Posted by Jim Hoffmann on August 22, 2000 at 11:41:58:
In Reply to: Re: overbreathing regs posted by Jusfer aka Eins on August 21, 2000 at 22:15:37:
Jusfer AKA Eins, I feel that most of the regulators on the market today are of poor design and can be overworked even in shallow water. If you look at the history of the regulators on the market today you will find that the designs were made in the mid-40's or the late 60's. These designs have not changed much since then. The problem with most of the simple lever second stages is that you have to overcome a heavy spring to crack the valve.The major break-through was in 1985 when Scubapro interduced the balanced second stage G250. With a pnumatic balanced second stage a lighter spring was used to get minimum breathing effort(don't have time to go into all of this,but maybe someday we can talk about where the reg. designs came from).
Test, I don't much trust magazine testing. The last head on head testing of all the majors regulators was done by the US Navy in the early 90's. They only showed 3 regulators in the "A" group the Scuba Pro g250 mark 10, a USD Conself(not out of a box) and the Poseidon Odin (good cold water reg.). All the the other regulators were in the B and C groupings(most in the C group). The regulators in the B and C group did not breath good when you put a work load on them.
Hyperventilation, when someone starts to panic they start to breath hard. If the regulator does not breath good this could start a breathing cycle leading to hyperventilation.
Jim Hoffmann
Scuba Toys
Scuba-Toys.com