Rebreather Rabbit
Registered
Just some observations after 100 hours on my KISS Spirit LTE....
Background at time of switch over:
Twinset diver with Rescue and ANDP certs and about 150-200 dives, 2.5 years since OW. Primarily spring and freshwater diving with just a handful of ocean deco dives.
Where I am now:
Certified as IANTD ART+ (170 ft/ 50m), aka somewhere between MOD1 and MOD2. More varied diving including shore entry and drift deco dives.
CCR details:
The Spirit LTE I have is the newer style, so the cannisters are identical to those for the Sidewinder. Standard heads, but the ADV side doesn't have the second plugged hole for Sidewinder hose routing. DSV. 2-button KISS MAV. ABS backplate at time of initial training. Petrel 3 on Fisher connector cable.
Changes made:
Switched almost immediately to an aluminum backplate and added bungees for sidemount-style rigging of tanks. Bungees are just a loop with an overhand knot. The knot retains the loop at the backplate, and the other end of the loop has a bolt snap to clip to a d-ring. I did this so I can unclip the loops and use them double-duty to secure the CCR to a tank rack/bench on a boat. Switched to a 4-pin cable and Nerd purchased second-hand. After realizing the pain of a bailout ascent with a NERD and DSV, I converted the Petrel 3 to 4-pin. I managed to get two AL14 tanks second-hand, and love diving those instead of a AL13 since the unit was originally designed to fit a 14 Cu Ft tank. Ditched the remove-dump inflator hose and switched to a shorter standard hose so the K-inflator is basically at the shoulder d-ring. Added trim pouches to the cannister bands.
Issues encountered:
Beginner issues like realizing O2 or Dil was on/off when expecting it the other way because of a drill during a dive, a rolled on/off handle, or forgetting to run an additional check before splashing, resolved in a few 'exciting' seconds. The Spirit has a tendency to have the O2 valve roll-on when moving the unit around, particularly with the 13cu ft tank and moving it into or out of a vehicle. Coming back to a full counterlung and burbling OPV sucks. I've had O2 sensor issues, but all caused by the sensor being near the end of life anyways. The one exception might be my latest dead sensor, but it could just be from a bad batch. I have had a few instances of opening the O2 valve on the surface after a surface swim and hearing bubbling...the DIN unfortunately becoming slightly loose between an initial check of O2 pressure and re-pressurizing for the dive. This of course means...I've clogged my orifice once and had to replace it. I did have a pinched counterlung on my right side during a set of 2 dives, but haven't had a repeat of that since. Probably me donning to quickly and not checking carefully. I also did have one dive where I jumped before securing the counterlung, so I looked like a manta ray until a buddy helped. Surprisingly I did not notice a difference in breathing effort even with the counterlung being that far from the proper position.
Annoyances to this day are mainly just during assembly. Sometimes it's a pain to get the counterlung to attach to both scrubbers just right to get the c-clips inserted, and one of my heads doesn't screw on as cleanly to the scrubber as the other. So I may need to reset and make a second or third attempt at a single assembly step. Otherwise even at 100 hours I catch myself missing a step when donning the unit (e.g. I have everything on and checking...oops, forgot to connect the MAV hose).
The one big 'failure' I had was due to my carelessness. I had the Spirit sitting upright on a picnic table. Someone bumped the table hard enough and the unit flipped over and landed directly on the 90 degree elbow going into the MAV. Even landing in sand/dirt the hit was hard enough to strip the threads completely on the metal ADV hose fitting and let the ADV stem fly out of the unit. Luckily it just meant a replacement of the stem and the fitting. Nothing else was damaged, even the 90 degree elbow was perfectly fine. Since I've had the replacement stem, the ADV doesn't activate as often or as easily. I've now found out KISS USA now offers 2 versions of the ADV stem, so you can adjust how likely it is to activate. This was an annoyance before since anything head-down used to make the ADV dump tons of gas into the loop. Now I have to actively try to get it to activate when going head-down.
TLDR: The only major issues so far are a clogged orifice and a broken part, both due to my carelessness.
Lessons Learned:
From a student/learning perspective, I think the biggest take-away is that I needed more overall dive experience than what I thought I had. Given where I am in Florida, anything deep and not in overhead will be drift deco off a boat. I needed that extra experience in order to get to ART+, and I still have some distance to go to get to Normoxic CCR / Mod 2.
Future changes:
I'm going to be switching to a steel backplate. As-is I need about 7lbs in salt water including trim weight to descend at a reasonable rate. Otherwise I'm planning on sending in the ADV head to get the extra hole drilled/plugged and buying the Sidewinder conversion parts (counterlung and some clamps/boltsnaps). I'm also planning to get a Greenflash sensor and changing one of the sensor leads to SMB from Molex to support it. I've also purchased the parts to convert the drive hose to a BCI connector (don't need BOV support), but I'm on the fence on switching over.
