New Regulator

[DetectorGuy]

I would suggest an environmentally sealed regulator. When you read reviews online about regulators, keep in mind that of all the divers in America, I would guess that probably about 20% dive in water colder than 40 degrees and the other 80% dive "warm water" only. This may or may not be the correct percentage... but you get my point about the pool of people giving feedback. You are asking the right people as it relates to your question. Free flows can be a b!tch. Even if you never intend to ice dive, a cold water reg can be a nice thing to have on a deep dive in the pits or in Superior. Even after purchasing a cold water reg, you can have a good dive shop "tune" your reg to be less apt to free flow. If you ask 10 people in this forum, you will likely get 10 different favorite regs. Personally I like Aqua Lung and dive a Glacia reg. I recently lost the aluminum bezel and purge button on my Glacia octo somehow when I was banging around on a car. When I ordered a replacement I found out Aqua Lung does not make the Glacia anymore and even though they are supposed to keep replacement parts on hand for a couple years after discontinuing a regulator... They did not have any replacement bezel/purge buttons left in stock. I was told the the Aqualung Legend has the same size bezel but it looks different. I have had some free flows with my Glacia but not many. After having it tuned to be not such an easy breather, I have not had any free flows. This Glacia that I use has a series of metal fins on themid point of LP hose for the main reg and the octo and at each end of the hoses. In theory these fins are heat sinks that take the 34 degree water (which is just above freezing) and transfers that "heat" to the air in the hose and therefore help minimize free flows. In reality, most free flows start at the first stage, but because the bubbles come out the second stage, people think that the free flows start at the second stage. When I purchased it I was one of those people that thought that way. After a couple free flows, I purchased a "free flow preventer" which is an in-line slide valve that shuts off the air to the free flowing second stage so that when you switch to the octo, you would have air on that one and stop the air loss from the free flowing primary. This did not work because a few breaths after switching to the octo... that one would free flow as well. These free flow preventers could work if you installed one on both primary and secondary LP hoses so that during a free flow you could manually shut them both down and manually open them for each breath. Even though these could work... I took mine off so that when I am scraping my way through a tight spot at below the narcosis threshold, I dont inadvertantly bump the valve and shut off my air supply and be too narc'd to figure out what just happened. So if anyone wants to buy a nice used free flow preventer... I have one for sale.