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Kevin >My partner, Teresa, and I use these regs on our high O2 stage cylinders. = >We have had the regs a couple of years and have been reasonably happy. = >Earlier on this year ,shortly after a service, we started to have = >problems. One of the regs cant go for more than an hour without = >freeflowing, the piston seats have been replaced several times and mine = >slowly seized over 15 mins during a long stop. Before I saw the Hogarthian light, I used Oceanic Omega II regulators and had a problem similar to yours. The reg had been used about 5 times and, on my very first accelerated deco dive, the reg gave a few breaths and then locked solid. I dismantled the second stage and this seemed fine. Tried breathing it several times and then after a few minutes it spontaneously started working again. So I switched back to the Omega II and finished the deco. The reg was sent back to Oceanic and they could find no fault. I have to say that they replaced it since they recognised that I had no confidence in the regulator. They did mutter some rubbish about the use of a non-Oceanic hose but I suggested they get real. I suspect some bit of mank was jammed in the first stage's mechanism and that this eventually dislodged itself. Other than that I found the regs to be good but not great. They breathed wet and I had one that was breathing hard at 80 m - it turned out that the inter-stage pressure was slightly off and the reg was not happy - neither was I at the time as I had to abort the dive. I sold them this year and bought Apeks regulators (US4 first stage with TX40 second stage - badged as Zeagle in the USA). These are world-class regulators and the models I have are superb and inexpensive. I sold my used Oceanics for around UKP 140 each and bought new Apeks for UKP 125. Good deal! The Apeks were also in O2 service for that price. I was chatting to a diver yesterday who was bitching about paying UKP 100 for the servicing of his new Posidon regulator. I don't think I cheered him up when I said that I'd just come back from 105 m breathing the Apeks on a long hose and noticed that I'd forgotten to switch the venturi over to its "easy" breath setting - the reg was breathing fine at the time. And my reg cost only a bit more than his annual service cost! Although I have emphasised price here, I wanted performance and reliability not something cheap. Sorry to evangelise on Apeks but I am one happy customer. Dave shimell@se*.co* -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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