What to think of when buying a new pressure gauge?

[Daniel Ström]

What to think of when buying a new pressure gauge?

As the rookiediver i am i made the misstake (offcourse!?!) to trust the salesperson with the white smile and bought the stuff he offered whitout hesitation. My goal for the future diving is to attend a GUE fundametals course to try the concept and see how i like there training. The problem is that i have to change nearly everything in my equipment for new stuff to be able to meet the equipment configutations for the course i am wishing for. It could be worse i can use my mask and drysuit so dont panic friends. :o

Next thing to buy is a new presure gauge and now i want your opinion is this simple matter so i get it right this time.

I dive with 232 bar (single steel long-12) system and will proberbly (right or wrong?) use that in the future to. A gauge with a scale from 0-300 bar should be the right choice (right or wrong)


Is it important with self ilumination background (“glow in the dark feature”) or is this a fact of no importance at all?


Is there a certain diameter that suits the needs better than another?


The length of the HP-hose for a singletank setup should be? And does this change after your bodylength


When i study technical divers gearsetup they most of the time use presure gauges without “rubberseal” surronding the gauge. Is there a special reason for that?


I have run around the town and looked at a lot of different gauges and i have a heart for this one. It feels good, looks well build and is very easy to read. Any thoughts or experinces around this product?

http://www.agir.se/products.asp?category_id=4


Thanks a lot for future input in this simple matter.

Best Regards
Daniel

[Ingemar Lundgren]

It looks like a good gauge to me. Mineral glass and metal casing. Go for it. A glow in the dark feature is good to have sometimes but not essential.

[Richard Lundgren]

Or this one :)

Halcyon Pressure Gauges
Halcyon didn't cut any corners when developing their first submersible pressure gauge. It's just what you would expect in a DIR SPG: bulletproof low-tech operation, accurate, and built to last. The classic heavy-duty brass housing and tempered glass lens will stand up to any environment, while the easy-to-read gauge face can be ordered with either PSI and BAR calibrations.
241

[Peter Oleander]

--------------------------------

[Deep6]

I dive with 232 bar (single steel long-12) system and will proberbly (right or wrong?) use that in the future to. A gauge with a scale from 0-300 bar should be the right choice (right or wrong)
The length of the HP-hose for a singletank setup should be? And does this change after your bodylength

When i study technical divers gearsetup they most of the time use presure gauges without “rubberseal” surronding the gauge. Is there a special reason for that?
Just to answer some of your other points, Daniel:

300 bar scale is the way to go in my opinion. It is a small detail, little operational effect, so why limit yourself?
Typically a 22" or 24" hose will be the correct length, depending on how tall you are. The hose should pretty much be long enough to reach straight down to you hip D-ring without any noticable extra slack.
Tech divers avoid rubber boots for their SPG because the boots hide potential leaks. Imagine a minor leak in the swivel, which may be a signal of an imminent HP leak if the o-ring fails during the dive. That leak will progress under the rubber boot, but will take time to build up enough pressure to escape the boot. Hence the leak is missed on the bubble check, and you initiate a dive with a leak in your HP system - the worst part of your rig to get a failure. Just don't bang yoru SPG around and you won't need the boot! :)If there is anything to add or correct, please do!

[Fredrik Taule]

I could bet money that Agir, Mares, Dir zone, Halcyon etc. pressure gauges are made in the same factory in Italy.
The only difference is the logos, scale (PSI/Bar) and the price :eek:

The Agir branded SPG will work just fine :)

You can include the unbranded ones shown here http://www.oceanictech.se/ws/subcat.asp?catalogID=2&catID=14&subcatID=172 in that listing as well.

F.

[Matt Duke]

You can include the unbranded ones shown here http://www.oceanictech.se/ws/subcat.asp?catalogID=2&catID=14&subcatID=172 in that listing as well.

F.

Nice to know.

But for that sexy little blue "H" I guess kr50 extra won't bother many divers. :)

[Deep6]

"HAL-CY-ON! HAL-CY-ON! HAL-CY-ON! HAL-CY-ON!!!!" :D

It's an American thing, you wouldn't understand... :rolleyes:

[Daniel Ström]

Thank you all for your valuable advices. The presure gauge is now hooked to my equipment and are awaiting "bubble check" in the bathtube later today. I did get the Agir gauge mentioned earlier in the thread. The Halcyon brand is not so well represented in Gothenburg, Sweden so i did not get the oppurtunity to have a look at it. If you look at the picture RL posted abowe the gauges look excaktly the same except the Halcyon/Agir logo.

Thanks again for putting time in this question folks!

[Andreas de Beer]

Hi There,

Since I sell SPG's in my shop I've noticed that all those "italian" made ones, are not what you want!
In one year I got more then 10 pieces back that where full of h2o.
I know that Bruno of portofinodivers has the same experience.:confused:

Try and get a scubapro master gauge and treasure it because they are not any longer in production.
Is there anyone who can tell me why??:confused:

Best,

Andreas de Beer

[Deep6]

For your information during Tech 2 last week two Halcyon SPGs failed (filling with water) on the same day, one 3 days old and the other a couple months old. They were both immediately replaced by the supplier.

The dives during the day they failed were in the 25-30m range, so I hope that wasn't the cause of it. In fact, we never identiied the cause, as the SPG seemed intact apart from the obvious, water behind the glass.

[Andreas de Beer]

Wel I think that proofs that there is a problem.
But how hard can it be to make watertight SPG's.....

Maby we have to reintroduce rubber housings:D ..!


Andreas de Beer

[eggbird]

They all leak

[lauri]

Incidentally, all the broken SPGs I've ever seen have been of the 'H' brand, 1 with broken glass, 1 leaky (water in) and 1 that just plain stuck. All on recreational divers. I wouldn't really draw any other conclusions from that except that H gauges are just as vulnerable to rough handling as any generic Italian re-badged gauge (which the H very likely is...).

