Scuba Tech Tips: Does My Regulator Need Service? - S07E04

[Music] hey divers alley pier scuba tek-tips the game okay this is an again another one of my tech tips and direct response to one of your questions or comments somebody asked a while ago how do I know if my regulator needs to be serviced that's a good question I mean if you look at the warranty it says in most cases it used to say anyway you should say one year every year you had to have a service well between you and I if you're a heavy-duty diver during a hundred a hundred and fifty two hundred dives a year that may seem like a lot of dives for some of you but that's not that uncommon I did 200 or more dives every year for many many years but that's another story in that case in your reg needs to be serviced every year maybe more often if you're a marine environment and depending what you're doing but for the vast majority of divers who do 10 to 20 times a year you see most divers scuba divers certify scuba divers they they they go south for a week and they do a half a dozen dives maybe they do that twice that's 12 dives maybe they go to the friend's cottage and to do two more dives certainly twelve fifteen knives that's what they're doing a year well my regulator is generally speaking 25 35 45 roughly 50 dives might be the maximum at length of time before you'd want to have your regulator check so the idea the older idea of having a check no service every year you know check your warranty most warranties now have changed actually and they need they suggest a service every two years so there's an indication regulars are pretty rugged so you've been diving you've got you know not too sure you haven't been logging your dives but you're not too sure how many dives you have on it and you're going in a dime ship maybe you haven't used it for a very very long time you pull it out of the box and take the dust off it and so on anyway the question arises gosh do I need to have it serviced well if it's been a very very long time the answer is yes get it serviced because the seats the silicone seats the rubber seats the diaphragm the exhaust valves everything deteriorate even in Britain in time even if you have a you'll dump you know still deteriorate so if it's been a long time by a long time I mean two years or more take it in for service absolutely you don't want to go diving for a rag that hasn't been looked at in more than two years but you can actually physically look at a regulator and get some idea as to whether or not it should be serviced let me give you a couple of tips that's what this is these are tips and it helped you a little bit now the regulator I've chosen happens to be an older regulator I'm almost embarrassed to tell you how old it is rig there's almost 50 years old that doesn't matter it's made a chromed brass rubber deteriorates and a lot of plastic and so on but it'll work for our example here are the things to look for okay getting a little closer here keV if you would so pick up your rigger there and take a look at it first of all look at the general regulator all over when this was first made it was nice and shiny chrome just like the bumper of your car and you can see now that this is pretty scratched up a couple of dents in it first stage as well since we've got a lot of dives on it but maybe that's the way it was when you put it away six months is so ago having scratches on the chrome is not necessarily bad if there are areas that are completely scratched off and now the gold colored brass brassy colored breath your ass looks brassy doesn't it the brass is showing through gosh you know you should maybe have a check same on the first stage how else can you check well one thing you can do is undo they're not can you see in here Kevin can you see the the the knob as I'm undoing it here just give me one second I just want to show you something I can show you this right here for comparison here's a brand new knob just get this out here and pardon me for this folks I didn't think of this until just now here's a brand brand new knob see that and look at the one that's coming out of this rig here can you see the white crust on it can you see the black goop on it as well the white crust is in fact exactly that its crust probably a combination of marine life chrome being worn off and me mixed up with water and so on you can see it's also a lot darker that is probably a bit of lubricant that's got mixed in there and mixed in with the chrome dust as well these threads are getting worn now that's just an indication that it's got a lot of dives on it but that white can be a concern that white crust on there can be a concern that's one thing to look at the next and probably the most important thing you can do is look down inside here's where the air goes in it goes on your tank air goes in through here and the first thing that the air does when it goes into your regulars go through a filter that filter is designed to take out all the dirt and that does a pretty good job that called the sintered bronze filters and and they do a pretty good job of taking out all the dirt your difficulty is this that the filter itself as it takes out the dirt gets clogged up with like your vacuum cleaner or anything else that you have at home slowly but surely that filter gets clogged up also if you get any moisture on that filter this made it chromed brought a central bronze and bronze have you know anything about bronze if you look at outdoor statues and so on bronze when they get four digits on them that's a fancy name for green stuff they also will get plugged up and they won't work anymore when they get very badly plugged up they won't stop dirt from going in some dirt will actually go through because you had 3,000 psi of pressure going through that so their filter but slowly and slowly plugged up as it cleans here but eventually the filters completely clogged it won't stop any more dirt going through but the 3,000 psi will actually force some through so now that dirts going into the regulator how do you know take a look here's what a used filter looks like compare that I'm gonna hold that still there Kevin and she's a bit Brown it's not too terribly bad it was quite brown that's dirt it stopped here's a brand new one can you see the difference the brand new one is nice and shiny and chrome II the old dirty filters well here's a better example Kevin let me show you this one so here's the filter out of your regulator can you see it green and dirty as well the green is bad news that means you got some water in there there's a brand new one now look at that can you see how that one shiny Kevin can you see the difference there have you seen green or white on the filter time for service at the very least you have to have the filter changed and if the filter needs to be changed because it's dirty then the components inside will have to be checked and cleaned as well that's one of the main things you can look at now something else to keep in mind is I mentioned earlier the rubber to tear eh - so check your hoses right there well if you can see that Kevin can you see can you focus right here underneath I'm gonna bend this down let me see what happens there can you see the rubber cover the rubber here is coming off of the cover it's no longer attached it's been bent so many times so there's an indication as well that this regulator should get serviced you may need new hoses we're not stupidly expensive check the surface check the finish look for a green look for white look for any knobs or screws that have a brassy color to them and that's the case of any of those signs of showing up on your regulator then you should take it in at the service center it was a very very old regulator what we might call it a vintage rig it more than more than 25 or 35 years old then you might want to go into the service center the dive store your local dive store and talk about a trade in maybe looking at a new regulator assuming that you're going to be doing some diving anyway there's a couple of tips the main one is that filter doesn't hurt every want someone to check that filter even after just a single die if you got some salt water and it'll start to corrode turn green green or white bad news shiny chrome good news anyway a couple of ideas there a couple things to look at guys I hope that helped a little bit Aling pierce tech tips alec pier scuba tech tips doctor gain real soon

Channel: Alec Peirce Scuba

Views: 11,643

Rating: 4.9491525 out of 5

Keywords: alec, peirce, scuba, tech, tips, tip, underwater, diving, vintage, sea, hunt, remembered, skin, scuba 2000, service, local, dive, shop, annual, filters, green, salt, water, 2000, regulator, first, stage, 1st, 2nd, second, filter, inlet, at the, ranch, tuning, effort, breathing, sintered, bronze, crust, moisture, rubber, hose

Id: XeqpTlDK0K8

Length: 8min 23sec (503 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 03 2018