Scuba Gear servicing

We all talk about how important finding the right instructor is, but how do you know who you should trust your gear to?

Do you just take it back to the shop your bought it from and let them send it out for you? And how do you know the technician servicing your gear is top notch? In other words, I don't want my gear to be serviced by the person who finished last in their class!

We all talk about how important finding the right instructor is, but how do you know who you should trust your gear to?

Do you just take it back to the shop your bought it from and let them send it out for you? And how do you know the technician servicing your gear is top notch? In other words, I don't want my gear to be serviced by the person who finished last in their class!

Hi Kim,

..unfortunately there's no elegant way to handle this other than either trial-and-error or personal references/recommendations from other divers you trust. Mostly I've visited various local dive shops, talked shop with them, and given those shops that seem to know their stuff a trial run.......... until 04/06 I had all my gear serviced at Tucker's in Grand Prarie, but they went out of business 04/06. I've had my Poseidons serviced at Tucker's or Southern Scuba, both now out of business, or Grapevine Scuba, who is still in business but dropped the Poseidon brand as he was unable to maintain the required sales volumes to hold their franchise....... or Emerald Sea Divers, recently out of business as well, plus they did a bad job on a service so I never went back there for service again, so now I don''t know where to get them serviced locally other than giving Lone Star Scuba in FT. Worth a trial run the next time they need service.

I'm not a big fan of shipping gear out for service, I'm not sending out a $ 1500- $ 2000 reg set in the mail to some guy out of state I've never met, and I like to pick up and test my gear in person at the shop so immediate adjustments can be made in the event I'm not satisfied with something, which won't work with mail-order service.

Presently, I do most of my buying/service in the DFW area @ Scubatoys/Surface Interval Scuba/Scuba Connections (Keller)/ Lone Star Scuba/Grapevine Scuba......I use many different brands of gear, so I have my favorite repair shops for whatever brand of my gear needs service.

..I know you dive Scubapro regs, I don't, so I can't recommend anyone there....... I use Mares/Atomic Aquatics/Poseidon/Apeks/Oceanic/Deep Outdoors/Halcyon/Dive Rite/Aqualung so I can give you references on those brands, I don't use Sherwood, but I trust Scuba Connections on that brand.

Karl

I fixed my problem by taking a gear repair and overhaul class. Now I repair and overhaul my own gear.

Dennis,

where did you take the class? Was it at the manufactures's facility? Or was it a YMCA/NAUI/PADI class?

Well Kim,
The one thing you don't have to worry about is getting the person that scored low on the exam...most manufacture's courses have no pass/fail test.If you look most paper issued to the service 'tech' simply states they attended a clinic.
Most courses consist of being shown how to disassemble a 1st stage and second stage(not every reg in the line) and simply replace parts.The basic lesson is take apart,clean,put in new parts not much is spent on actual diagnostics(here is the troubleshooting chart).I can't speak about all reg 'techs' but in the Vancouverr area there are far more poor 'techs' then adaquate 'techs' with only a couple good/excellent 'techs'
Horror stories I know about...1)guy owns divestore,picks up new brand so the rep gives him a 20min course and a piece of paper 2)several techs I do know run into regs that just had their annual service but there are parts that haven't been replaced in 2 or more years.
Servicing regs is not rocket science but the industies tries to tell you how it's life support equiptment yet if you could see the courses and standereds it takes to become a service tech.
The ideal situation is to find some to mentor with.Two books you want to own are Regulator Service from http://airspeedpress.com and Regulator Savvy from http://www.scubatools.com the second site will also supply many of the tools you'll need.Parts get a bit tricky to get but there are ways around it.
Even if you choose not to service your own regs the knowlage of knowing how your regs worg(read the books) allow you to better select a service tech.

Well Kim,
The one thing you don't have to worry about is getting the person that scored low on the exam...most manufacture's courses have no pass/fail test.If you look most paper issued to the service 'tech' simply states they attended a clinic.
Most courses consist of being shown how to disassemble a 1st stage and second stage(not every reg in the line) and simply replace parts.The basic lesson is take apart,clean,put in new parts not much is spent on actual diagnostics(here is the troubleshooting chart).I can't speak about all reg 'techs' but in the Vancouverr area there are far more poor 'techs' then adaquate 'techs' with only a couple good/excellent 'techs'
Horror stories I know about...1)guy owns divestore,picks up new brand so the rep gives him a 20min course and a piece of paper 2)several techs I do know run into regs that just had their annual service but there are parts that haven't been replaced in 2 or more years.
Servicing regs is not rocket science but the industies tries to tell you how it's life support equiptment yet if you could see the courses and standereds it takes to become a service tech.
The ideal situation is to find some to mentor with.Two books you want to own are Regulator Service from http://airspeedpress.com and Regulator Savvy from http://www.scubatools.com the second site will also supply many of the tools you'll need.Parts get a bit tricky to get but there are ways around it.
Even if you choose not to service your own regs the knowlage of knowing how your regs worg(read the books) allow you to better select a service tech.

