Don't Throw Away Your Port Plugs

what's up guys this run again from Lake hick or skip marina got another service video here for you I've been servicing a ton of regulators here lately and our two busiest times that we tend to service regulators of courses before Easter which is right before the boudin and davon season starts and then right after Labor Day which is the here on our lake it's the end of the actual boating season and typically it's the end of diving season for a lot of people simply because I just don't have time to do it this time of the year and the following winter months their kids are back in school they just don't have time off or whatnot or maybe they're new to Dobbin and they don't have equipment that is you know sufficient enough to dive in cold water they don't have thick suits they don't have this maybe they don't have the in disposable incomes to travel all the time so here in our area a lot of divers will start their season before Easter and they'll end it right after Labor Day and those tend to be our two busiest times that we actually service regs whether people bring it to us before Easter we get all these rigs service up for them they dive throughout the summer or the ones that did have them serviced up they'll bring them to us at the end of the season go ahead and get them serviced up ready for next year and that way they can stole them and everything is good to go but I'm gonna make a real quick video here and talk about why it's so important to check your hoses and even more important to not throw away the port plugs that go in the first stage when you first buy your regulator so what am I talking about well when you buy a regulator and this is an older rig this is an old Dacor here but when you first buy a regulator obviously is usually just a first stage and a second stage and nothing else that's all you get with it obviously you're gonna have to buy the alternate to go with it as well usually a low-pressure hose which typically comes with a brand new BC and then some type of high-pressure hose whether you're using a transmitter or maybe you're using say an air integrated computer or just a single double or triple gauge but anyways getting back only first stage they come with these port plugs in just like that all we do is just take them with an Allen head we set them aside we screw your hoses back in and that's it as far as attaching hoses and so the reason that you should hold on to these port plugs and never throw them away is because you may change first of all the hose configuration of your regulator and when you do that you may need to take a plug out and put it somewhere else and that that's one of the most common reasons you need to keep it but more so the reason you need to keep it is for the little tiny oring now you would think you know why do I need that o-ring obviously on hoses they send odor rings as well so why do I need to keep the o-ring that comes when a hose comes with an o-ring well there's a very specific purpose for it and let me explain when we service your regulator the parts kits that we use come with a bunch of little rings a bunch of silicone see two rubber seats a bunch of metal parts depending on your manufacturer they come with a rings and we actually replace these o-rings when we build or rebuild your system basically all I do is I take the o-ring off with a little pic here in short I throw the old flattened o-ring away I get the brand new o-ring out of the service kit and take the NuvaRing and install it as simple as that I put a little bit of lubricant on it and then I'll install it back in your rig and kind of tighten it down but once again why is it important to you to keep the port plug and the o-ring if your service technician is going to do it here's why have you ever had a slot leak in a regulator hose and maybe it's at the first stage and you take your wrench and you tighten down and tighten down and you really get these hoses nice and tight on there which first of all you don't really need to tighten them that tight they are sealed with an o-ring and as long as the o-rings good it's not been flattened out or used up or dry rotted they're going to seal so when you tighten these down it's really just hand tight you don't you know snug on it take your wrench just a little tiny love to it and you're good to go but you still got a leak and that leak is simply from that o-ring now obviously during the service timeframe we're gonna take the o-ring off put an overhang on it reinstall your hose to the stage and you're gonna be good to go but it's not necessarily time for a servicing what if this happens somewhere say out added offside and you got a leak and you need to fix that leak this is something that you can fix without having to take it to a service technician and one of the things that we teach you during the equipment techniques course is is how to take a pick how to take the o-ring off how to get in your save and dive kit get your little port plug out and utilize that o ring that ring is the exact same size as the o-ring that's on the end of your hose it's the same diameter same size same materials same everything so you need to be coding onto these port plugs to go in your save a dive kit now obviously here at the shop we have tons of them I got a little peanut butter jars full of them and my main little kit here you can see all the port plugs I've got and these are just some that we collect as we build regulators for people where we put them together we just put them aside and collect them a lot of people come in maybe they change the configuration they