Scuba Tech Tips: Piston vs Diaphragm 1st Stage - S07E01

[Music] hi Helen sorry I was just chatting with Kevin there he's pretty funny guy he doesn't mean to be funny he uses funny anyway Ellen Pierce Cooper mm tech tips and now today we're going to talk about a very controversial subject there are lots of controversial subjects in scuba diving you know and we're going to talk about Solomon should you take a 12-week course or a weekend course as really controversial which is better den Valve's or yoga elves hey come on please please line we've been through this a dozen times so don't don't get to me on that and and I don't care what you use already know they're both great but there is one area of controversy that's been around for quite some time and and and I don't want to settle the controversy because in most cases if you have decided or your instructor has told you or for whatever reason you've made a decision and with respect to this controversy fine stick with it there's no big problem so I'm not trying to convince you or change your mind or anything I just I think it's important that I educate you to show you things this controversy has to do with first stages regulators the first stage of a regulator there are two basic styles lots of different models and features and so on but scuba regulars come in two basic styles and they are diaphragm and piston diaphragm regulators and piston regulars if you read the sales literature in the different scuba catalogues you see this all the time first stage is a diaphragm regulator the original that Jacques Cousteau invented and it is the best been around for years it's the kind of stuff you read number one Jacques Cousteau did not invented number two it was around for a lot longer than I think it was around before Jacques Cousteau was born he may have been one of the first people to adapt it for underwater use with the help of his engineer friend Emile ganyan but let's not get into that however it has been around the longest the original scuba regulator was a diaphragm style does that make it better or worse at that matter however the majority of regulars made today are piston and there's a good practical reason for that but here's what I want to do in this I'm gonna keep trying to keep a shirt I'm gonna show you the difference between the two the main difference between the two are regulars now before we do that we have to talk very briefly about what the first stage does what's it for before we talk about the different styles you know if you're buying your car is a being bought for a racing that'll determine kind of car they buy as it being bought to haul the soccer team around after school well you don't buy a race car yes a so there's let's talk about what does the first stage do it's very simple the first stage has only one function one reason that you have a first stage and that is to take the tank pressure down to intermediate pressure sit reduce tank pressure to intermediate pressure so whatever your tank pressure is twenty to fifty three thousand thirty five hundred forty five doesn't matter the tank pressure is your high pressure source of air the second stage that goes into your mouth has to receive air from the first stage at what's called intermediate pressure intermediate pressure for argument's sake we're going to say is 150 psi okay it can be anywhere from 125 to 160 and I'm just giving you a rough idea because different regulators are lower some are higher for a variety of reasons not good or bad 160 is not better than 125 however so the first stage single function only is one thing to do take tank pressure high pressure tank pressure down to low pressure intermediate pressure for our argument it takes 3,000 to 150 oh it does and then the second stage very very important that's the second stage where all the important stuff happens it then takes that 150 that is getting from the first stage down to ambient meaning the pressure where you are if you're in this room it takes it down to 14.7 PSI atmospheric if you're 33 feet it takes it to a higher pressure and so on but all that depends on us out 150 coming from the first stage that's all the first stage does takes 3,000 down to 150 and sense it to you through the hose to the second stage all it does okay so knowing that its function is very very simple let's take a look at the two different regulators I'm just going to show you the differences and explain if I can why they are different and and and you can help maybe make a decision as to which might be a better for you okay here we go I have first of all a popular I need you to be zoom in here a bit Kevin can you see my hands here I have you're a very popular a first stage into the diaphragm type of first stage show okay diaphragm now you can see this a little bit different this is a piston type first stage but the difference in look doesn't matter because there are piston first stages that look just like this and therefore have first day just to look just like this so the actual look this looks like as L shaped looks like it's bullet shape that doesn't matter just forget that doesn't matter let's take this diaphragm first stage very popular Brent here we go I'm gonna take it apart okay almost completely apart we'll take the nah boat first they all have a knob on them because this is a yoke style which everybody knows is better than dinner no no I didn't say that don't I didn't mean that yeah I'm just I'm just teasing you guys if it's a dim valve then you'll have a dim fitting on there this is he okay so we have a yoke take the yoke knob ah there we take the yoke inaba in behind a yoke there's a filter I'm not going to take the filter out it's just a little sintered bronze filter is what it's called held in by little spring clip okay let's take some more stuff off of here okay this is the adjustment nut I've loosened this up already so it's easier there's the adjustment nut knob adjustment nut underneath you just not it's the spring then there is the somewhere in there let's take this off this is part of the body this is a part that holds the diaphragm in place we'll take that off and then we take off the diaphragm protector or seat if you like and the diaphragm comes out this is a diaphragm regulator right we have to have a diaphragm there's the diaphragm and that underneath the diaphragm is a plunger sometimes it's called