school me on this please

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sava6e
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school me on this please

Post by sava6e »

what is the difference between your primary regulator vs your back up, and in terms of function. reason i ask other than it being yellow, why is the same regulator cost so much more for a primary vs the backup?
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Jeremy
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Re: school me on this please

Post by Jeremy »

The "yellow" regulator is typically a cheap model that breathes harder but will be less likely to bubble up/flow n you.

I personally dive the same high quality regs for both my primary and backup.
Tangfish
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Re: school me on this please

Post by Tangfish »

As Jeremy said some people aim for there to be a difference between the two (e.g., buying a cheaper model for the secondary) but I agree with him. If/when that secondary gets used, it's probably going to be in a situation where someone is breathing hard off of it - so I want mine every big as good as my primary.

That being said, a good reg tech will oftentimes intentionally tune the dedicated secondary second stage to need a bit more pressure differential to "crack" and begin delivering gas, so that it does not free flow too easily. This does not necessarily affect how well it delivers gas once you're breathing on it. I have a shutoff valve on mine, so that it's impossible to freeflow, and you have to turn it on in order to draw gas from it (it switches on in a pretty natural way when you pull the reg out of the necklace below my chin).
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fmerkel
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Re: school me on this please

Post by fmerkel »

As indicated....depends.
There are actually a number of secondary options, same as primary. The 2 main divisions are a) downstream b) balanced.
Within those 2 categories you have a bunch of different qualities. Either of them can be 'tuned' to crack easily but ultimately the flow characteristics will be determined by the quality of the reg itself.
Balanced 'tend' to be higher quality and in general breath easier, but that's a generality that doesn't cover all regs. Cheaper downstream octos often are set with a higher cracking pressure and may not have very good flows. Try it, get yourself a but of depth, crank up the swim speed until you notice your breathing (don't over do this) and switch back and forth. Practice this while swimming gently in the shallows first. Screwing up at depth is not desirable.

Some people, often newbies get talked into minimalist secondary (tiny/flat/small), or "Air2" type (go on your BC hose). The idea is streamlining or minimizing the hose clutter. Both of them can work but they generally are lower performance and come with a whole set of compromises if you actually need to use them. Serious divers simply will not go there, and many have switched to a long hose setup to deal with OOA emergencies. Long hoses simply work lots better when you actually have to share air.
To Air is Human,
To Respire, Divine.
sava6e
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Re: school me on this please

Post by sava6e »

thank you all!!
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