need some port plugs we give them away because we have an ungodly amount of them here so we give them away when somebody needs them but for you as the typical diver when you buy a regulator and you maybe have that dive shop set your regulator up for you meaning they put the hoses they set the intermediate pressure things like that ask them for the port plugs back they are important to you like I said you may be changing the hoses out changing configurations and need a port plug to put back in or more importantly you may have that slot leak out there and you need to replace the o-ring without having to take it to a service technician once again we teach you how to do that in the SSI equipment techniques course this is something that we teach that you can do you don't have to be factory trained to change that o-ring on the end of your hose it's real simple to do as a matter of fact I'm going to show you just how simple it is you take your hose you take a pig it's a little brass Pig you're gonna take it off like so toss it in the trashcan you take your port plug just like that you take your ring take your pick dick up underneath it and I just like to roll it out like that there's my new o-ring I'm gonna get me a little bit of lubricant here if you don't have Cristal ooh I'm just using crystal Lube here but if you don't have Cristal lube you can use the standard Trident loop here just silicone lube get it any dive shop out there that takes just a look you know liberal mount just rub it in keep it nice and lubricated now understand this is a static ring it's not a dynamic ring that just simply means it doesn't move you screw it in and that's it it's not part of a piston or say a diaphragm system where the o-rings move around this is a static o-ring it doesn't actually take that much Lube so we're just gonna simply install it back on there be careful not to break it with your fingernails if you're using fingernails voila as easy as that and then all you've got to do is come over here find out which port plug it goes in okay on this particular one it's gonna go in this hole here and I'm gonna simply just get it started and I'm gonna turn it all the way down okay when it stops I stop I'm going to take the appropriate size wrench in this case it's a 14 millimeter wrench I'm gonna put it on there apologize a little bit bigger different reg system and I'm gonna give it just a little tour just that much didn't take much little tender loving care and that regulator is back up ready to go now this customer did bring me this rig to service obviously the whole regular needed to be serviced I had to clean it or rebuild the first stage we build the second stages but this is something you can do at home if you ever find a leak all you need to do is hold on to your port plugs because that ring is the exact size for same Oh ring that goes on the end of your hoses that connect first stage obviously to the second stage so guys I hope you liked this video hope you found it educational if you did definitely share it for me and definitely hit that like button if you got any questions on equipment servicing or anything like that or maybe you've got questions specifically on say the equipment techniques course from SSI drop me a comment down below I know that's one of the courses that kind of get a bad rap that a lot of agencies you know that's techniques it's this a lot of the stuffs common sense why do I need that and you may not need that if you have any knowledge of regulators you may not actually need that class however there's a lot of new divers out there that don't understand what their equipment actually does and that's the purpose of the course we're gonna teach them little tricks and techniques to keep their gear in good working order to get the best value or the best bang for their buck and so that their gear if you take good care of your gear it'll take your care of you so we teach that in that course we find that it's a very valuable course it's actually one if you saw a previous video I did here recently it's one of the courses we actually give away when someone buys a brand-new rag set from us we're gonna teach them that course free of charge all they've got to do is simply bother the digital kit for it and their certification for it and the class itself it's about a three to four hour class we teach it to them free of charge by simply buying a rigged set from us so guys I hope you enjoyed that video hope you found it educational got any questions once again please put it down in the comment section below guys as always make sure you follow us on Instagram and Twitter like us on Facebook pins on Pinterest subscribe to us here on YouTube and as always guys we appreciate your business guys we really appreciate you watching our videos if you liked it make sure to give us a big thumbs up if you're not a subscriber simply hit that subscribe button for us and make sure you hit the little bell to turn on all notifications if you want to see some other cool videos make sure to click these links here they could be scuba tips they could be diving videos search-and-recovery videos or gear reviews once again guys we really appreciate it

Channel: LakeHickoryScuba

Views: 2,757

Rating: 4.9708028 out of 5

Keywords: Don't Throw Away Your Port Plugs, How To Build A Scuba Diving Regulator, Replacing Hose On A Scuba Regulator, Lake Hickory Scuba Center And Marina, Instructor Bryan Stafford, Servicing A Scuba Diving Regulator, What Should I Do With The Port Plugs On My Regulator

Id: v_dscuCGchk

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 13 2019