Healthways "Auto-Reserve" What the heck.

[Herman]

I recently got a Healthways first stage with "Auto-Reserve". As best as I can tell this made the reg breath badly until you were low on air when it started to breath even worse. Is that about what it does or am I missing something? I assume it remained in whatever position you chose throughout the dive as opposed to changing its position like is done with a J valve.

[Ron]

Do you have any pictures or schematics of how it looks internally? I'm curious.

[Herman]

Look at page 15 of the 1965 Healthways catalog (in the download section of the board if you don't already have it) . There is a cut away of it. The "Auto Reserve" assembly appears to replace the J valve assembly of the Scuba J. Looks like a really dumb idea to me unless I am missing something.

[ovalis]

It's just a restricted orifice, similar to a US Divers R valve. Sportsways also used this as an option on their regs as well. At least with the Healthways, you had the option of turning the knob and bypassing it.

[USdiver]

What you have is half of the Healthways SCUBAIR-J regulator. It was made from the early through mid 1960s (I believe that the 62-63 editions had the chrome exhaust tees, later models had rubber tees) Not the easiest breathing regulators but they are nearly indestructible. I have a complete one, but it is not working all that well and parts are hard to find.

Oops, guess it's not a SCUBAIR-J. Now that I've seen the diagram, what the hell were they thinking??!!

[Herman]

.................Oops, guess it's not a SCUBAIR-J. Now that I've seen the diagram, what the hell were they thinking??!!

My thoughts exactly. Looks to me they took an OK piston reg and made it a lot worse.....oh well, I just wanted the stuff that came with it but sooner or later I will get it back in service......not sure why...