OP
giles45shop
Contributor
Just wanted to report back on the experiment 
I finally managed to get the new plate and regs set-up last night. Between getting the harness adjusted right on the new plate, adding lots of inner tube pieces to the straps, switching knives between plates, re-configuring the hose locations, replacing leaking HP hoses, adding bungees and hose routing, it took a couple evenings of playing around to get everything just right.
So today I did my first test dives. Wing was in the middle set of holes, no weight added. Started in 6' of water. As I descended, I was ready for the worst. I purposely went head down and dumped air from the rear dump. Leveled out nicely.
I'm thinking, this was pretty simple so far. I could hover 6" off the bottom, level, just slightly head down. Perfect trim for cave, which is what I'm training for.
Reached back, could easily reach both tank valves and the isolator and turn them.
Did a couple of reg switches, practiced shifting air from one side of wing to the other.
Overall, felt more stable than my singles rig, but you definitely tell the effects of momentum from the added weight and the effects of the air moving between sides of the horshoe. My singles wing is a doughnut, so I didn't have this issue. Also, it's a lot smaller 30# vs the 55-60 of the Classic.
Went on a nice swim across the bottom, max depth 15', swam about an 1/8 mile or so, and back at a leisurely pace. First dive 55 minutes, used all of 600 psi.
Did a short surface interval and another dive. Swam a little further and a little faster, 45 minutes, now I'm down to 1750 psi.
Called it quits for today, I'll have to do another couple dives to get pressure to around 500 so I can check buoyancy/trim on an empty tank.
Overall, not a bad start. Thanks to everyone's help/inputs on the initial settings.
John
I finally managed to get the new plate and regs set-up last night. Between getting the harness adjusted right on the new plate, adding lots of inner tube pieces to the straps, switching knives between plates, re-configuring the hose locations, replacing leaking HP hoses, adding bungees and hose routing, it took a couple evenings of playing around to get everything just right.
So today I did my first test dives. Wing was in the middle set of holes, no weight added. Started in 6' of water. As I descended, I was ready for the worst. I purposely went head down and dumped air from the rear dump. Leveled out nicely.
I'm thinking, this was pretty simple so far. I could hover 6" off the bottom, level, just slightly head down. Perfect trim for cave, which is what I'm training for.
Reached back, could easily reach both tank valves and the isolator and turn them.
Did a couple of reg switches, practiced shifting air from one side of wing to the other.
Overall, felt more stable than my singles rig, but you definitely tell the effects of momentum from the added weight and the effects of the air moving between sides of the horshoe. My singles wing is a doughnut, so I didn't have this issue. Also, it's a lot smaller 30# vs the 55-60 of the Classic.
Went on a nice swim across the bottom, max depth 15', swam about an 1/8 mile or so, and back at a leisurely pace. First dive 55 minutes, used all of 600 psi.
Did a short surface interval and another dive. Swam a little further and a little faster, 45 minutes, now I'm down to 1750 psi.
Called it quits for today, I'll have to do another couple dives to get pressure to around 500 so I can check buoyancy/trim on an empty tank.
Overall, not a bad start. Thanks to everyone's help/inputs on the initial settings.
John
