tips & curiosities ACADEMY
Scuba cylinder valves INTRODUCTION AND THEIR IMPACT ON A DIVER’S ACTIONS Text WOJCIECH A. FILIP
Photo Tomasz Płociński
In some cases, the only thing a beginner diver would know about the cylinder valve is that you need to open it when you start your dive and close it when you finish. For a diver with a DPV in a cave, a more important thought might be whether cutting the right valve knob after hitting a protruding rock will cause the valve to leak. Can a cylinder valve affect the diver’s position underwater? …or can it affect narcosis?
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for a dive: you need to open the valve to check your gear. The next moment when the valve comes into play is when we finish diving – you need to close the valve to disassemble your gear. Is there any reason for us to know more about scuba cylinder valves? This article will be divided into 3 shorter texts, with something interesting for each and everyone.* To start with, let’s pick the most convenient set of information: for simplicity, they will be marked as A, B, C. A. I’m not interested in cylinder valves – if I need to know anything about them, let it be the bare minimum. B. I’m using several valves on each dive – I’m interested in learning more than just how to open and how to close it. C. I know that details matter. I prefer configuring my gear
very cylinder has a valve of some kind – we usually asso-
on my own in a way that would increase the comfort
ciate it with the moment when we are getting prepared
and safety of my dives.