The lack of rubber boot might make a gauge a easier to break topside. I don't really see a reason to remove the boot if you have one, unless it's exceptionally bulky - all you need to do is cut off the part that covers the swivel. "Just don't bang your gauge around" is IMO one those arrogant DIR elitisms that are really annoying - accidents do happen, and missing dives because of one that could have been avoided is isn't fun.

An alternative to a boot could be a small neoprene pouch for the gauge for transportation, I've seen one on a Seemann-branded gauge and seemed like a good idea. Shouldn't too difficult to DIY, either.

//LN

[Richard Lundgren]

Hi all

I have seen Agir, Halcyon, DIR Zone and other no name brands made from the very same Italian manufacturer leak. This seams to happen in small numbers but still there is room for improvements.

I have only come across one with a cracked glass (broken in the luggage of an air plane), the others have leaked for no apparent reason and a rubber protection would not have helped.

Take care
Richard Lundgren

[Fredrik Taule]

Hi all
I have seen Agir, Halcyon, DIR Zone and other no name brands made from the very same Italian manufacturer leak. This seams to happen in small numbers but still there is room for improvements.

I have only come across one with a cracked glass (broken in the luggage of an air plane), the others have leaked for no apparent reason and a rubber protection would not have helped.

Take care
Richard Lundgren

We sell both the branded and unbranded "version" of the SPG's in question and have some first hand experience with warranty replacements :)
Richard is right that the numbers are relatively small, but they are still higher than we expect.
For some reason I can't explain the branded ones seam to have a higher failure rate than the unbranded ones :confused: . The failure rate have also been higher this year compared to last year. Last year the failure numbers were considerably lower and within what we expect / are willing to accept.
To the best of my knowledge the issues that have been raised in this thread is currently adressed and discussed with the manufacturer. Hopefully that will lead to improvements. Unless that happens I agree with those who have suggested to investigate other options.

Fredrik

[Andreas de Beer]

Hi there,

Can anyone tell me why the scubapro master gauge is no longer produced?
I own 2 and they seem to be the ultimate SPG.

Have a Ball

Andreas de Beer

[Davy]

Don't know if this has already been said, i haven't read the entire thread...

Another point of interest...
To how much pressure do you guys fill your tanks?

The thing is, these 300bar gauges are actually only rated to 200bar MAX. (2/3 of scale)
This issue has been raised with the supplier and they are working on a 'true' 230bar gauge

over the years I never had to replace a gauge on my stage regs, but usually go through one SPG a year on my back gas which is often filled to 230 or sometimes 250... and the gauges don't like that... even the uwatec master gauges...
Then I *never* overfill ALU tanks (stages)...
You can see that they are about to fail when the needle doesn't settle back at zero without pressure, but tends to stop at 10 or 20bar.

The italian brand SPG also seems a bit vulnarable to impact onto the rim that holds the glass.
If you hit it right, the glass will break, I had a couple out of the box that were busted like that...
however, I never had to replace a stage SPG... although they see more abuse (dropping stages etc.) than the BG SPG.

[DeWayne]

I have been filing my lp steel cylinders to 4000psi for years, and have yet to encounter a problem with my SP master gauge. I have had to rebuild my first stages due to the higher pressure, but my SP SPG's continue to finction flawlessly.

[MSD]

I own various different SPGs, both fully plastic and glass/metal. All of them have had a hard life, doing mainly British-style cave diving. The first thing to note is that I have never had an SPG of either type fail. Have I just been lucky? Or is failure fairly uncommon? The ones with plastic lenses are quite scratched, but it is still possible to read them. They look worse out of the water. On the other hand plastic gauges are lighter - that's maybe important for me, but not for many other people.

However, I used to experience hose failure on a regular basis. I too thought this idea about being able to easily inspect the hoses for damage and leaks was a good one. However, after becoming tired of buying new HP hoses all the time, I fitted both boots and spiral wrap. Life expectancy of my HP hoses increased by at least 10-fold. So, prevention is better than cure, in my opinion. Inspection takes a bit longer, but testing for leaks is no big deal, just chuck it in the bath and watch for a minute - any bubbles soon seep through.

Spiral wrap has another nice feature, which is that it enables colour coding. If you wrap the LP hose to the regulator and its associated HP hose in the same colour, you won't get mixed up about which gauge is associated with which regulator. If you are doing a big dive with three or more back-mounted units, it helps reduce task loading.

On a philosophical note, I agree that you shouldn't believe everything a salesman tells you. But (at the risk of being called a heretic), you shouldn't take everything in the DIR philosophy to be true either. It's a good starting point, but if it was really the "best" solution then that would mean we would have to accept that no improvements are possible. A good diver weighs up the pros and cons of different configurations, makes their own little improvisations and makes their own choices based on the type of diving they do (and the budget they have to spend....).

Standardisation is all very well up to a point, but if it begins to stifle creativity and new thinking, I think we have a problem. When I see posts on diving forums asking questions like "which pocket should I put my line reel in?" I do wonder how people involved in a so-called "adventure sport" can't seem to make any decisions for themselves.

An example I like to use is cars. Clearly, the user interface for cars is largely standardised - you can get into any hire car, turn the engine on and drive. That aspect of DIR does have a lot going for it in buddy diving situations. But cars are not all the same. One car you like, another car you hate. Those little features make all the difference - the exact position of the controls, the sound from the stereo, whether the seats are comfortable, what the ride is like and so on. On a diving configuration, you have the chance to customise those little details for yourself and I think you should. It's more fun and it makes you THINK about your diving which makes you a better diver.

Mark

[Gazza]

Amen....!!!