Yesterday morning we went over to the Dutch side of the island to take a class with Fraser Purdon. He taught us how to troubleshoot, disassemble, service and reassemble R-series Scubapro regulators. We also learned how to do maintenance on BCDs.

The class was great, and it was really cool to see how simple and straightforward unbalanced piston regulators are on the inside. We learned not just how to open them up, but also why they are designed the way they are and how everything works together. I love the idea of being able to understand and maintain my own gear, particularly because underwater I am depending on it for my air supply.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the regulator is the piece of scuba equipment that takes the high pressure air in your tank and converts it to a pressure that is easy to breathe. Because divers experience different ambient pressure at different depths, the regulator provides air at the required pressure whether you are on the surface or 100 feet underwater.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 6:21 am and is filed under On Expedition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.