a plunger sometimes it's called a flat washer and in the middle of the plunger is the pin and a lot of diaphragm raiders that pin that little thing there is a separate piece so this is actually two pieces in this particular case it's 108th that there's a seat carrier we'll just take that out of there quickly now keep in mind folks watching here that I have already loosened all this stuff in advance this is not how easily a regulator comes apart it's all been loosened there's a seat carrier there's the seat itself with an old ring let's go to the other side yeah yeah I'm kind of going to the other side or the other side and we take out of here we take out of here the seat base where that's ol ring and on top of the seat base there's a spring and there's a plunger I get all these bits and Pete there's a plunger okay there we go spring and plunger and so now I'm going you can see through there Kevin can you actually see through there there's nothing left in there now there's a couple of small things still on here I didn't take off the yoke off the port screws I didn't take them off each of the different ports the high-pressure ports and all the low pressure ports I didn't take those as no need to because all regs are the same piston or diaphragm that pretty much all have the same two high pressure and four or five low pressure so there you go there's a fairly typical diaphragm regulator body with Deok I didn't take that off filter so then always I don't know one goes through the menu and you can see them all there so that's what there's three so there's about about 12 Hertz call it twelve parts and then this is pretty typical some have a few more some of a couple less but that's pretty typical all right diaphragm regulated let's do this diaphragm regulator long the old screw yo here we go you hook screw okay let me put that like that yoke strip okay again I will not take the actual yoke off and down inside the yoke there's a little clip holding the spring it don't need to take that off and again I will not take off all the port screws you see them all around there don't need you so now after you take off that now you take off the cap there's nothing else in there okay we'll set that down there I think so take off the cap and then under the cap there's that and then there's a spring there's a piston oh yeah now if you know how piston regulators work if you understand how piston regulars work this is no big surprise if you don't understand how a piston Rickey there's work you're probably saying how can that simple thing do what all that is required to do in a diaphragm well you have to understand that this is not the video for that I can do that sometime I'll explain about diaphragm regs how they work and piston rakes how they work and then you'll know a bit better but all I'm doing in this particular video was just showing you the basic difference one of the most important the essentially the basic difference between a diaphragm and a piston and that is simplicity simplicity there are two benefits to simplicity okay one is pretty obvious which of these two you think costs the most twelve parts cost more than three that's real simple math so generally a diaphragm regulator is markedly less expensive than a sorry generally a piston regulator is less expensive noticeably less expensive a diaphragm regulator no no before you say well I want the more expensive one keep in mind what I said in the very beginning what's the purpose of a first stage to take air from 3000 and make it 150 a diaphragm regular does that very well three thousand 150 a piston regulator does it just as well three thousand to 150 there's no difference it does this job perfectly well it doesn't do it faster better quicker cleaner bluer Pinker no no change three thousand to 150 they both do the same job so paying a whole lot of extra money for the simple reason that somebody has told you you want a diaphragm rig really think about it may not make a lot of sense the second reason why simpler is better less likelihood are breaking down all right we have a great big heavy spring you see it and we have the piston listen this hey bein strong here we have a cap spring cap the rubber there's a little weep in there we pin on here well the she carrier the seat which of these two regulators under the same circumstances into the same exposure the same number of dives the same environments which of these two everything else being equal do you suppose will last longer will be more reliable generally again the piston regulator is noted for its reliability durability luck ability rugged ability that'll work ruggedness more rugged generally speaking so there you go there's more differences and some race you have different features but generally speaking either the piston or the diaphragm rig will take 3,000 to 150 same volume same speed same air everything's exactly said that both do the same job and now I was showing you the difference between the two January speaking the differences are complexity the diaphragm has many many more parts to accomplish the same job the piston essentially has one part if you don't count the spring it only has one moving part cheaper and more reliable now there's a lot more to it and maybe in the future I'll share some more ideas on different types of regulators we're going to talk as well about that just eager to show you how to adjust the first stages how much you can do there but there's some adjustment can be gained and then I'll show you how to adjust a second stage the critical one the one that you actually feel that you breathe from that should be interesting too but there's the first step now you know some differences between the two types of race I hope that was interesting send some comments if you have some comments I'm sure there will be but talk to you real soon take care Alec Pierce Kimber mm tech tips

Channel: Alec Peirce Scuba

Views: 35,272

Rating: 4.8911915 out of 5

Keywords: underwater, scuba, sea hunt, diving, scuba 2000, first, stage, 1st, regulator, piston, diaphragm, 2nd, parts, internal, intermediate, pressure, ambient, tank, second, reduced, 3000, 150, psi, simplicity, simple, reliable, adjusting, tech, tips, alec, peirce, pierce, dive, tip, vintage, sea, hunt, remembered, skin

Id: _f1h6TweTNQ

Length: 12min 54sec (774 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2018