Northwest Dive Club

So I have been hearing a lot about the HOG regulators and gear. So I am just looking for some feed back the good and bad. How you think they compare to other regs and gear you have used or still use.

i use them for my back gas and all deco regs, never a issue, breathe great, and kits are cheap and easy to come by.

I dive all HOG and am very happy

I have no complaints with mine. Tacoma Scuba services them. If you buy them on line, you might want to get them tuned before you put many dives on them.

Be very carefull cleaning them after every dive. The chrome is thin and flakes off easily if the reg isnt cleaned properly and the brass under the chrome begins to corrode. The last one I serviced was completely ruined because the gap between the diaphram cap and the reg body had trapped saltwater and corroded allowing saltwater to bypass the diaphram and rot out the insides. The second stage purge valve can stick open if any particles get between the purge button and second stage body. One of my customers was diving his and purged the second stage only to have it stick open and we had to take the whole thing apart to get it unstuck. He breathed from the freeflowing second stage to get to the shore and his tank was empty before he could get it shut down. Most people I talk to like them but its the experiences like this that caused me to never trust them.

I am happy with them. I have had mine for a year and put about a hundred dives on it without problems.

I own quite a few HOG regulators. They breathe very well. They cost much less than other regulators, and for those who care (like myself) you can get trained to service your own. I'm going to be taking the HOG servicing course soon (Tacoma Scuba just got the go ahead to teach the course and I know Scott Christopher in the north end is very close to getting the go ahead to teach the same course).

My experience with HOG gear was that it is not particularly durable nor well-made.

I own almost 10 Hog regs, a Hog wing, and several other Hog items. It is far and away the highest quality gear for the price, and I would recommend it in a heartbeat.

For those of you with problems -- did you contact Chris re: your issue? In my experience his customer support is equally outstanding.

I use Hog piston regs for my stage and deco regs. I have Atomics for back gas, and when I switch I don't notice a difference in the work of breathing. Very happy with the Hogs.

trevorrowe wrote:I own quite a few HOG regulators. They breathe very well. They cost much less than other regulators, and for those who care (like myself) you can get trained to service your own. I'm going to be taking the HOG servicing course soon (Tacoma Scuba just got the go ahead to teach the course and I know Scott Christopher in the north end is very close to getting the go ahead to teach the same course).

nice, When is the course? I would love to do this.

I've just recently gotten a chance to service a couple sets of HOG's. One set is just over 3 yrs old, the other is about 2.

They're very much akin to an APEX regulator. What I've noticed is that while they are very well machined, they appear to be made of a different grade of brass and the coatings on them are very thin. My guess is this might be why they can sell them so cheaply.

IMO there a great reg set for those who won't be putting a lot of miles on them as I think they won't be lasting all that long for those who dive all the time. I believe we'll start seeing the coating coming off prematurely (as is the case with the set that is only 3 years old) and that the body's will not be lasting like more robustly built regulators. While they are sold at a great price, I think that will be offset by what I expect will be a much shorter lifespan. IMO one would do better finding a good set of used APEX reg's and investing in those. Again... remember this is my opinion, I do not know that the coatings are thinner as I've not mic'd them, I don't know that the brass is softer or different as I've not investigated.... such does 'appear to me' to be the case though.

I have about 200 dives on my D1 first and second. They have performed great.

yea I am at 70 now and I purchased them used from classroom gear, I need to service them about now so I guess I will find out the wear. but I wash them after every dive day and they appear to be in awesome shape I have had no issues or problems at all, and see no wear or tear.

I, too, have not had very good experiences with HOG gear. Plus, who knows how long they'll be around.

spudgunman wrote:

trevorrowe wrote:I own quite a few HOG regulators. They breathe very well. They cost much less than other regulators, and for those who care (like myself) you can get trained to service your own. I'm going to be taking the HOG servicing course soon (Tacoma Scuba just got the go ahead to teach the course and I know Scott Christopher in the north end is very close to getting the go ahead to teach the same course).

nice, When is the course? I would love to do this.

When I asked Wally at the Expo it sounded like he had a number of interested parties but no firm date for the class. Probably middle of may, but it sounded like somebody just needed to call him and get the ball rolling for picking a date.

KaizerWilhelm wrote:I, too, have not had very good experiences with HOG gear. Plus, who knows how long they'll be around.

Welcome to the forum. I appreciate your contribution to this thread. You will probably find people will take your comment more seriously if you introduce yourself (http://www.nwdiveclub.com/viewforum.php?f=5) first. People tend to assume opinionated comments on a discussion from a first-time poster are a sock-puppet.

All that said, welcome to nwdiveclub!

nice thanks trev

He (Will) is a very active diver in the local community Many of you have either met him on the beach or in the shop... I'm sure he'll get around to introductions, if not here on the board, most likely in person... in any event, i can vouch for the fact that he's not a troll or a sockpuppet, he's just very busy diving, working and going to school and doesn't have a lot of time hang out on forums...

trevorrowe wrote:

KaizerWilhelm wrote:I, too, have not had very good experiences with HOG gear. Plus, who knows how long they'll be around.

Welcome to the forum. I appreciate your contribution to this thread. You will probably find people will take your comment more seriously if you introduce yourself (http://www.nwdiveclub.com/viewforum.php?f=5) first. People tend to assume opinionated comments on a discussion from a first-time poster are a sock-puppet.

All that said, welcome to nwdiveclub!

Also, sockpuppets/trolls don't usually wait 10 months between joining and posting.

KaizerWilhelm wrote:I, too, have not had very good experiences with HOG gear. Plus, who knows how long they'll be around.

What did you own and what was the problem with it?

I can also vouch for Will, I dive with him regularly. He's no sock puppet. Muppet... marionette at worst.

I sold off all my regs and completely standardized around HOG - back gas, deco gas, argon, etc. They breathe great, are easily serviced, and (at least in my experience) are of fine quality.

The inferior quality of the metals and chrome coating used is a MAJOR issue. Having serviced around thirty of them and discovering flaws in worksmanship and quality controll. And after seeing several customers have serious issues with them I have pulled them off my store shelves. People dont get how serious the chrome issue is, I have had more than on come in for service completely ruined because the metal coroded and ruined the seal at the Primary diaphram. Having seen this many life threatening flaws in design I wont sell them anymore and there is no way in hell I would ever dive with one again. Basically what you have with hog is typical of knockoffs, they simply copied the successfull design of an APEKS but without the reaserch and maticulous design procedures backing them up they have some serious flaws that will end up killing someone. Everyone I have talked to in the regulator design and service industry is just shaking their head in amaizment that (with no checks and balances to what is allowed to be sold in this country as life support) this is allowed to put peoples lifes at risk in the name of making a quick buck. If I were a manufacturer who didnt give a crap about the end user this is how I would do it, take a succesfull design, plagerize it, and hire a factory in a third world nation to crank them out at a fraction of the cost using melted down garbage. Dupe people into buying it and hopefully by the time people realize what i've done I will have made enough money not to care anymore and if a couple users get killed along the way thats just to bad so sad.

I can't speak to the quality of the internal components of HOG regs but I'm sure glad that I don't rely exclusively on a single regulator for my life support. IMHO, if the failure of any single piece of dive gear spells death It's time to reconsider either your dive plan or you equipment configuration or both.

I have a single HOG reg I plan to use for a deco reg. At the price I paid my expectations of it won't be all that hard to beat.