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WAY BEYOND COMPARE
NIGEL EATON, EDITOR
As John Bantin points out in this month's comparative survey of 13 mid-priced regulators, technology has come a long way since Diver first tested such devices in the late '80s.
Credit for pioneering the scientific evaluation of regulators in the diving press must go to Mike Todd, Diver's former Technical Editor.
Within months of reporting on the new ANSTI custom-built regulator test facility in Southampton in April 1989, Mike had organised a side-by-side Diver trial of 40 models across a broad price range. It was a costly project, but his faith in the ANSTI breathing machine was borne out by some staggering results.
Among those 40 regulators were some spectacular under-achievers. All but 12 failed to reach the established breathing criteria to a depth of 50m. And of the remaining 28 models, 12 were unable to achieve a satisfactory performance beyond 25m, with one failing as shallow as 17m and three at an incredible 13m or less.
These findings prompted a serious re-think by the regulator manufacturers. A number of companies, small and large, acted fast to bring their products up to the mark. When our test was repeated with 52 regulators in April 1992, the results were notably better.
But does an impressive ANSTI result automatically mean a good breathing experience for the diver? Believing that a machine can tell only part of the story, we decided to go a step further.
So, from 1994 our surveys have also included ground-breaking field trials, with divers breathing up to four at a time from a single first stage at depth to assess performance in extreme diving situations. How do the valves work when inverted, and how easy are they to strip and re-assemble on site? These considerations have also typically been taken into account.
It's compelling stuff, but a further dimension has been added to our recent coverage. In addition to standing alone in Diver, such reports now form part of an expanding information source on our website.
Divers visiting www.divernet.com, with its powerful search facility, can rapidly access more facts, figures and hands-on evaluations from our bank of gear articles stretching back more than five years.
Overall, however, our aim today remains exactly as it was when Mike Todd organised Diver's first comparative test. As he wrote following his initial visit to ANSTI in 1989: "We want divers to know the performance characteristics of diving regulators so that they can then make a choice based on knowledge rather than on hearsay or advertising."
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