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If a catastrophic failure occurs and completely floods the unit then yes bail out. If water gets into the counter lung that depends on the unit and the amount would be covered in training. Water in the loop happens and most rebreathers you can deal with that easily. I dive a rEvo which is a great unit it but a draw back is poor flood tolerance meaning, if I get a moderate amount of water enters the unit I would have a problem. So if i brain fart and take the loop out with out closing it and water floods it Im probably going OC. Take a Meg that has a T piece connection into the counter lung. I brain fart and water gets into the unit. In this case there is a good chance that water is only in the counter lung and has not made it to the scrubber. When in doubt bail out is a good method but when you cross over to the technical side things are not black and white and when something happens options must quickly be weighed. If you are 100 ft down in open water bail out call it a day. Say you are 200ft down in the middle of a large ship in the engine room, you an bail out if need be and make your way out. Say a reg fails no you are between a rock and a hard place. If you only have a partial flood and it can be cleared you have now left your self options. That is not always guaranteed and you may have to bail out, but if you an better your odds that can help. It is impossible to eliminate risk it can only be mitigated which yes leaves us open to lawyers who could tear apart wording with easy, but if we only did what would keep the lawyers off us we would never get to dive.
 
If a catastrophic failure occurs and completely floods the unit then yes bail out. If water gets into the counter lung that depends on the unit and the amount would be covered in training. Water in the loop happens and most rebreathers you can deal with that easily. I dive a rEvo which is a great unit it but a draw back is poor flood tolerance meaning, if I get a moderate amount of water enters the unit I would have a problem. So if i brain fart and take the loop out with out closing it and water floods it Im probably going OC. Take a Meg that has a T piece connection into the counter lung. I brain fart and water gets into the unit. In this case there is a good chance that water is only in the counter lung and has not made it to the scrubber. When in doubt bail out is a good method but when you cross over to the technical side things are not black and white and when something happens options must quickly be weighed. If you are 100 ft down in open water bail out call it a day. Say you are 200ft down in the middle of a large ship in the engine room, you an bail out if need be and make your way out. Say a reg fails no you are between a rock and a hard place. If you only have a partial flood and it can be cleared you have now left your self options. That is not always guaranteed and you may have to bail out, but if you an better your odds that can help. It is impossible to eliminate risk it can only be mitigated which yes leaves us open to lawyers who could tear apart wording with easy, but if we only did what would keep the lawyers off us we would never get to dive.

I dig what you're putting down! and I get your point about reserving your BO if you're at 200ft, I just thought the advertising for the unit we have been discussing was a little gratuitous...and I also say that having gone through the TDI course and signed 20 million liability disclaimers between them and Hollis lol. Great discussion.
 
Yup. One of the hardest things in my class was the concept of getting back on the loop when possible. That can be a hard thing to do.

While it's always good to bail out if you are not sure what's going on or what the next step is, a lot of the class was about how to solve problems, and recognize that not every failure leaves the RB unusable. Certainly, if you suspect hypercapnia, that's not up for discussion, you don't go back on that loop since you may have had your one and only opportunity to detect the problem before it's too late. A scrubber failure isn't something that you can rule out at depth by any protocol. On the other hand, some things may be addressable such that you still end the dive, but you do it on the loop.
 
It may have the ability to recover from a total flood. I don't know because I haven't dived one. To say that a unit isn't flood recoverable, or that stating it is dangerous to market it as such based on singular familiarity with the Hollis Explorer, is arguing from a grossly uninformed opinion.

Honestly, I wouldn't use knowledge of an Explorer to try and take any position in a discussion about a real rebreather, least of all discussions of a technical or design nature.
 
The discussion was on rebreathers in general the explorer came up as asimpkinsjr was familiar. Hopefully through the discussion he has learned some about more sophisticated units and though process used by technical divers. No the explorer is not a technical unit, but if some one wants to learn about tech units its part of the responsibility of us as technical divers, instructors, and dive masters to help develop newer divers with experience and knowledge we have.
 
It may have the ability to recover from a total flood. I don't know because I haven't dived one. To say that a unit isn't flood recoverable, or that stating it is dangerous to market it as such based on singular familiarity with the Hollis Explorer, is arguing from a grossly uninformed opinion.

Honestly, I wouldn't use knowledge of an Explorer to try and take any position in a discussion about a real rebreather, least of all discussions of a technical or design nature.

The training was the TDI CCR, I'm talking general concepts... Let's not confuse the two as if I was trained specific to the Explorer. That's the point of reference I'm coming from, Hollis doesn't have a course so that's a moot discussion I think. Mine are simply observations and it's my experience of the training. Lastly I offer this... And it's a line from a fav show of mine... The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

Very simply the im questioning...total flood recovery vs flood recoverable.. Those seem to me to be very diff things, emphasis on the word "total"
 
The training was the TDI CCR, I'm talking general concepts... Let's not confuse the two as if I was trained specific to the Explorer. That's the point of reference I'm coming from, Hollis doesn't have a course so that's a moot discussion I think. Mine are simply observations and it's my experience of the training. Lastly I offer this... And it's a line from a fav show of mine... The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

Very simply the im questioning...total flood recovery vs flood recoverable.. Those seem to me to be very diff things, emphasis on the word "total"

Im not sure what course you are referring to.....but...every unit has a training course - specific to that unit. Hollis may not have the course, but they approve the training protocol from each agency that will train on that unit. Its not like OC where you take a class then choose your gear. In the CCR world you are certified on each specific unit. if you change units, you once again train and do a "cross over". The TDI CCR course will have unit specif scrubber packing, building, checklist, failure mode training, maintenance, etc.

