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Post by SeaRat on Dec 20, 2005 20:43:14 GMT -8
Just as a postscript on Sunday's pool experiments with my flooded regulators, I pulled the hose again at home off the DA Aquamaster. There were very small drops of water inside the regulator. But there was no significant amount of water left in the regulator. I positioned the Mistral to drain out the intake hose, and got almost no water coming out. The DX Overpressure Breathing regulator is equipped with a clamp, so I took it apart, and again found only small drops of water inside the regulator. It does appear that the clearing action is nearly complete when it occurs. I'm sure that it helped that I rolled the regulators to ensure water was cleared out in the pool too, but I thought you'd like to know what I found when I opened the regulators.
We actually also see this in single hose rugulators, but they have a much smaller area to clear.
John
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Post by duckbill on May 3, 2006 13:00:03 GMT -8
O.K. I FINALLY got to run some flooded reg clearing tests yesterday. Here are my results.
THE SETUP
The regulator was a Misral. The air was never turned off throughout the procedure; the reg was always pressurized.
Flooding the reg with just the inhalation hose attached (simulating a broken hose) was no great feat. There was no turning the valve off and on to accomplish this. It did require some careful positioning and slow flooding to prevent freeflow, though.
Flooding the reg was a whole lot more difficult with a mouthpiece attached, even with no one-ways installed.
CLEARING PROCEDURES WHILE FLOODED
With mouthpiece installed or not I was able to purge the reg by tightly grasping the inhalation hose at it's end and vigorously and rapidly tugging/stretching it several times above my head. The reg started a freeflow as long as the end of the hose was held up.
When there was no mouthpiece I was able to breath in from the end of the hose and out through my nose. Airflow amount was controllable by optimizing the height of the end of the hose in relation to the reg (body position). There was still some water in the reg, so caution was in order while repositioning to prevent gagging on it when some would come up/down the hose.
I was also able to clear the reg by swallowing the water (a newly filled pool with no chlorine put in made this bearable!) from the reg/hose when the mouthpiece was not installed (broken hose).
CONCLUSION
The likelihood of a double-hose reg becoming flooded is very low, indeed- granted. But, in practice for a worst case scenario I have become confident in the following procedures:
Pinching and tugging the hose of a double-hose reg to clear it in the unlikely event of a full flood is an age-old and proven method which is faster and more effective than the swallowing method as long as the inhalation hose is near full length.
Swallowing the water to clear is an alternate method which works but may or may not be necessary in some cases. Explanation: I was unwilling to cut any of my hoses to make one shorter, but I think it would be safe to assume that the closer a hose breaks to the regulator itself, the less likely the pulling method would be effective. However, the good news is that there would be less water to drink and the swallowing method may become more effective than the pulling method for hoses which break closer to the regulator. I would not hesitate to swallow the water in such a case as this.
Again, breaking a hose and fully flooding a double-hose reg simultaneously would be a very unlikely event, to say the least. The practice did me good. Anyone wanting to try these experiments is cautioned to be very aware that there will probably still be some water inside the reg and to be prepared in case some comes up the hose during inhalation. I think the most dangerous situation would be to start coughing due to inhaling some water. You're on your own.
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Post by Voice of Gomez on May 9, 2006 11:52:19 GMT -8
When we were makin a movie, or screwing around, and flooded a mouthpiece, we would slip off our fins, walk to shore, take off tank, and hold it and the flooded reg over our head until the water drained out. Then after strapping tank back on, went back in, and continued our dive. Lots of times in the sea hunt movies you see us gagging from flooded mouthpieces, and lack of air, but believe me, we were just fakin it for the cameras
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