What do you love and what do you hate about your unit?

[rjack321]

-I don't trust the scrubbers (I won't go into that here unless someone wants to PM me because I know it will lead to negative responses).

What you mean you dont trust 6lbs of sorb where 3lbs is completely soaked in lung butter and condensation after 2 hours? That has never been empirically tested either? Just wait until you have 5000 hours you'll understand

-ADV is a POS that fires for pretty much no reason and needs to be shut off all the time

Funny, mine doesnt fire at all. When I am completely out of CL volume on the scooter - then it fires if I'm lucky. And I get to suck in some dil with a straw

 

[rddvet]

What you mean you dont trust 6lbs of sorb where 3lbs is completely soaked in lung butter and condensation after 2 hours? That has never been empirically tested either? Just wait until you have 5000 hours you'll understand



Funny, mine doesnt fire at all. When I am completely out of CL volume on the scooter - then it fires if I'm lucky. And I get to suck in some dil with a straw

for part 1 let’s just say I know what too much CO2 in your brain feels like now. And yes, the amount of water in the cans is ridiculous. One other thing I learned is what caustic liquid tastes like. My class partner didn’t close his dsv100% for a very short moment and when he removed the right can from the counter lung there was caustic liquid. Obviously not enough to make it around to the inhale side, but still present. Edd told us to taste it to learn what it tastes like. It was worse than I had imagined. I know of two instructors who flooded the crap out of their fathoms and had no caustic water. The ease of making wet sorb shocked the hell out of me. Even after less than 2 hours the sorb was regularly more moist than I’ve ever experienced in my limited ccr experience.

On the adv, I found when you really wanted it to fire it wouldn’t and I felt I was sucking a golf ball though a garden hose. But when you were happy with your loop volume and buoyancy if you turned your head the wrong way it would let loose. There was no rhyme or reason.

I really wanted to love the sidewinder. By the end of class I was very disappointed. I always thought the “your rebreather is trying to kill you” comments were overblown and silly. But I honestly understood it more after diving the sidewinder. Everything about my fathom that makes me feel safe was missing in the winder. I felt like I was comparing two ex girlfriends.

 

[AdamSa]

JJ CCR

What I Like:

• Super simple to setup - Takes very little time to get it dive ready.... also difficult to mess it up. Also very simple to disassemble and clean.
• Construction allows extra tanks (suit inflate for example) to be added very easily without adding any fancy mounts or clips.
• Robust and heavy duty stand comes as standard
• It just always works, never failed a pos/neg, never had to call a dive in around ~150 JJ dives. Very reliable. My buddies all dive JJs...this is the consensus.

What I don't like:

• The way the head goes into the main body leaves it exposed to sand and grit...when you later remove the head, all that sand ends up on the head O-rings. This I solved by adding a neoprene Head protector.
• The Main O2 feed is screw on and it is sometimes a very big nuisance to get on/off. If you are careful to clean the thread after every dive from any salt water this may not be an issue. Anyways I have now put a locking QD on it and I am very happy with that.
• The way the cells are placed in the head make it such that you cannot lay your rebreather down after a dive. You have to keep the rebreather upright on the stand after a dive (while you have condensation in the head). You could of course remove the head after a dive to solve the issue...but that's not something that I like doing. If you lay it down water will get into cell number 2 and it will work slow/stop working until it dries up again.

That being said, this is my first and only rebreather, so I cannot comapre it with anything else.

 

[kensuf]

If we're allowed to talk about units other than the JJ or Meg, I'd love to talk about the Fathom. I really think it's one of the best units on the market right now and love mine immensely.

Please understand, I *AM* an instructor on the unit and I am friends with the manufacturer, I am being upfront in case anyone says I have bias, but here's why I love the Fathom:

1. Simplicity - it's brilliantly simple. The head is a work of art and incredibly simple. Being an mCCR, there is not a lot in the way of electronics / etc in the unit, but this simplifies the whole process. Passive O2 addition is handled through an adjustable needle valve.

2. Clean - the unit uses back mount counter lungs, so you don't have the clutter of over the shoulder counterlungs. Charlie uses a nylon line to lock the head down, so there are no latches that could potentially break (and it is a bit more streamlined).

3. Non-reactive canister - The Fathom uses a black amalgam canister that will not corrode. It's also nearly indestructible, you can take a ball peen hammer to it and it will not dent or crack (and I've tried this experiment!)

