Buying new vs used - pros & cons?

[davehicks]

How cold have you taken it? 40F water is common for the diving I’ll be doin (and have done in the past).

I do most of my diving the Pacific Northwest, so Puget Sound and British Columbia. About the coldest we ever see is 44F water and occasional below freezing air temps. I've not had any issues in those conditions after nearly 15 seasons.

 

[Marie13]

I do most of my diving the Pacific Northwest, so Puget Sound and British Columbia. About the coldest we ever see is 44F water and occasional below freezing air temps. I've not had any issues in those conditions after nearly 15 seasons.

When diving the WI mine, it’s quite common to have below 0 air temps and wind chills a good deal colder. A friend tells of doing his full cave class with -10F air temps. The water temp is 50F year round. Yes, we dive all winter in those temps. Hardy Midwestern divers.

 

[rjack321]

When diving the WI mine, it’s quite common to have below 0 air temps and wind chills a good deal colder. A friend tells of doing his full cave class with -10F air temps. The water temp is 50F year round. Yes, we dive all winter in those temps. Hardy Midwestern divers.

50F isnt really that cold in the grand scheme of things. Lake Superior is 38F on the bottom

 

[Marie13]

It’s not, but I was replying to Dave about the air temps.

 

[tbone1004]

As an aside, what units would you suggest people look at?

What @rjack321 said basically.

The list is whittled down rapidly for most divers.
Question 1-do you need it to be sidemount? Do you need it to easily travel? Do you have any weird special considerations?
Example, for sidemount it obviously rules out everything except Choptima, SF2, Sidewinder, Sidekick, and Liberty. Nothing else out commercially on the market *yes I know that the Flex and T-Reb exist, no I do not consider them viable* Which one of those will depending on the rest of the questions. Weird considerations would be you're a GUE diver interested in projects, that means JJ or JJ, or you are involved in scientific diving which usually means APD, etc.
Question 2-are you currently or intend to be associated with a dive shop? If you answer "yes my shop is an SSI shop and a Mares dealer", then you should probably seriously look at a Revo or whatever applicable unit for the brands they currently sell. If you intend to teach on the unit, what unit will let you sell courses and units, i.e. if there is already a Meg dealer in close proximity then you probably shouldn't choose the Meg.
Question 3-are you bound to a particular instructor? That obviously limits the units to what they teach which is what @Marie13 is restricted with at the moment.
Question 4-are your teammates heavily invested in a particular unit? If they are, then you should probably go with that one. The reality is basically all of the backmount units are perfectly good and most of them are functionally identical so if you really want a Meg but all of your buddies are on an X-CCR, then get the X-CCR because it means all of your spare parts are compatible and the units are all but indistinguishable when you're diving them.

Note the several times I alluded to all of the units being basically the same which means that there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those restrictions trimming you down to a specific unit.

 

[broncobowsher]

What T-bone said^^^

Being tied to a single instructor I find a rather weak excuse for picking one over another. Lot more important choices first.

 

[Marie13]

What T-bone said^^^

Being tied to a single instructor I find a rather weak excuse for picking one over another. Lot more important choices first.

You have your criteria and I have mine. With only two weeks vacation a year, being able to train on weekends at dive sites 2-4 hours away is a huge plus.

 

[rjack321]

What T-bone said^^^

Being tied to a single instructor I find a rather weak excuse for picking one over another. Lot more important choices first.

When there are limited options in the first place, and you've burnt bridges with shops and instructors, finding the sweet spot on Venn diagram where instructor-course-unit align and also does the dives you want to do and isnt outside of your budget is harder and harder.

 

[Wibble]

There are various phases in CCR diving. The Choosing Phase, neatly summed up by @tbone1004, is where you need to ask lots of people and do your research with your constraints.

The Learning Phase -- MOD1 plus first ~25(?) hours on the unit -- you'll need to have access to your instructor and other CCR buddies. It would be 'nice' to have access to people on the same unit, but not essential. There'll be a load of dumb questions over things you discover as you get more experience.

The Skills Development Phase -- 25 to 75 hours? -- where your skills are honed and polished. Largely an exercise in self-development as you get your ascents mastered; bailouts; buoyancy, especially at 6m/20', launching SMBs, full bailout simulations (i.e. ascending to the surface on bailout), etc.

As you move through the Skills Development you become far more self-sufficient and need less and less hand-holding.

IMHO CCR demands a self-sufficient mentality. That box is happy to kill you; you've got skin in the game and need to show it who's boss, by smothering it in care and attention. Checklists and skills practice yay!

 

[Marie13]

When there are limited options in the first place, and you've burnt bridges with shops and instructors, finding the sweet spot on Venn diagram where instructor-course-unit align and also does the dives you want to do and isnt outside of your budget is harder and harder.

I assume the shop you’re referring to is the shop I call They Who Shall Not Be Named. They have no bearing on me going CCR. For a few years they had a Hollis CCR unit on display, but they never offered CCR instruction nor really sold them. I remember other SB posters complaining they didn’t offer any CCR supplies/parts. The Spirit happy-diver linked to on their website must be a pretty new offering. If they offer CCR instruction now, I’m unaware. One of the other posters in this thread went to my instructor for his Kiss training and he’s a customer of They Who Shall Not Be Named. What does that say about HIM?