How to produce clean, dry, divers breathing air that meets international standards
This article exposes the commonly held misconceptions about how compressor filtrations systems really work, and underlines the essential checks and maintenance necessary to produce clean dry divers breathing air - and save the dive operator a pile of money long-term in unnecessary scuba tank replacement costs.


A button gauge is commonly used on decompression cylinders. Because a button gauge is typically small in size, reading the values on it can be difficult to read.

Thanks to technology, a scuba regulator can now have an air integrated computer, giving a diver more options for reading diving cylinder pressures. However, scuba regulators with air integrated computers are often backed with standard air pressure gauge.

Mechanical reserve valves are another important part of scuba regulators. In diving, there are cylinder types that use mechanical valves with a reserve lever, which serves to restrict air flow particularly when pressure is below a preset or predetermined amount. These type of mechanical valves are commonly referred to as "J valves." These mechanical valves were named as such because in US diving catalogs, the valves were next the letter "J". Mechanical valves that do not have a reserve lever are referred to as "K valves." J valves in many modern diving equipment have the reserve valve in the open position.