4. Flood tolerant - In the event of a flood, the T pieces direct water into the counterlungs which can be quickly de-watered.

5. Little things - Charlie put a lot of thought into little things that all add up. For instance, the cells are oriented in a way that while diving, moisture stays off the cell face and pressing the DIL mav causes dry gas to blow across the #1 cell face for instant verification. Inflation hoses are custom lengths, to provide optimal routing and positioning. Loop hoses are very flexible to provide full range of motion. The HUD is beautiful and readable in bright daylight. The kent tooling brackets are capable of supporting heavier cylinders, so you can slap a couple of LP50s with LOLA valves on it to provide fully redundant DIL / BO gas in a clean package for jumping off a boat.

So if you're willing to look at other units, I'd encourage you to consider looking at a Fathom.

 

[JonG1]

Probably not you cup of tea although you are looking at eCCR and mCCR TBF, mine is a very early KISS Classic so the principle behind it is Occam's (blunt) razor.

Pros:

Simplicity, only electronics in the unit are 3 cells and cabling
Ease of maintenance
Configurable in a few different layouts
Robust design
Twin o-rings on key components for back-up
Simple scrubber layout to minimise risk of mis-packing
Only batteries are in offboard PPO2 monitors or computers

Cons:

No chance of recovering after a significant flood
Tappings are direct into the delrin
Only a Fischer option for electronics

If I had the money for a 2nd unit likelihood is it would be a Side Winder although not sure after the comments in this thread but more likely a Triton for ease of transportation in challenging environments, plus its CE and I am in Europe.

The Triton is popular over here in the OHE community due to its simplicity, weight and configurability.

 

[rjack321]

If we're allowed to talk about units other than the JJ or Meg, I'd love to talk about the Fathom. I really think it's one of the best units on the market right now and love mine immensely.

And not a single negative? Hmmmmm

 

[davehicks]

On the adv, I found when you really wanted it to fire it wouldn’t and I felt I was sucking a golf ball though a garden hose. But when you were happy with your loop volume and buoyancy if you turned your head the wrong way it would let loose. There was no rhyme or reason.

I have a KISS Spirit LTE, which is basically the same unit as the Sidewinder, but not in sidemount configuration.

The problem with the ADV firing all the time is most likely caused by having the counter lungs impinged or trapped under your harness. When my buddy on the same unit had this issue and complained about it we found that the lungs were Under the shoulder straps rather than Over the straps. As soon as we ensured that the lungs were no longer constricted the problem went away completely.

I am not so sure I agree about the zero flood tolerance . If >a little< water does enter the unit it is going to drop right to the bottom of the can and into the lungs. Once in the lungs it will just stay there and not touch the sorb again. This should not result in a caustic discharge as a result. On the rare occasion that I've had some water intake at the end of my dive day I might have a 1/4 cup of water (condensation or seawater) spill out when I remove the lungs. That small amount of water seems to have minimal or negligible impact on the scrubber.

Even with zero leaks you need to remember that you are basically breathing into a Tuba and you need to drain the spit. At least on this unit it tends to accumulate in the exhale loop hose, and it's advisable to drain that hose between dives. After 3-4 hours of diving the unit you can expect to find some accumulated condensation in the lungs.

 

[PfcAJ]

RB80

Like: simplicity

Dislike: positional WOB changes.

 

[rddvet]

And not a single negative? Hmmmmm

I’ve got to be honest I really have had trouble finding a problem with it. The worst complaint is fighting to thread the one loop hose from time to time. I know that I’m still a novice so I’m sure one day I’ll find something else but I’ve really looked hard so far. It’s definitely a unit that feels like Charlie took the best of the rebreathers he liked and dumped the bad.
I think Ken would be pretty honest if there was something he really didn’t like.

 

[wedivebc]

Something to consider with the Meg 2.7 is that when the electronics eventually crap out, you'll be SOL. I'm not sure if there's a conversion to the Tiburon, you may be required to buy a whole new head.

Having said that, you can't go wrong with either a Meg or a JJ if you're looking for an eCCR. I'd personally probably go the JJ route because of the counterlungs, but both are solid units. I have zero time on a Triton so no comment there.

Yes Wayne just informed me they are upgrading 2.7s and even earlier to Tiburon. They re-use a few parts from your old head to keep the cost down.