Cleaning regs. after time out of salt water

[moosicman]

After diving in Cozumel in December, I cleaned thoroughly all of my gear except my regulator and octo. I placed it in a separate place than the other stuff and it simply skipped my mind while I was cleaning. So what is best for giving it a good cleaning now? Is just a good warm bath soak good?

[cummings66]

You may have problems, salt once dried is very tough. I'd say start soaking it while attached to a tank and pray it loosens up. I know it will but you may need it shipped off for disassembly and professional cleaning. I saw a regulator like that and it took a long time to clean up, and that was disassembled. The plastic for some reason seemed to have pits in it as well, it was the nastiest thing I've ever seen. Downright horrible. I would have bought new myself compared to fixing it based on what it cost this guy and what the insides looked like.

Hope yours turns out better.

[moosicman]

They don't appear to have any problems at all, but I don't have a tank to hook them up to right now. Of course I will try them before a dive. They do not appear to be damaged in any way whatsoever and so I'm just wanting to make sure that they breath correctly.


yeah and i know....dumb mistake to make...but happens to the best of them right??

[mitsuguy]

just one time in saltwater without rinsing and you will probably be fine so long as they were removed from the saltwater area soon after the diving...

saltwater does tend to leave a fine residue if not rinsed, but none of it should be on any of the actual valve sealing surfaces inside where it matters...

as has been mentioned, hook it up to a tank, test it, let it soak in some water, probably going to be ok...

[awap]

I think I would put the dust cap in place and go ahead an soak the reg in warm water for a day. A piston 1st like your RS-130 is vulnerable to salt and corrosion build up on both the HP and LP piston o-rings sealing surfaces. And these surfaces are most exposed with the regulator unpressurized. I would not expect any serious damage (they are rather resilient to lots of abuse) but any deposits on those seating surfaces may slowly start to cause o-ring damage as the piston cycles. So even if it all seems OK when you do stick it on a tank, the kind of damage that would cause is more likely to show up after more use rather than right away.

[cummings66]

The problem is more that you are diving with gear that's been compromised or possibly compromised. We no longer have an expectation of it going for a year or more without problems but rather that it's likely to have problems sooner rather than later.

If it was me, and my regulator, I would take it to a shop before I dove with it again unless that dive was a pretty shallow dive. I would never do a deep dive on that regulator until it was serviced.

It's your call, how much is your life worth to you? Mine's worth the service checkup, I don't know about you.

[moosicman]

My next dives are shallow and a pretty controlled environment...but I will be having them checked out and tested

[scubadub]

You could soak them in Citric acid, I got this tip and it worked very well.

[Gombessa]

At the least, soak it for a few hours in the tub.

[halocline]

Originally Posted by cummings66

The problem is more that you are diving with gear that's been compromised or possibly compromised.....snip...It's your call, how much is your life worth to you? Mine's worth the service checkup, I don't know about you.

Well, how do you know that the reg has been "compromised"? And this bit about "what's your life worth" really bothers me, although it's a very common sentiment in the dive industry. If the reg were to fail because of this lack of rinsing (highly unlikely) it would almost certainly either freeflow due to some IP creep or simply leak on the surface. Either way it's not a life threatening situation. And, when did the "your life is worth it" crowd forget about the buddy system? Jeesh! Please don't take this rant personally, Cummings, because, as I said, this is a really common sales tactic in the dive industry and it's just BS.

Soak the reg in warm water for at least a day with the dust cap on, just like AWAP suggested. A couple of days would be fine. If you're really anal about it, you could use distilled or R.O./D.I. water that has zero minerals and will do a theoretically better job of removing salt deposits. After that, you should hook it up to a tank and breathe through it, and leave it on the tank for a few hours to make sure it holds IP. (It'll start free-flowing if not) There are some other things you could check with an IP gauge, and if you're really cautious, you could remove the SPG before hooking it up to the tank, and SLOWLY open the valve momentarily so that a short burst of HP air comes out the port where the SPG was. That way, if there's any water in the HP section from the distilled water soak, it'll get blown out the port. SCUBA air is really dry, so if there's a tiny bit of water in there (unlikely, unless you did a bad job putting the dust cap on, or it doesn't seal) a few bursts of air will dry it out just fine.

The one thing I personally would be concerned about would be salt deposits on the filter element. Just look at it (it's under the dust cap) and see if there are any green spots or white powdery spots. If so, then I could agree with Cummings and have it sent off for service.