There is a beginning portion of every CCR class that covers basic elements (different CCR types, etc) - but every unit has a unit specific class that you must take...That or you are referring to their generic elearning course which is....well....I will stop there.

Exactly what training did you take...if it was not unit specific? Did you perhaps attend an education session hosted by TDI on CCR and confuse it for a TDI CCR cert class?

I dont know if this is as much of an "absence of evidence" as it is an absence of education and experience with CCR. Please dont take offense to that but your posts are demonstrating a remedial understanding of basic concepts then go on to argue verbiage and technology that would require a more advanced understanding in order to be grounded in a factual basis. You are assuming a lot. Ive been there. I thought CCR's were all the same and that I knew everything about them... and that they killed people. I now realize that the more I know - the more I need to know.....
 
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My point is that making assumptions based on familiarity with a unit that is in no way like the unit in question isn't sound. Going even farther to say that it's dangerous to use specific language, when not familiar with the actual capabilities of the unit isn't sound either.

asimpkinsjr seems to question the concept of flood recovery, because in his mind there is a distinction between "total flood recovery" and "flood recovery." Within his very limited framework that is the case, and in his limited framework bailout is the only option. In the case of the unit in question, there may be no distinction, and in fact it may be possible to recover from a total flood. However, he is basing his opinion on his familiarity with a unit that is so fundamentally different that a comparison really can't, and shouldn't, be made.

Don't mistake this for saying anything positive about the APOC.

It sounds like he took TDI's "Hollis Explorer Sport Diver" course. It's the only thing I can find on TDI's website that covers an SCR. All of their other rebreather courses are full CCR, starting with air dil and going up from there. If he did take TDI's CCR on an Explorer, first it's not a CCR, second, the training and skills are not equivalent, and lastly if you did take TDI's Air Diluent CCR, what unit did you take it on if not the Explorer?

This is not to be disparaging, but accuracy is important, especially in the world of rebreathers.
 
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Im not sure what course you are referring to.....but...every unit has a training course - specific to that unit. Hollis may not have the course, but they approve the training protocol from each agency that will train on that unit. Its not like OC where you take a class then choose your gear. In the CCR world you are certified on each specific unit. if you change units, you once again train and do a "cross over". The TDI CCR course will have unit specif scrubber packing, building, checklist, failure mode training, maintenance, etc.

There is a beginning portion of every CCR class that covers basic elements (different CCR types, etc) - but every unit has a unit specific class that you must take...That or you are referring to their generic elearning course which is....well....I will stop there.

Exactly what training did you take...if it was not unit specific? Did you perhaps attend an education session hosted by TDI on CCR and confuse it for a TDI CCR cert class?

I dont know if this is as much of an "absence of evidence" as it is an absence of education and experience with CCR. Please dont take offense to that but your posts are demonstrating a remedial understanding of basic concepts then go on to argue verbiage and technology that would require a more advanced understanding in order to be grounded in a factual basis. You are assuming a lot. Ive been there. I thought CCR's were all the same and that I knew everything about them... and that they killed people. I now realize that the more I know - the more I need to know.....

I took the TDI CCR Generic course so to give an idea of what I experienced it was really broken out into 4 parts:

1. 11 modules, with 11 exams and then a final. This information is not specific to any rebreather so you cover pure oxygen rebreathers, closed circuit rebreathers and semi closed all in one course. I did mine slowly over a few weeks but I suspect if you sat down and jammed all the reading and exams into one session its probably 3 days of classwork and tests.

2. A half day Hollis review of your specific rebreather followed by an afternoon taking things apart going through all the components and packing cans.

3. A day of skills work in a pool equivalent to 2 pool dives or more

4. 4 Checkout dives

My point about it not being specific is the TDI course begins substantially by training on all kinds of rebreathers, and its even called "TDI Generic CCR"
 
I took the TDI CCR Generic course so to give an idea of what I experienced it was really broken out into 4 parts:

1. 11 modules, with 11 exams and then a final. This information is not specific to any rebreather so you cover pure oxygen rebreathers, closed circuit rebreathers and semi closed all in one course. I did mine slowly over a few weeks but I suspect if you sat down and jammed all the reading and exams into one session its probably 3 days of classwork and tests.

2. A half day Hollis review of your specific rebreather followed by an afternoon taking things apart going through all the components and packing cans.

3. A day of skills work in a pool equivalent to 2 pool dives or more

4. 4 Checkout dives

My point about it not being specific is the TDI course begins substantially by training on all kinds of rebreathers, and its even called "TDI Generic CCR"


Ok Got it. I thought that was a generic online course only. Im struggling to see how that course exists how you stated since there would need to be unit specifc training in order to do skills.....but Ill take you at your word.

And as others have stated..please dont think that the Hollis you used is indicative of most real technical rebreathers....

Just so you know..that is NOT a normal CCR class. When you actually take a normal CCR course, the entire course is UNIT specific. Every unit has its own certification.

Contrary to what you believed and posted last night - every unit, in fact, does have its own course and cert.
 
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