I have completed a number of these courses over the years, and I can say from personal experience that they are not designed for the rocket scientist. "Take out old screw 'A'. Replace with new screw 'A' from supplied service kit." It really is mostly like this.

Where you get the artist is when it comes to the small adjustments after the unit has been put back together.

Dennis,

where did you take the class? Was it at the manufactures's facility? Or was it a YMCA/NAUI/PADI class?

He took it from Rudy Mola of Diving Technologies in the Fort Lauderdale area. It's a class I'd like to take as well.

Kimmy
As Karl has mentioned its been

trial-and-error

for me. at first I used to take my regs over to Oklahoma to the place I bought them at for my servicing, but I really didnt know if the did the work they charged me for or just washed them off with soap and water? next I started sending my regs to the closest servicing dealer that worked on my brand of regs according to an Internet search. this was a time consuming process and when I needed to get a small adjustment here and there it was impossible because of the distance. beleive it or not now I travel to almost Dallas to get all my equipment serviced at Calvins place. he lets me watch what he does to them and shows me why he replaces this part and that part, plus I get that little adjustment right there on the spot. it puts a new meaning on LDS= Long-Distant Dive Shop.


B2B

or Emerald Sea Divers, recently out of business as well, plus they did a bad job on a service so I never went back there for service again,

..I know you dive Scubapro regs, I don't, so I can't recommend anyone there....... I use Mares/Atomic Aquatics/Poseidon/Apeks/Oceanic/Deep Outdoors/Halcyon/Dive Rite/Aqualung so I can give you references on those brands, I don't use Sherwood, but I trust Scuba Connections on that brand.

Karl

Karl

I feel for you on getting poseidon's serviced as getting them worked on requires some specialized tools and the class from posiedon to work on as some of the items arent intuitive. as for ESD before mike dunst bought the shop you could get them serviced without a issue because the previous owner was a certified tech. I will second the bad service i was a customer of the previous owners (prior to mike) but after the sale i had a very bad experince to say the least and wont go back. As for my poseidon regs i will send them out to get them done (northeast scuba supply is one, they work on regs for people diving the doria and other such technical wrecks).

on this site i know that there are two memebers that have connections to get poseidons worked on. first is Dive_Girl's shop can work on them as she dives a set of xstreams, then chuck lubold (lubold is the screen name i think) contacted me when i posted a thread on needing a tech to work on my regs.

Beyond that for the most part its trial and error process, fortuantely i have found a tech near me that can service all other brands of regs other then my poseidons and that i trust (because im betting my life on his work) so i take them to him (Richard Dean of Adventure scuba in Plano). Beyond that i would really like to go through the manufactures course(poseidon, apeks, and mares/dacor would cover the regs i would wnat to use) so that i could do them myself.

FWIW

Tooth

FinGrabber

Your best way to find a good repair shop is to talk to your dive buddies. If they have had a bad experience or a good one they will be the first to let you know.

Most of the manufactures give an 2 hour class to the shop owner and their staff and that is suppose to make them a gear tech. I believe it takes education and a lot of practice to make a good gear tech. These regs are not rocket science, but they are our life support. Ask the shop how long their gear tech has been servicing regs. Ask how many regs they are servicing a month. If they are only doing a couple a month, They are probably not doing enough to stay current. Make sure you are comfortable with the answers you get. Ask to meet the gear tech., ask questions.
There are manufactures that offer much longer repair classes. Techs that pass those classes can do warranty work for that manufacturer.

Three years ago out local shop lost is gear tech. The owner is not mechanically minded. We don’t even let him change batteries. The shop sponsored me and I took all the classes offered by his manufactures. I have been to Dema twice to learn as much as I can. I look at it as I have someone’s life in my hand and I care very much. There are regs I will not do. Either we don’t carry them so I can not get parts or I have never been trained to repair them. We average about 20 regs a month and that keeps me very up to date on our regs.

This has gotten very long winded. Sorry about that. My only suggestion is to ask questions until you are very satisfied with who ever is going to service your equipment.

Edited by customdivetech, 24 August 2006 - 10:16 AM.