SPGs on CCRs

What sort of tank pressure monitoring system do you use on your CCR?

  • Stock SPGs, Front Mounted

    Votes: 35 53.0%
  • Stock SPGs, Back Mounted

    Votes: 8 12.1%
  • Wireless transmitters

    Votes: 9 13.6%
  • Wireless transmitters and SPGs

    Votes: 2 3.0%
  • Button SPGs

    Votes: 6 9.1%
  • None

    Votes: 5 7.6%
  • Other aftermarket SPGs

    Votes: 1 1.5%

  • Total voters
    66

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The XCCRs look really nice, but they are some pricey units last time I looked. Idk if I could justify the cost

Same. Demoed an XCCR and liked it a lot, but the costs seem really high when compared to other CCRs.
 
I don't do any serious ocean diving at this point so I am one of the skewed perspective people. Is a QC6 to inflator hose cheater not a good enough backup? I would think that I could get it out of my pocket and hooked up moderately quickly. I've never had a complete buoyancy failure in OW where I was plummeting to the abyss and got scared. I would think that a 1st stage failure, draining the tank, or a tank neck or burst disk leak would be the only thing that would lead to a complete buoyancy failure using the onboard dil as a suit inflation bottle. Even then, wouldn't it take something like a severe buoyancy shift or a blown wing opv at the same time as loss of inflation gas to really cause a serious problem? Couldn't the descent be slowed by adding loop volume ( I know that would be very limited by p02 and increase pressure in the loop)? I get that complete loss of inflation gases would suck over a deep wall, but maybe my inexperience with that type of diving makes it hard to comprehend how I couldn't resolve that issue with a cheater in my pocket.
BTW, Under the Jungle in Mexico has some awesome 2inch inflator hoses that Natalie had made because they work better for her size for sm inflation routing. They're perfect for making a pocket cheater. Nicer than using a 4 inch hose. With the 2inch it easily fits into the zipper flap on my drysuit pockets.

I have never run out of wing gas but I have run out of suit gas a few times. I have also splashed (on OC) with suit bottles off. There is a non-zero chance of jumping in with the onboard suit/wing gas bottle off or so close to empty you drain it. Since this is a thread about SPGs I'll vouch for accidentally using a empty or near empty one as the most likely issue. But you could have a leaking OPV on the first stage (those little things are a necessary evil but junk), ruptured LP hose isn't unheard of as well. In my experience burst disks rarely blow but they sometimes leak, if its been leaking since it was filled then your bottle might be closer to empty than full. There's lots of ways that suit/wing bottle could either start out or empty quick.

With 2 or 3 BO/deco bottles on you are at least 10lbs negative and likely more like 18-20lbs negative (2x al80s + al40). You can swim that up, sort of. 3x al80s + al40 is not really swimmable IMO. You sink really fast and messing around in your pockets is not really doable in a timely manner. Orally inflating with a CCR as you sink is not good either, you're probably going to partially or completely flood the loop as you screw with the DSV and rely on the ADV to make up the volume. Unless you're like me and you always have your ADV (which doubles as my dil MAV) off on the surface to avoid hypoxic dil leaking or otherwise not having a loop full of O2 at and near the surface.

Net you're pretty hosed to be dropping like a stone, loop volume is shrinking fast, you can't breathe, your lung volume is smushed so there's little or nothing to exhale into your wing manually, and you have no buoyancy.

There's a lot riding on that backmounted bottle of wing and suit air. Its a single point of failure that has a ton of really bad consequences if all the holes in the cheese align. In a cave with a floor, yea you faceplant which is pretty bad. But its not fatally bad. In the ocean bring independent sources of buoyancy like you would on OC.
 
Amen to that! Here's to the checklist...

Although minor quibble - prebreathe might have missed that, but positive/negative would have picked it up.

Exactly - I actually always do a prebreathe and pos/neg check and a few other checks. If I'm doing any of the checks I do all of them. So when I say I'm prebreathing - it really means I'm going through a huge list of checks.

I just think it's completely insane and stupid to not do prebreathing and the handful of checks you should do in order to assure that your unit is working correctly. It's minutes out of your life for hours underwater.
 
I have a needle valve on my kiss sidewinder now. I like it, its better than the old orifice mav. I fixed my IP (@200psi) because scootering, sawtooths, light, reel, line, buddies all to keep track of along with a dynamic IP were not good. I couldnt get a hand free to adjust it as fast as the IP would change the flow on me. And would over or undershoot the adjustment trying to turn it fast so I could get back to what I was doing. Plus, its a royal PITA with frozen hands and dry gloves. Full open to closed is only about 3/4 of a turn and the knob is tiny tiny. On the plus side I can dial up the flow a little if I'm swimming hard or dial it back if I'm on deco. And I dont have to worry about an orifice clogging.

I dont see a reason to hybridize my Meg. I know the revo people love their hybrids but the revo solenoid eats batteries compared to a Meg. I usually set that to 1.1 or 1.2 for cave dives and let it do its thing. For wreck dives its 1.3 and I barely touch the MAV until I get to deco where I sometimes bump it up and let it decay. Or mess with the controller setting when I get bored hanging. I prefer not having a depth limit for my wreck dives, I dont know if the Meg solenoid would like 200psi fixed like I have on my Kiss, I would have to check. Plus it would be a hanging MAV when the Meg CLs have a built in MAV right there.

Just out of curiosity, where did you get the needle valve?
 
Just out of curiosity, where did you get the needle valve?
I use a fathom needle valve, I got that simple one direct from Charlie Robson.

Chris Kennedy will also make you a simple to a fancy custom one with a dil MAV included if you want.

Mike at KISS has a few prototypes out in the wild but he seems to not want to put a needle valve into mass production
 
It is all of the above. I really did not like the SPGs in the front. Too much "stuff" on my chest and too hard to read (compared to reading the pressure from my NERD or a Teric on my wrist).
Ever thought of routing them behind your arms and clipping to the crotch strap? Works like a charm. Some would say entanglement hazard, but with two bailout tanks, there are other things that will snag on first. That has happen to me once on a swim step though... No big deal.
 
Same. Demoed an XCCR and liked it a lot, but the costs seem really high when compared to other CCRs.

I’m not sure about that. Subgravity only sells it with regs and tanks and BOV so it may seem high. Once you compare apples to apples on a new unit it doesn’t really seem to me to be much more than a comparable JJ or SF2 or Prism. All of those seem to settle out pretty close to $10k too.

Capital Costs between units

Is there a comparable units that’s lots less? I don’t see it unless you are comparing to a used Prism which really can be had for much less.
 
I use a fathom needle valve, I got that simple one direct from Charlie Robson.

Chris Kennedy will also make you a simple to a fancy custom one with a dil MAV included if you want.

Mike at KISS has a few prototypes out in the wild but he seems to not want to put a needle valve into mass production

Thanks!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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