Revo or Optima?

[rddvet]

Since Mares bought them, Dive Gear Express has become a dealer for rEvo parts. And Richard Morton, at Dive-Tronix, has been factory-authorized as a rEvo technician. I had both my units serviced by him for their 10 year overhaul. One was about $500 and the other was a bit over $1000, IIRC, because the previous owner of my Micro got salt water into one of the first stages and let it stay in there for a while, so I had to buy a whole new 1st stage as part of that one.

Seems to me that the knocks for cost, parts availability, hard to get serviced, etc. are yesterday's news.

That's good news to hear.
unfortunately it doesn't solve the biggest issue: That it's a revo

 

[rjack321]

Hey everyone

Looking into those two units for my diving. I do a bit of everything in terms of diving - walls, reefs, wrecks at anything down to 55m. Have fair amount of experience and trained to adv nitrox and deco proc. But really looking for warm gas, more bottom time and less deco obligations, ideally on a unit that is solidly built, can take a bit rough treatment, has the least number of weaknesses and can travel.

What is everyone else in Melbourne diving? Having the only unit around is a major hassle and will absolutely limit your learning curve and potential mentorship. Is there a service center in your country?

ps neither of these units would be my first choice

 

[rjack321]

Since Mares bought them, Dive Gear Express has become a dealer for rEvo parts. And Richard Morton, at Dive-Tronix, has been factory-authorized as a rEvo technician. I had both my units serviced by him for their 10 year overhaul. One was about $500 and the other was a bit over $1000, IIRC, because the previous owner of my Micro got salt water into one of the first stages and let it stay in there for a while, so I had to buy a whole new 1st stage as part of that one.

Seems to me that the knocks for cost, parts availability, hard to get serviced, etc. are yesterday's news.

The OP is in Australia. Ordering parts from FL or shipping it to WA state for service is ridiculous.

I swear the 2021 Revo is like a reincarnation of a 1990s or 2000s era YBOD. Widespread, popular, quasi-functional, expensive, difficult to service, next to impossible to modify in any serious way for any special project or objective, has some extremely annoying proprietary parts, does almost nothing perfectly.

 

[Wibble]

@Wibble made a point about rEvo flooding. He said its weakness is flood resistance. I want to correct that. It is very flood resistant. It is not flood tolerant. In other words, the design of the rEvo is such that it seems (in my VERY inexperienced view) to be very resistant to flooding. There are only 2 hoses in the breathing loop. With the standard DSV, there are only 2 nuts to put on and tighten. Other units typically have 4 hoses, T pieces, and, so, many more places where an O-ring could leak, for example. Some other units also have exposed counter lungs which, I *think*, are more likely to get a cut or rip in them during a dive than the rEvo counterlungs. It seems to me that the rEvo is probably one of, if not the most, flood RESISTANT units on the market.

What it is not is flood TOLERANT. Meaning, once you flood it, you are not getting the water out during the dive. Everyone talks about the rEvo like it's a 100% negative to the rEvo on anything related to flooding. But, to me, it seems like it's more of a pros and cons situation. It's less likely to flood (a pro), but you can't get the water out if it does (a con). Only you can decide which way to go on that.

I flooded my Micro once. Totally my fault during assembly and checks. It was a slow flood and I completed a 90 minute dive, on the loop the whole time. I didn't realize it was flooding. My only clue, until close to the end, was that it seemed a little harder to breathe than normal. But, even then, I wasn't sure. Towards the end, I rolled onto my side and the salt water got into the sensor tray and 3 of the sensors went whacky. But, the 2 that were only connected to my NERD continued to function perfectly and they, with the NERD and me flying the O2 manually, are what got me out safely.

Thanks for correcting my vocabulary - tolerance is a far better word

My experience with ‘flooding' was right at the beginning on my MOD1 where I’d not tightened the jubilee clips after changing the mushrooms. It’s far worse if you dive flat as any liquid in the exhale lung runs back into the exhaust hose. If you dive "less flat" the liquid will remain in the exhaust lung. Has never happened since.

