Healthways Double Hose

[time2dive]

I am looking for a main diaphragm for a Healthways double hose. Mine has seen better days, I believe that it will work, but not well. A newer diaphragm would be great, a spare would be good also. I found a company that MAY be willing to make some if I send them a sample. I do not want to give up my ONLY diaphragm.
Any ideas how to repair a small hole in my secondary exhaust diaphragm. I have heard that some of you make your own duckbills. How do I do that so I can have a new duckbill for my Healthways.

Tim

[oldmossback]

Tim

By the time you purchase the chemicals, create a mold and make your duckbill yourself, you could buy three or four from Bryan here or Dan at VSS. Depending on the location of the hole, you could try a rubber patch like used on kiddies swiming pools.........I've often wondered if the thumb or index finger off a pair of large latex gloves could not be subsituted for emergencys until a duckbill arrived in the mail..........

I don't know the od of the healthways diaphragm but if you haven't tried Diacom.com perhaps you should contact them. They may have a close copy that you could get a sample of.............just a thought.......having one made just for your own use would be astronomical.........

Mossback

[Bryan]

I can only speak from my personal experience on this subject.
When you are making small quantities of rubber products, the setup and mold cost is the KILLER. I do my very best to have all the products I sell manufactured here in the USA. So far the only one that has not been is the band clamp.
Dan and I have talked extensively about rubber production overseas….It is very cheap….so is their quality control. Out of an order of 1000 you can expect 200 to be marginal or bad. Overseas they use a cardboard/pressed board type of mold that is very easy and cheap to make but does not hold tolerances as production goes along….Basically your 1st 200-300 will be dead on and the rest can be so so….
My duckbill and mouthpiece valve molds alone are almost 3k. The diaphragm mold is almost that much. But the trade off on cost is that I am working with a US company and I know the owner of each company personally. If there is a problem I can speak directly with them and if need be I can go VISIT them……The manufacturer of the diaphragm is a specialist in medical silicone products. Close tolerances and attention to detail on a double hose diaphragm are small potatoes compared to some of the products they are producing for doctors and hospitals.
That being said, there are quite a few other things that I have used for valves on various regulators in the past…I think you are on to quite a few of them….Trident mfg has a quite a selection of various sized mushroom valves as well as some from BC manufacturers that work in various areas….If you look around at some of the thick rubber balloons or punch balls that kids play with can be cut up and modified to make a duckbill in a pinch…..I’ve made many Aqua-Lung/Broxton duckbills by trimming up standard duckbills and wrapping them in nylon thread coated with neoprene cement. They come out very close to the originals!! Keep trying what you are doing. I know there are a few folks out there that would appreciate having some of the parts you are looking for. Good Luck

[Creed]

I've thought about trimming up a standard USD duckbill for my Healthways. It should work fairly easily.

As for a diaphragm, these guys seemed to economically make a one off diaphragm for a Divair: http://www.hds.org/scubaworkshop1.html. If I knew more about that part of the project, it shouldn't be too hard to duplicate. If I could be sure of selling 100 diaphragms, it would be easy to order a batch from emachineshop.com. If I recall correctly, 100 diaphragms without an insert would cost about $500. Add in perhaps $200 worth of aluminum or steel inserts, and you've got a base cost of $7/diaphragm. Not too bad, and you'd make a decent little profit at $20/diaphragm, but that's a hell of a lot of wasted money if you can't sell the lot off.

I'm currently having some machine work done on my Healthways valve body. We'll see if my theory works out to be an improvement in the breathing of this already pretty good single stage reg. I'm kind of suprised that there is not more interest in Healthways regs, since they were at one time popular and cheap(so I would assume that there were a lot sold), and about as simple as you get to work on. I've got an improved valve body design worked up, but it's going to cost around $200-300 to have a machine shop fabricate it(not counting the material, which I'll supply), so it has to wait until I can "sneak" it by the wife If my Suzuki sells for a decent price, I might be able to do it then, although that money is currently earmarked for a compressor.