Scuba Tech Tips: Why Does My Regulator Freeze? - S09E05

[Music] hey divers Ali Pierce scuba tech tips once again I'm back again here at the scuba Shack the great shop the only shop the best shop been here for a long time in Gravenhurst Muskoka Lakes north of Toronto in Ontario Canada fantastic diving this whole region and the scuba sharks been here for a long time 35 or 40 years servicing divers if you get a chance you're up in the air you drop into the scuba Shack but anyway I want to talk about something which is very appropriate to diving in the Muskoka Lakes they're beautiful they're crystal-clear there's good ship rice caves cliffs everything but they're cold yeah the water's cold well at least it is it's until middle of summer but by the middle of summer people will swim in it some people swim in it I know a lot of swimming a lot of watersports up here but for scuba divers we go down and the water gets pretty cold pretty quickly so this is pretty appropriate it also is going to answer some of your comments because some of you guys been asking about why does my regulator freeze the waters 40 degrees why is my regulator freezing I try everything my rake store freezes that you know which reg is best to keep it from freezing uh-uh I love the comments keep them coming but there's lots of them so I'm going to try to and maybe in a couple of a little these tech tips so I'm going to share with you some some some information about regulators freezing okay and and some of it may be applicable to you but at least you learn a little bit so first of all first of all I want to ask you all to remember a word I have written a word up here and it's going to be a tough word for some of you guys because it's got nine letters in it 9 1 2 3 4 5 9 letters I know that so you guys are really big are four-letter words you may have a problem but I want you to know this word because first of all it's a great word if you're at the dive club and everybody else is sitting around talking about fins and masts and snow goals you can spike up say but what about you add to B attic effect and the room goes quiet and then they say well you know what sad then you can expound on it because you watched my tech tips yeah antibiotic there it is aDNA biotic right there idea vadik adiabatic try idea bad don't forget it we're gonna come back to that in just a minute this is why your red creases by the way yeah it's just this word didn't exist your reg wouldn't freeze no it's silly of course let's come back to that in just a minute first of all I need to explain why I regulator freezes and the first thing I need to tell you is that a regular it doesn't freeze that doesn't a regular is made of brass stainless steel plastic those things don't freeze they're already frozen they're already solids they can freeze it's so water in the air that you're breathing that freezes so number one if you don't want your regulator to freeze make sure that the air is completely dry there's no water in it not possible there's always water in some air the best dive stores there's always someone you cannot get rid of it all nobody you can't but you can reduce it under a deal and I think if you look at one of my tech tips a while ago we talked about air fuel stations and how an airfield station a good will reduce the amount of water in the air the moisture the water vapor it's actually vapor water you know water that's water liquid but it was also a water vapor water gas is in the air that you're breathing did you get all of that out and your regular trees there's nothing to freeze no water no freeze so why did they freeze well sometimes dive stories have water in the in the in the air and that's not good if you take a take a look at that check tip a little while ago Kevin you can maybe put a thing on for that I linked to it and you'll read a little bit about that about the water in the rice so number one no water don't freeze unfortunately you can't do that so what's the other reason what makes the water in the air freeze I kept the Reg warm Alec just the way you told me I kept the tank in my tire on my way to the ice diver up to the cold water dive I kept the tank in the car where it's warm so the air and the tank and the regular all worm and I was really good I didn't breathe through the regulator before I jumped in the water out in the cold cold air I couldn't do that I didn't breathe in it I did everything you told me Alec and they're still close what's with that and the temperature was 40 degrees or whatever it's still frozen ah a DBA what does it mean antibiotic is very simply the temperature drop as your result of pressure drop that's right it's pretty simple it's one of the laws of thermodynamics another big word don't worry about that one and there are lots of them homeboy but it's one of the laws of thermodynamics and if there is a reduction in pressure gas we'll talk about air there's a reduction in air pressure there is a reduction in temperature at the same time yep I can prove it y'all have a refrigerator at home you all drink kool-aid right the most popular drink in the world I don't pop your grains are the most popular beer and the good stuff and you keep it cold right cuz Cruz late he could be cold you saw the mountain was on the can with the snow on top yet you keep putting the refrigerator don't you the fridge the fridge Kevin says you guys wouldn't know what the word fridge means of course you do fridge is that thing in the corner that white thing usually it keeps you cold yeah how does your refrigerator work so what I did was it's the same as your regulator is exactly the same as a scuba regulator yeah next time you go by your refrigerator give it a little fat thank you that's your scuba regulator watch take a look at this simple little bag damn have yet a pointer here Kevin what will I choose I'll choose this screwdriver watch here's a picture of a refrigerator fridge there's your fridge now all you know whether or not academic let me explain what's inside your refrigerator here we go first of all down to the bottom there's a compressor or little small compressor is not very big Oh about the size of a football okay they're getting smaller and smaller all the time but there's actually a compressor down in there that's that home you know you're going by the refrig one also mmm the fridge starts to hum that's a compressor running nice and quiet so I like the scuba store compressor noisy is a devil nice and quiet there's a compressor down there and that compressor has gas it's actually a liquid or gas but it's academic it has gas in there and it compresses the gas okay the gas comes out of there that's this red stuff the gas comes out a depression we're going to call it high pressure whether as high pressure or low intermediate doesn't matter the actual pressure doesn't matter it comes out as high pressure because just being compressed okay this sound familiar it's just like a scooper story you go to a scuba store they have a compressor and they take air and they compress it and the air comes out of the compressor and high-pressure so the air comes out of the refrigerator come pressure compressor to high-pressure it's in red now the first thing it does is they put it through these vents see if says event fins air Kevin and they do that to cool it they want