How to select your first rebreather....

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

I've currently got a few units - Prism 1, KISS sidekick, kiss gem (scr not ccr convert), inspo classic.

P1 for deep wrecks here in the great lakes where I don't want to dive sidemount
SK for bailout bob and sidemount only caves
Gem for when there is no 100% o2 or no ccr support but they have nitrox, I've also successfully used it as a deco breather.

inspo classic is just a spare unit.

I've been diving ccr for a long time and anytime I picked up a new unit was because I had a specific use case. I've had mk15.5s and other weirder units in the past but over the last few years I've been trying to get down to simple design and less electronics.

I'm just not interested in dealing with bugs in software and strange solenoid issues even if they are rare at this point.

my first unit was a sidemount prism someone had laying around. I used it for cave exploration until I needed something else. I also had an OMG o2 chest mount breather I found in a garage sale. It got stolen out of my car - I miss it.

I would suggest trying all kinds of units out - demo everything you can. You're first unit will probably not be your last. Once you're hooked you're hooked

I second the idea of going used on a unit and just dive it into the ground until you find a need for something else.

It appears that many of us have multiple units - very cool. I feel better about my addiction now.

Nice post, with lots of common sense that sounds based on experience. I too own a P1 and have dived modified Dolphins, including a CCR needle valved version, and spent a few hours on a KISS classic. I find reading all the CCR manufacturer literature and learning about their different design choices to be very informative, a learning experience all its own.

To the OP, nice article, worth reading. However is it still the official policy of Dive Tech Cayman not to allow Prism 1/Topaz divers?
 
I also had an OMG o2 chest mount breather I found in a garage sale. It got stolen out of my car - I miss it.

Do you know that OMG (Siel) nowadays also produces a Nitrox SC version of that compact chest-mounted rebreather?
Here it is:
SIEL Advanced Sea System
 
To the OP, nice article, worth reading. However is it still the official policy of Dive Tech Cayman not to allow Prism 1/Topaz divers?

I was never aware this was a policy, however many people forget Divetech underwent an ownership and management change in late 2015. Lots of policies and procedures were examined and some changed.

The rule of thumb is if you are certified by a recognized agency for a particular unit, you may dive it. We do restrict home build units - this was a policy under the old ownership we did not change due to a few rather horrifying incidents that occurred with home-builders testing their products on our old shore site.

Sometimes the line between a home-build and a production rebreather can be blurred, but I'd hardly call the Topaz a home-build unit. If this was a legitimate Divetech rule, I've not heard of it, and we have no such prohibition on Topaz divers now.

Tony
 
I was never aware this was a policy, however many people forget Divetech underwent an ownership and management change in late 2015. Lots of policies and procedures were examined and some changed.

The rule of thumb is if you are certified by a recognized agency for a particular unit, you may dive it. We do restrict home build units - this was a policy under the old ownership we did not change due to a few rather horrifying incidents that occurred with home-builders testing their products on our old shore site.

Sometimes the line between a home-build and a production rebreather can be blurred, but I'd hardly call the Topaz a home-build unit. If this was a legitimate Divetech rule, I've not heard of it, and we have no such prohibition on Topaz divers now.

Tony

Thanks for the reply Tony, glad to hear that. I was told two different times directly by the woman who owned DiveTech that she considered the Prism 1/Topaz a home-build unit because “it was never in production”. She wouldn’t even discuss the matter, even after I pointed out that the USN NEDU had tested the unit, and that it had been available for purchase to anyone willing to take the unit specific NAUI CCR course since at least 2001. I was trained in 2002 and received mine in 2003...
 
Thanks for the reply Tony, glad to hear that. I was told two different times directly by the woman who owned DiveTech that she considered the Prism 1/Topaz a home-build unit because “it was never in production”. She wouldn’t even discuss the matter, even after I pointed out that the USN NEDU had tested the unit, and that it had been available for purchase to anyone willing to take the unit specific NAUI CCR course since at least 2001...
Hard for me to comment on that, since I wasn't present for the discussion, and no such rule was conveyed to me when I became manager. I personally would not consider the Topaz a home-build due to its Navy testing.

Tony
 
I didn't know that! very cool! If I recall my unit was very very reliable. I never had issues.
OMG makes them mostly for Italian COMSUBIN, and other elite military corps. They are completely mechanical units: no sensors, no electronics, no batteries... They are even fully amagnetic, and very silent, so you can go close to a mine without triggering its magnetic or acoustics sensors.
Sometimes I work for them as an acoustic consultant.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

Back
Top Bottom