Background at time of switch over:
Twinset diver with Rescue and ANDP certs and about 150-200 dives, 2.5 years since OW. Primarily spring and freshwater diving with just a handful of ocean deco dives.
Where I am now:
Certified as IANTD ART+ (170 ft/ 50m), aka somewhere between MOD1 and MOD2. More varied diving including shore entry and drift deco dives.
CCR details:
The Spirit LTE I have is the newer style, so the cannisters are identical to those for the Sidewinder. Standard heads, but the ADV side doesn't have the second plugged hole for Sidewinder hose routing. DSV. 2-button KISS MAV. ABS backplate at time of initial training. Petrel 3 on Fisher connector cable.
Changes made:
Switched almost immediately to an aluminum backplate and added bungees for sidemount-style rigging of tanks. Bungees are just a loop with an overhand knot. The knot retains the loop at the backplate, and the other end of the loop has a bolt snap to clip to a d-ring. I did this so I can unclip the loops and use them double-duty to secure the CCR to a tank rack/bench on a boat. Switched to a 4-pin cable and Nerd purchased second-hand. After realizing the pain of a bailout ascent with a NERD and DSV, I converted the Petrel 3 to 4-pin. I managed to get two AL14 tanks second-hand, and love diving those instead of a AL13 since the unit was originally designed to fit a 14 Cu Ft tank. Ditched the remove-dump inflator hose and switched to a shorter standard hose so the K-inflator is basically at the shoulder d-ring. Added trim pouches to the cannister bands.
Issues encountered:
Beginner issues like realizing O2 or Dil was on/off when expecting it the other way because of a drill during a dive, a rolled on/off handle, or forgetting to run an additional check before splashing, resolved in a few 'exciting' seconds. The Spirit has a tendency to have the O2 valve roll-on when moving the unit around, particularly with the 13cu ft tank and moving it into or out of a vehicle. Coming back to a full counterlung and burbling OPV sucks. I've had O2 sensor issues, but all caused by the sensor being near the end of life anyways. The one exception might be my latest dead sensor, but it could just be from a bad batch. I have had a few instances of opening the O2 valve on the surface after a surface swim and hearing bubbling...the DIN unfortunately becoming slightly loose between an initial check of O2 pressure and re-pressurizing for the dive. This of course means...I've clogged my orifice once and had to replace it. I did have a pinched counterlung on my right side during a set of 2 dives, but haven't had a repeat of that since. Probably me donning to quickly and not checking carefully. I also did have one dive where I jumped before securing the counterlung, so I looked like a manta ray until a buddy helped. Surprisingly I did not notice a difference in breathing effort even with the counterlung being that far from the proper position.
Annoyances to this day are mainly just during assembly. Sometimes it's a pain to get the counterlung to attach to both scrubbers just right to get the c-clips inserted, and one of my heads doesn't screw on as cleanly to the scrubber as the other. So I may need to reset and make a second or third attempt at a single assembly step. Otherwise even at 100 hours I catch myself missing a step when donning the unit (e.g. I have everything on and checking...oops, forgot to connect the MAV hose).
The one big 'failure' I had was due to my carelessness. I had the Spirit sitting upright on a picnic table. Someone bumped the table hard enough and the unit flipped over and landed directly on the 90 degree elbow going into the MAV. Even landing in sand/dirt the hit was hard enough to strip the threads completely on the metal ADV hose fitting and let the ADV stem fly out of the unit. Luckily it just meant a replacement of the stem and the fitting. Nothing else was damaged, even the 90 degree elbow was perfectly fine. Since I've had the replacement stem, the ADV doesn't activate as often or as easily. I've now found out KISS USA now offers 2 versions of the ADV stem, so you can adjust how likely it is to activate. This was an annoyance before since anything head-down used to make the ADV dump tons of gas into the loop. Now I have to actively try to get it to activate when going head-down.
TLDR: The only major issues so far are a clogged orifice and a broken part, both due to my carelessness.
Lessons Learned:
From a student/learning perspective, I think the biggest take-away is that I needed more overall dive experience than what I thought I had. Given where I am in Florida, anything deep and not in overhead will be drift deco off a boat. I needed that extra experience in order to get to ART+, and I still have some distance to go to get to Normoxic CCR / Mod 2.
Future changes:
I'm going to be switching to a steel backplate. As-is I need about 7lbs in salt water including trim weight to descend at a reasonable rate. Otherwise I'm planning on sending in the ADV head to get the extra hole drilled/plugged and buying the Sidewinder conversion parts (counterlung and some clamps/boltsnaps). I'm also planning to get a Greenflash sensor and changing one of the sensor leads to SMB from Molex to support it. I've also purchased the parts to convert the drive hose to a BCI connector (don't need BOV support), but I'm on the fence on switching over.
