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While I own a choptima and SF2 with sidemount kit, I would not start with a sidemount unit as your first unit.
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This kinda sounds like you are lumping the Choptima into being a side mount unit. Admittedly I am a rebreather newbie but I’m not sure that’s fair. I dive mine in SM, BM single, and BM doubles depending on where I am.

Are you considering the Chop SM and if so what’s your concern?
 
"Choose a 'standard' backmount rebreather for your first rebreather". Discuss....



Learning to dive a rebreather is a small part about the specifics of the box, but a large part of learning to dive again with the vastly different tasks a rebreather brings compared with open circuit (e.g. PPO2 monitoring, changes in PPO2, buoyancy, bailout, building and maintenance of the unit, planning, gas management, advanced planning, MOD2, etc., etc.).

Choosing a 'standard' one means there's plenty of people around to help you and it may result in you concentrating on sorting your CCR skills out in the first year and not being tempted to go down the black hole of wherever before you've sorted out your skills.

Am glad that I chose a pretty standard unit -- Revo -- and managed over 100 hours in the first year. Still loads more to finesse and understand, but exceedingly happy in diving CCR to MOD2 depths (70m/230').
 
"Choose a 'standard' backmount rebreather for your first rebreather". Discuss.....

Agree, there is so much dinking around with rigging moving this and moving that and plugging in X on an sidemount unit. Without a really good mentor and a team of people actually pointing out all the pluses and minuses of any given SM CCR thing you end up in rabbit hole of gear mods. Even the tiniest thing like a suit gas bottle has significant implications in SM CCR diving.

"Standard BM unit" is the way to go - both as your first unit and for wreck & boat diving in general. And don't fall for the hype, there is no perfect do it all unit either.
 
Hmmm. I totally get that one unit might not be perfect for everything I want to do. Like in OC, I have three rigs depending on the dive I’m doing (Hollis comfort plate and wing for single-tank, Halcyon Contour for cold-water sidemount mostly in the Great Lakes, and Razor for warm-water sidemount in MX). I am just still balking at the the thought of needing two rebreathers, they’re quite expensive to buy and maintain.
And I get that real sidemount rebreathers like the sidewinder are not the way way to go for me, they have their place but are not versatile. And that still leaves me hanging between a versatile all-purpose CCR like the JJ, and something I think I can adapt to many scenarios like the Choptima.
in terms of instructors, cave diving friends of mine who I trust have recommended Jan Schmid for the JJ. The Choptima is perhaps too new to quite generate this kind of trusted recommendation yet. And my local store is pushing the Prism 2 hard, so I would have local support, an dem others on the same unit for Lake Huron diving. But I’ve had rather poor experiences with Hollis, so I think I’ll stay away from that for a bit.
With that many choices, most good but no clear winner, I’m increasing leaning to just do a course on either the JJ or the Choptima on a rental unit before I buy. And once I have a better feel for it, either go for it or cross over to something else.
Does that sound like a plan?
 
Hmmm. I totally get that one unit might not be perfect for everything I want to do. Like in OC, I have three rigs depending on the dive I’m doing (Hollis comfort plate and wing for single-tank, Halcyon Contour for cold-water sidemount mostly in the Great Lakes, and Razor for warm-water sidemount in MX). I am just still balking at the the thought of needing two rebreathers, they’re quite expensive to buy and maintain.
And I get that real sidemount rebreathers like the sidewinder are not the way way to go for me, they have their place but are not versatile. And that still leaves me hanging between a versatile all-purpose CCR like the JJ, and something I think I can adapt to many scenarios like the Choptima.
in terms of instructors, cave diving friends of mine who I trust have recommended Jan Schmid for the JJ. The Choptima is perhaps too new to quite generate this kind of trusted recommendation yet. And my local store is pushing the Prism 2 hard, so I would have local support, an dem others on the same unit for Lake Huron diving. But I’ve had rather poor experiences with Hollis, so I think I’ll stay away from that for a bit.
With that many choices, most good but no clear winner, I’m increasing leaning to just do a course on either the JJ or the Choptima on a rental unit before I buy. And once I have a better feel for it, either go for it or cross over to something else.
Does that sound like a plan?

This sounds reasonable to me! Especially the part about JJ vs Choptima.... And the hard pass on the prism2...
 
I’m increasing leaning to just do a course on either the JJ or the Choptima on a rental unit before I buy. And once I have a better feel for it, either go for it or cross over to something else.
Does that sound like a plan?

I think on a "specialized" unit like the choptima, renting for class is smart and what I plan to do if I ever think about getting one. I took the sidewinder course and hated the unit with a passion. I was diving the unit that was
supposed to be mine in the class and then had to explain to the instructor I didn't want it anymore. It was awkward and we had to come with a fair pricing strategy that mimicked if I had rented.
The choptima is interesting to me, but not at the same time. It's kind of a sidemount unit, but not really. When you dive it with a sm harness it's still very big except instead of everything being on your back like a bm unit, it's on your chest. The profile seems smaller than a bm rebreather, but not by much (esp when you factor in my gut). It also seems like a pain to scooter with. I like that you can easily throw it from sm setup to adding it to doubles. It seems very convenient in that way. At the same time I'm currently happy with my fathom. Now that there is a "semi-permanant" mounting system for 50s as well as new straps to add both an inflation bottle and an oxygen bottle piggybacked onto the 50s, it's very versatile. I actually bought a second can, so now I have my "original"
canister that I will use when I'm cave diving and sidemounting bailout, and one of the new cans that I will permanantly mount 50s to. So all I have to do is drop the scrubber and head into/onto one or the other depending on what I want to do. And when you're talking about trimix boat dives the new setup is hard to beat since your suit and wing gas are split and you have a dedicated suit bottle you never need to pull off the unit. The choptima may be ever so slightly smaller profiled when paired with a sm harness, but I don't know by how much. So I'm interested in being certified on the choptima, but if it doesn't drop my profile enough to get me in places I can't get into with my fathom, then there's no reason to own a choptima.
 
Gotta throw my $.02 here about the Choptima and scootering. I dive it most weekends in sidemount with my scooter, the only problem is getting accustomed to clipping into the crotch d ring. It’s a little awkward to reach but once your attached its a non issue. I am convinced my drag with the chop is less than my buddies with backmounted rebreathers (JJ and prism)
 
Gotta throw my $.02 here about the Choptima and scootering. I dive it most weekends in sidemount with my scooter, the only problem is getting accustomed to clipping into the crotch d ring. It’s a little awkward to reach but once your attached its a non issue. I am convinced my drag with the chop is less than my buddies with backmounted rebreathers (JJ and prism)
The drag of sidemount is dramatically less than backmount anything, doesn't matter OC or CC. Though I think sidemount CCRs are primarily a cave thing (not that they won't work in open water, but sidemount in open water is quite controversial on scuba board).
 
I don’t actually like sidemount and I don’t think it’s better, I just do it to piss people off :wink:

jokes aside, I’m going in and out at Pt Lobos so the “hike” is all of 50’. The reduced drag is worth the extra hassle. If I have to actually walk or on a boat I’m going backmounted
 
The drag of sidemount is dramatically less than backmount anything, doesn't matter OC or CC. Though I think sidemount CCRs are primarily a cave thing (not that they won't work in open water, but sidemount in open water is quite controversial on scuba board).

So which sidemount CCR are you certified on now and how many hours do you have on the unit? I mean they are pretty common here in Seattle you've seen and dove with plenty of people up into the MOD2 range on sidemount CCRs I assume? Cause that's what the OP is going to be diving in MI
 

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