Often wondered if it would be possible to have a drain on the DSV where any liquid could be removed.

 

[JonG1]

I think you can add a trap Wibs, if you have a look on CCRX a guy has profiled a rebreather he's built that he calls OAK (one of a kind), think TECME do them.

 

[stuartv]

The OP is in Australia. Ordering parts from FL or shipping it to WA state for service is ridiculous.

I swear the 2021 Revo is like a reincarnation of a 1990s or 2000s era YBOD. Widespread, popular, quasi-functional, expensive, difficult to service, next to impossible to modify in any serious way for any special project or objective, has some extremely annoying proprietary parts, does almost nothing perfectly.

I understood that the OP is in Oz. And I apologize if I gave the impression that I was suggesting the OP could or should order parts from FL or send his unit to WA for service. That part of my comment was addressed to the person in FL who posted the comment I was replying to, and was intended to address those points as they relate to US rEvo divers. And also to illustrate that the takeover by Mares does not seem - in GENERAL - to have had a negative effect on parts or service.

 

[Wibble]

I swear the 2021 Revo is like a reincarnation of a 1990s or 2000s era YBOD. Widespread, popular, quasi-functional, expensive, difficult to service, next to impossible to modify in any serious way for any special project or objective, has some extremely annoying proprietary parts, does almost nothing perfectly.

Seems rather strong given all the strengths of the design which are not in any YBOD. Two scrubbers, independent electronics, five cells, internal lungs, no T-pieces or dumps on external lungs, single MAV & O2 block, accurate RMS, Shearwater computers …. Nothing like a YBOD.

 

[rjack321]

five cells
a non-serviceable MAV / O2 orifice
no dumps on an internal lung that you cannot practically patch or replace, or adjust or move
a useless expensive RMS all packaged in pretty much the heaviest unit in existence
and lastly especially awful trim like a brick in a thin wetsuit

None of these are "strengths"

 

[mikesz]

Revo:
- two completely separate electronics systems that aren't sharing cells; Perdix and Nerd are running on separate cables on their own cells
- 5 cells, reduces 'cell doubt' related stress
- 1.3kg (2lb) scrubber as you normally only need to replace one scrubber = cheaper to run as it's half the amount of scrubber than most other units.
- The RMS monitoring system shows when the scrubber active zone moves into the second scrubber; it displays this as hours left.
- 'hybrid' design means less work for the solenoid = less battery use (the solenoid battery is a PP3)
- solid case around the lungs protects them
- case is really easy to mount cylinders, batteries, etc. Have easy-release
- no moving parts (e.g. T-pieces on lungs, dumps, etc.)
- extremely simple gas flow design

The one weakness is it's less resistant to flooding than units with external counterlungs, especially if you dive flat.

Obviously I'm a Revo diver. Nothing within my experience of diving with the unit has changed my mind nor caused me to doubt about my choice.

Ahh yes, I forgot to mention the RMS in my list before. I do like the ability to monitor scrubber capacity to scrub ;-). It's a clear strength that Optima doesn't have and I'll add it to my list of pluses.

 

[mikesz]

I dove the revo for 4 years. 20 minutes into diving an optima, I sold the revo and never looked back. That was almost 10 years ago.

if nothing else, being able to recover a flooded loop 3000’ in the back of a cave would be all the reason in the world to buy the optima over revo. But then there’s the customer service, work of breathing, ease of obtaining parts and service, the fact that you can call the creator on the phone and ask questions.

seemed like a no-brainer to me

Respect your experience. I wonder if you can expand on what specifically made you make such a sudden and significant shift to Optima? What were the key considerations? I wonder also if you ever found any issues with the horizontal scrubber - such as channeling when rocked about or similar?

Clearly, my diving profile is way different to yours, so maybe I'm over-engineering my requirements (which wouldn't come anywhere close to yours) so I want to balance things out.