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One thing to consider - do you need them or are you just buying them for the deal? Do you plan to dive them as doubles regs, reconfigure for another setup, or flip them? If someone offered you $300 to NOT take the regs would you prefer that deal?

This is important to consider when thinking about redundancies and contingency plans. Go over your gear piece by piece. Think about what can fail, how it can fail (failure modes), and how you would react to each failure. What just ends a dive? What can be managed underwater, and how? What is an...

Agree with the above. If you want a reliable system with good redundancy look at how tech and cave divers dive, even in their recreational configurations. Basically, the "GUE/Hogarthian" setup with or without minor variations. Simple configurations with tried and true gear. It is the result of...

Always try suits on in person. It's very hard to order them and get the size right. What specific water temperatures, depths, and dive times do you think you will be doing in the suit? Is it for tropical travel only or diving Canadian waters?

I've never been satisfied with the available fields and lack of customization in most dive logging software, but some prompting to fill everything out is nice so I don't forget any details. I recently made a Google Form with various sections for the things I want to log, I fill it out after a...

I try to make a written log entry for every single dive. I don't get all of them, but most. Looking back on the notes is useful and fun. Every once in a while I import computer data too.

What material and weight is the backplate? The backplate itself will provide a couple of negative kg that a jacket BCD doesn't have. Nothing beats going in the water for a proper weight check though, even if this takes some time. Your first BPW will require a couple rounds of adjustment and...

Yeah, not a great dive tool. Looks hard to use with gloves.

Posting raw AI slop comes off as trashy, even if that was not the intent. But it's reasonable to wonder about helium being used that way. In reality it makes very little difference. Technical divers do dive with high-helium gas mixes and sometimes we do end up using them to inflate suits and...

Underwater there's a very noticeable difference between regular colors and colors with actual fluorescence. Truly fluorescent pigments will absorb ambient blue light and emit a different wavelength, standing out much stronger in the dim blue/green depths.

Some people have strong preferences, I don't notice a difference. Any of them, but go for a reputable brand name manufacturer that is less likely to use crappy plasticizer-leaching plastic. SeaCure is especially nice for big heavy rebreather valves, I don't find them as necessary on normal OC...

Agree that it's always worthwhile to take an intentional moment to note identifying features on your team members' gear before hitting the water. It can even be part of a pre-dive check+plan discussion.

A bright or uniquely colored mask strap (or strap pad) is a functional easy addition. Another easy one is to wear a brightly colored thin rashguard top and/or bottoms over your wetsuit (morphsuits also work great if you REALLY want to appear "unique"). Big block letter name stickers or sharpie'd...

The primary issue with bungees isn't entanglement, it's that they will continue to squeeze air out of your wing if there is a leak, making it impossible to trap gas by rolling the leak to the bottom to maintain some emergency buoyancy. It's a tough call with that rig, the wing being so...

Interesting. There is no deep pool in America yet, I hope someone does build one. I've seen a couple of these early proposals from groups that want to make them. But it's a huge and very expensive undertaking. I hope you can make it happen. Running it under an organization instead of a...

Does anyone know why SP (or another manufacturer) hasn't done a larger run of clear 2nd stages? There seems to be a demand for them, I assume beyond the rareness and collectability of the original crystal 250s. Were crystals actually acrylic or are they polycarbonate or some other plastic?

It's the corporate circle of life. And then new companies will grow, sell good stuff for a while, and die. Aqualung had a great run. (BTW the predators have already grabbed Shearwater and it's only a matter of time.)

Do you work for and post on behalf of SMACO officially or just have it in your name because you like it? Is this thread (with a very vague open-ended question) an attempt at building engagement and reputation for the purpose of marketing SMACO products?

Ha! Didn't know that existed. I'll probably get one.

I wish LM or UWLD would come out with their own handheld.