to cool it off a little bit they don't want to baby hot when it gets up to the freezer compartment they want to be cooling off as much as possible so they put it through some vents there's like a little radiator on the back of it radiator depending on where you live radiator anyway on the back of the fridge now I can prove that too next time you go past your refrigerator if the compressor is humming mmm reach behind be careful but reach behind it's not hot but you'll feel is quite warm behind good and when you reach around behind you can actually put your fingers on that little radiator and it's quite warm because it's taking the heat from that high pressure line okay I'm just delivering that high pressure up to this thing right here see what thinking you see that Kevin that says expansion device expansion device what the heck is that change that call that regulator I guess what it is this expansion device is simply a tiny hole so the high-pressure air comes up with that tiny hole and it has to rush through the hole as you're Russia sugar hole it drops in pressure just like the first stage on your regulator high pressure air and then it drops in from the tanks are high pressure from the tank comes in at the first stage and it drops from 3,000 to 150 that's what it does high pressure red drops to low pressure blue it's that simple okay what happens next wow that blue meaning cold I just thought of that Kevin that blue line goes to the freezing of Burma here's your freezer compartment up top like that and it's cold because add to be a deep pressure drop right there in that expansion device first days regulator right the pressure drop from high pressure low pressure and when a gas under pressure drops and pressure it gets cold that simple so now this warm high-pressure gas and red-suited regulator drops in pressure and gets cold and they pipe it through the freezer compartment and you get ice cubes for your rum and coke and that travels that cold air goes to the whole fridge and cools off your curves like the gas goes all through there and then it goes back down with the compressor gets recompressed and goes back through Twitter it's a simple this is exactly how our refrigerator works exactly take another look she says simple compressed hot they cool it put it through a regulator pressure drop so you can breathe it all right same thing cools back down just that easy now the only difference between this system and your regulator system is that all this part here this bottom part the compressor and the red hot gas is in the dye store right they fill your tank in the dive store and you know when you fill your tank it gets hot we've talked about this in tech tips as well it gets hot right so that's that whole part now all this red part from there down is in the dime store so you get to the dive site okay your tank is cooled off now so the air that went in there was a little bit warm from the compression it's already cooled off a little bit okay now you put your regulator on it expansion device if you take a breath and the tip and the pressure goes from 3,000 down to 150 and add to be adding takes over and the temperature drops again exactly so you as a diver you just held this part you have the bad part pressure drop temperature drop now you understand why your regular two priests and this you know your refrigerator works perfectly even if the temperature is 70 80 90 degrees all because of the antibiotic pressure drop and subsequent temperature drop as a result of this reducing valve our regulator I think there's got nothing to do with the outside temperature nothing to do with the water temperature it only has to do with the pressure drop is just that simple I hope that's clear now one more thing I want to clarify because this is very very common people's on my second-stage pros blow in here all the place because that's what happens when the regulator freezes second-stage free flows you get air all over the place the first stage and the first stage part that goes on the tank right pressure comes there the first day shall we say at 3000 psi and it drops to 150 3,000 down to 150 and there is the resulting temperature drop and the second stage the second stage the one in your mouth okay the air coming to the regulator part in your mouth has already at 150 right I have drops to zero now don't mess with me here it doesn't drop to zero no there drops to ambient when you suck on it the temperature the pressure drops a little bit and so there's your second pressure drop first stage first pressure drop 3000 and 150 second stage second pressure drop 150 to zero so in your regulator you actually have two of these expansion devices if you like to opportunities for the gas pressure to decrease and the temperature to decrease however look at these two in which of these two stages do you think the greatest temperature drop will be pretty obvious the greatest temperature drop is right here this is going from 3,000 all the way down to 150 the second stage the temperature is the pressure drop and subsequent temperature drop is much much less so I got news for you your second stage doesn't freeze last night exactly at UWE can freeze but it's not because of your second stage that the regulator freezes it's the first stage in the first stage of that sudden and considerably great pressure and drop and resulting temperature drop the air and the first stage freezes the water in the air the first stage freeze let's do that one more time and the first stage where the pressure drop is from 3000 all the way down to 150 and so the subsequent temperature drop is high to low temperatures right the water in the air that you're breathing freezes and little ice crystals they form on that high pressure sheet which is very small eighth of an inch in diameter very very small little ice crystals land on that and now the valve can close so the air flows quickly and as the air flows quickly guess what get a greater pressure drop and a greater tablature dropping and no time at all your rage is free-flowing like mad how do you know there's a problem here's your second stage free prose like mad you can't see your first stage you can't tell what's wrong with it but that's what the problem is now I will be honest with you that there is some freezing effect in the second stage not a results from here okay that's enough that's enough arrest your brain for a few minutes add the Attic had to be attic remember that word hope you have fun with that hope those answers a few questions maybe it creates a few questions keep those comments coming I love them we'll talk more about cold water diving soon Alec Pierce scuba tech tips at the scuba shacking Gravenhurst Ontario talk to you soon bye bye

Channel: Alec Peirce Scuba

Views: 4,744

Rating: 4.9779005 out of 5

Keywords: alec, peirce, pierce, scuba, tech, tips, tip, underwater, dive, diving, vintage, sea, hunt, remembered, skin, salt, water, fresh, At, The, Ranch, service, professional, fun, safe, safety, gear, air, diy, why, regulator, freeze, free, flow, 1st, first, stage, 2nd, second, process, heat, cooling, fridge, expansion, shack, gravenhurst, muskoka, adiabatic, pressure, drop, temperature, reduction, coors, freezing, refrigerator, beer

Id: zURkN3dOvK4

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2019