can show that to you if I take off the exhaust port here you'll notice that inside it's just the backside of the material if you will so I can kind of open it up and you can see down in there there's no balloon and the way these are manufactured is they'll take one panel they'll put a silat on it they'll take the other panel put a seal it and once that Harden's where it dries it creates a waterproof barrier and not just a waterproof barrier but also an airtight barrier and then when they sewed the material together they print they heat treat it and you'll see this seam that goes all the way around this heat treated seam and those are called basically fusion bladders now the problem with fusion bladders is obviously you can't repair them when they get damaged if the bladder goes gets damaged here I can't purchase an another balloon top bladder to put inside so that BC at that point is just going to be going and over with and you're gonna have to get a new one with a backplate and wing style obviously you can replace it well let's talk about some of the things that actually damages it and then I'm going to show you how to clean it out when you're underwater and let's say you've got too much buoyancy you need to let a little bit of air out when you dump air from your BCD anytime you break that seal not only is air coming out but water is also going into the system it's gonna go through your inflator it's gonna go all the way up to the hose it's gonna go down in the bladder system and then of course at the end of the dive we're gonna wash it out which is what we're gonna show you in this video several different ways you can wash it out and it's very very important that we take good care of the internal part of the bladder and not just the outside part of the BC because salt crystal or as salt crystallizes inside and as it evaporates out that salt is still in there and if your BC butter is stuck together say if it's heated it can actually fuse together and as it rubs those salt crystals can actually cut your bladder so with that being said let me show you different ways to clean each of these B C's out I'm going to show you some specialized tools that a lot of divers actually tend to use on it I'll show you a couple ways around that as well and then I'm going to show you some other cleaning agents that you may want to consider using in the future as well so probably one of the simplest ways cleaning out your BC is probably what your instructor talks you during the open water program all you need is a water hose a little bit of water coming through it and you're gonna take your exhaust port of your inflator you're actually gonna hold it open it I'm gonna get some waterfall in there you're gonna hold it open and you're gonna simply just spray water down in it with that exhaust port open just like that once you get enough water up in there then what you're gonna do is basically just shake your bladder around alright get all those salt crystals running down to either one of the exhaust ports or what I personally like cuz I'll just hold it up down making sure that where the court gated pose connects to the exhaust port here for the overpressurization valve all that water and salt crystals are going to run down and then I can simply drain the water out you can do this a couple of different times just to make sure you get it good and cleaned out if you do want to add a little bit of gear cleaner whatever your flavor of the week is I still like pow-pow been using this for the last few years really like this product all you've got to do is put a little bit in there now if you're afraid that you're gonna splash yourself maybe you don't want to get water in there and I'll talk a little bit about why I like doing this method but another good method is has just opened up your opv valve and you can spray it right down in the bladder so that's another good option as well the cool thing about going through your opv valve is you can add the detergent or whatever gear cleaner you're using directly to the bladder there that way you're not getting it stuck in this corrugated hose but let me explain why I like going through the corrugated hose for one not only as the water going through the system into the bladder it's also going through the inflation port and the inflation ports course where you hook up your low-pressure inflator now the reason I want to do that is I want to get all those salt crystals out and around or that stuck inside that inflator system as well cleaned out of there now if you are certified gear technician then obviously you can break it down or if you've had some type of class such as say the SSI equipment techniques you are probably trained on how to take this out replace our rings and stuff like that now the cool thing about going here you're washing it out but if you take this little nipple thing out you can actually take a little bit of silicone lube here and this is just from trotting it and you can fill up the inflation port with this silicone once everything is clear cleaned out screw your inflation port back in and then when you add air to the system when you press the power inflator it's going to shoot that silicone all through the inflator and we've actually done a video in the past showing that but it's gonna shoot that silicone all through the system to make sure the spring mechanisms behind your inflator buttons actually working so that's one reason I really like going through say the exhaust port of the inflator valve it cleans all that out and you can take really good care of your inflation port as well let me show you another method as well if you want to give it a little bit extra pressure so excess scuba there's a couple of different companies that make it but excess scuba makes this BC washout hose and in short it's a glorified little short stubby water hose but it's got a low-pressure inflator connection on it and the way it is designed to work if you look at a typical low-pressure inflator there's typically a Schrader valve in it this one has no Schrader valve that means there's nothing that's going to stop the airflow but we're not actually dealing with air here what we're dealing with is water so I'm going to screw the water hose in on to the end of the water hose and then I'm gonna take the low-pressure inflator side put it on to the inflation port just like that and I'm going to open the flow of water and it's actually going to start filling up the bladder of my BCD so now there's water going inside this bladder system once I've got it full in there okay sometimes you may have to push the button but once I've got the water flowing up in there and get a sufficient amount all I've got to do is cut the water off okay I can disconnect here once again shake that bladder around get it nice and cleaned out and then all I've got to do is allow that water to come out and this really allows you not only to clean the bladder out it's also going to clean out the inflation port of your inflator system okay so I've got all that out and then no matter what type of BCG that you use you always want to store them with a little bit of air in it so whether you use your low pressure inflator with a little bit of silicone grease or you simply do an oral inflation to it that's going to prevent that bladder from sticking together when it's really hot out right now it's about 85 degrees out here so when it's really hot that bladder can actually stick together and if you didn't happen to get it cleaned out and all those salt crystals in there it's just gonna rub it together and break down the elasticity of it and of course you're going to ruin your bladder but guys these are some simple tricks that you can use to prolong the life of your BC DS I've been using them for years one of the things that I do add of course is a gear wash to the inside part of the bladder once I've got the inflator system and the hose washed out I will take off one of the exhaust ports and simply pouring it in now I do want to close with this real quick I know a lot of people may say well you've got to get all the water out I still hear the sloshing in and yeah you primarily want to get most of the water out if you still got a little bit guys it will evaporate out you will be fine but if you're diving in salt water get it all out get that salt out and you should be good to go because I really hope you enjoyed this video if you did smash that thumbs up button for me and definitely share it if you got any questions or you want to see more gear related videos let me know down in the comment section what you want to see and if you are interested in check out the SSI equipment techniques course because we go more in depth on how you can take care of your gear and not just your BC but your cylinder even your regulator's and it does go more in depth than what you actually learn in your open water course because I really appreciate you watching this video as always make sure you follow us on Instagram and Twitter like us on Facebook pin some pinchers subscribe to us here on YouTube and as always guys we appreciate your business

Channel: LakeHickoryScuba

Views: 14,442

Keywords: BCD Clean Out Procedure, How To Clean Your BCD, SSI Equipment Techniques, Lake Hickory Scuba Center And Marina, Instructor Trainer Bryan Stafford

Id: 8DZuqKTgCss

Length: 9min 53sec (593 seconds)

Published: Tue May 05 2020