Scuba Regulator First Stages: Balanced V Unbalanced

Ooops! Yep, some of you noticed I accidentally posted the wrong video last week! Well, here is the right one! Slightly out of order, but here is a basic, simplified explanation of Balanced Vs Unbalanced regulators. What do those terms mean and should you spend your money on these features?

The scuba diving regulator is one of the more expensive pieces of dive gear. You want to spend money on quality... buy once, cry once! But scuba regulator manufacturers are very clever at coming up with marketing jargon to confuse the buying public. I'm here to cut through the BS and explain the engineering behind the features they try to sell you, so you can make an informed buying decision and get the best scuba regulator for your money and that's right for the type of diving you do!

Thanks for watching!

D.S.D.O

James
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Scuba Regulator First Stages: Balanced V Unbalanced

Though we are based in Florida, Hawaii, California, and Michigan have 100 ft and 300 ft ocean and lake underwater coral reef, shipwreck, cave diving, freediving, scuba diving, and closed circuit rebreather trips. To learn full face mask, beginner scuba diver, advanced scuba diver, tech scuba diver, cave diver you can reach out to a professional scuba diver. Everyone should get scuba diving insurance with Divers Alert Network.

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[jeffconley]

Face it the reason James has become so popular is because he gives explanation s that are easy for everyone to understand (K.I.S.S.). And he does it for subjects people have questions about and or he knows people need to understand based on his experience. Keep up the great work.

[maxtorque]

OCD / Pedants corner:

"balanced" or "balancing" refers to a pressure / force acting on both ends of a flow control device

"compensated" refers to a single ended pressure / force acting on said device

Therefor, to avoid confusing we shoud really refer to :

Hydrostatically compensated - refering to the output pressure increasing in absolute terms with depth so as to maintain the same differential (gauge) pressure under all conditions

Pneumatically balanced - refering to the effective reduction / nullification of flow control orifice area by the application of primary gas pressure to both sides of that orrifice in order to minimise changes in the pressure reduction ratio as primary gas pressure falls, ie maintaining the same IP gauge pressure as cylinder pressure changes


All modern (for the last 50 odd years or more) 1st stages are hydrostatically compensated, and these days most second stages are pneumatically balanced, meaning there is really no need in having the 1st stage also being pneumaticlly balanced. Becaause the step down ratio is very large for the 1st stage (3000psi dropped to about 140 psi, ie 20:1) the flow control area is small, and so a non pneumatically compensated 1st stage is no real deficit, simply because across sensible ratios (3000psi down to say 500 psi) the change in absolute IP is pretty small.

It's far more important, imo, to have a balanced 2nd, because this both requires a much larger overal flow control orifice, (IP is only arround 140 psi) but also this provides a mugh bigger margin from freeflow events caused by changes in IP, whilst still delivering a robust low inhalation effort. ie the second can be tuned to sit closer to the point of freeflow across a wider range of IP's

[shawnskiver]

Great explanation of the differences. Really enjoying this series

[jamesaurich]

Great job. You are a good teacher with a wealth if information. Keep it up .

[jacobhicks]

Thanks for including the overbalanced stuff, been asking for a straight answer on that one forever

[martinclark]

Thank you James. Good to share basics. Hope this helps !

[abettermousetrap]

I just discovered your channel. Top drawer all the way. great explainations ... I will be watching more of what you have if it's similar. Thanks. :)

[davewollenschlager]

Thank you for the information for a newbie and it does help as it can be intimidating when going into a dive shop when the sales person starts talking about these things.

[zacharynathan]

Watching back the entire series as i look to get my first set of regulators!

[BazzyTX]

I'm probably getting ahead of your "lesson plans." What are the pros and cons of using a balanced 2nd stage with an unbalanced 1st stage? And vice-versa?

[mikkosport]

Hi James. Thank you for goot trial of explaining a bit challenging subject. However, there were some misinformation included, like the balancing process. It is not the diaphram but the valve itself around which the pressure is guided. The idea is to eliminate the extra force created by the tank pressure. Another a bit misleading info was the explanation of ambient pressure transfer in the case of Apeks DST. Yes, the explanation itself is correct. However, one does not need any silicon window etc to get yhe force tranferred. DST is sn environmentally shielded version. If you compare it to UST, which is not rnvironmentally shielded, you see the difference. Anyhow, both gets ambient pressure to the outer side of the diaphram. In UST the water is directly in contact with the diaphram and in DST there is the dry chamber mechanism. In fact UST has more precise ambient response.

[ExpeditedProductions]

Thanks so much for that explanation! DGX Gears XTRA -advice please. Yes/no?

[frogman]

Hi mate, been watching for a while, great channel, good info and ideas. But this time round just want to drop an observation that it doesn't seem terribly clear from this video that balanced piston regs exist as well, and to the squeaky new diver or layman, it almost seems as if you're saying that only balanced diaphragm regs exist which would of course be incorrect.

I dive both balanced piston and balanced diaphragm regs and they are both great options.

[Teampegleg]

Overbalancing - We have an IP creep at depth that we couldn't fix, so now it is a feature. LOL... half kidding... I hope.

[karenmontero]

Hello! Thanks for all the great videos! After watching balanced vs unbalanced, at what depth does it become important (or even noticeable) to have a balanced regulator?

[jeffconley]

The subject of suggesting which regulator design and brand, you really need to understand the individual divers situation. That's why so much of the time you are going to get it depends as an answer.

[leehouston]

James.... i think it's time we see some more sexy underwater footage with that fancy pants new rig you have :)

[Kirbythediver]

About to grab a Mk2 for my pony system.

[jeffconley]

While what manufacturer's tell us about balanced versus unbalanced is technically correct. However, is it true to the point of being able to deliver enough air at the depths an individual is diving? That is what really needs to be answered.

[Kyu]

So. The Mares Abyss is an unbalanced regulator. However it is pretty much the only one that goes against the grain of unbalanced regulators. The more demand on the regulator (the greater the flow) the easier it is to breath off of it.

I was just talking to my service tech about this last night. He has the equipment and software to run the test on any system and provide a print out with 2 lines. One at 500psi. And one at 3000psi. He says all unbalanced regs when tested curve up as the air demand increases, meaning it takes a bigger draw to breath air off of it. But the Mares Abyss curves downward, like that of balanced systems. Quite the phenomena. I have the graphs to back it up haha