March 2011    Download the Entire Issue (PDF)

Vol. 26, No. 3   What's this?

For Regulators, Light is Right

seven lightweight regulators that are heavy duty for dive trips

from the March, 2011 issue of Undercurrent  

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Your regulator is not the heaviest item of equipment you might carry to an exotic diving destination; however, manufacturers have latched on to the appeal of producing lightweight equipment to save excess-baggage charges. I guess if you can save a couple pounds, you can carry a few extra T-shirts instead, and as someone who is often reduced to the minimum when it comes to packing clothes, it certainly appeals to me.

Working as a team with Nigel Wade, a veteran of comparison tests, I got hold of the seven regulators sold in the U.S. that weigh the least in their given brand line-ups and we tried them at depth, side-by-side. We conducted the tests at Taba in Egypt, close to the border with Israel, because there is deep, clear water near the shore, and we were able to dive without interruption or the need for a boat. We made several dives with each regulator, each of us using them two at a time on our independent twin-tank setups. Leisure divers rarely go deeper than 100 feet while on vacation, so we settled on 140 feet, while breathing Nitrox 30, as our test depth, probably the greatest depth a single-tank diver is likely to find himself at, even in an emergency.

It's important to know that your regulator will perform to expectations, especially if you find yourself sharing via an octopus with another diver at that depth. We checked to see if each one was capable of delivering gas to two divers who might be breathing heavily while sharing off an octopus at depth. We inverted each one, as a panicking diver might in an air-sharing situation, to find out how viable each was under those circumstances. We checked out the efficacy of the purge control of each and let each drop from the mouth as a diver might carelessly, to find out what loss of gas might be encountered. The Venturi plus/minus (dive/pre-dive) control was compared at depth to see if it made a difference. Lastly, we looked at how disruptive the flow of exhaust bubbles was when a diver was stationary and looking directly forward. We weighed them as first and second-stage only, connected by the hose, and not with any octopus rigs fitted. A-clamp versions naturally weigh more, because of the extra metal, than those with DIN connections. Here are the results, listed in alphabetic order by manufacturer....