Advice on lift capacity for BP&W

[Trailboss123]

I have been looking at that one, but I am a little curios towards the waist belt. It looks like you get it up by your ribs. How does it fit with that high waist belt?

It is awesome and creates a really nice and balanced rig. It doesn't ride as high as the ribs. It wraps right around between the bottom of the rib cage and the top of your hips. Right in that sweet spot near the belly button. Here is a review that I did last June: Review: XDeep Ghost BCD- BP/W

Note: All of the cons that I described have really become non-issues for me after diving it more. I wrote the review almost immediately after buying it. Maybe 3 dives when I did the review. I now have well over 100 dives with it and am still very enthusiastic.

 

[KathyIGH]

Thanks for letting me know. Just curious, whats going on with OMS? I did look at Vintage double website, pretty nice. I think smaller businesses are awesome and sometimes are way more innovative.But may be noob question, in case of repair or servicing for future, will the bigger brands be more preferable?

HI Abhijit - This is Kathy Long and I worked for DUI for years. It was a family business up until two years ago or so. At that time it has imploded and is no longer the company it was. You can see my post on DUI's forum here on ScubaBoard.

A number of years ago OMS was purchased by 3 companies. You can visit Way Back Time Machine and see the posting at OMSDive | Home of Ocean Management Systems – OMS . To my knowledge the majority owners are DUI and BtS. I'll give you an example....

OMS introduced a new regulator - The OMS Airstream Evoque. To my knowledge DUI and BtS distributed the exact same regulator. Of those that DUI shipped (And DUI can provide the number if they wish) they had issues. I believe the original notification was to return them for a fix. I am not sure how many they fixed or what actually occurred however these were all eventually recalled and I believe the recall says risk of drowning. BtS did not recall these regulators. I asked about this on FB pages and my posts were removed. Did BtS have a fix for the regulators? If yes I wonder why they did not share these with DUI. How come these regulators were recalled in the US and not overseas? How many regulators were shipped by DUI? For example they state 2 instances. If you had 40 regs in the field and 2 had issues that would be a 5% failure rate. As a diver and as a consumer I would want to know this information.

They have massive amounts of inventory, bring in new makes and models before old models have sold. I don't believe they will be able to sustain that type of management.

When OMS was purchased no spare parts were available for products. Which left divers with equipment that was hard to impossible to service. If OMS goes out of business this could again be the case.

 

[Abhijit Roy]

HI Abhijit - This is Kathy Long and I worked for DUI for years. It was a family business up until two years ago or so. At that time it has imploded and is no longer the company it was. You can see my post on DUI's forum here on ScubaBoard.

A number of years ago OMS was purchased by 3 companies. You can visit Way Back Time Machine and see the posting at OMSDive | Home of Ocean Management Systems – OMS . To my knowledge the majority owners are DUI and BtS. I'll give you an example....

OMS introduced a new regulator - The OMS Airstream Evoque. To my knowledge DUI and BtS distributed the exact same regulator. Of those that DUI shipped (And DUI can provide the number if they wish) they had issues. I believe the original notification was to return them for a fix. I am not sure how many they fixed or what actually occurred however these were all eventually recalled and I believe the recall says risk of drowning. BtS did not recall these regulators. I asked about this on FB pages and my posts were removed. Did BtS have a fix for the regulators? If yes I wonder why they did not share these with DUI. How come these regulators were recalled in the US and not overseas? How many regulators were shipped by DUI? For example they state 2 instances. If you had 40 regs in the field and 2 had issues that would be a 5% failure rate. As a diver and as a consumer I would want to know this information.

They have massive amounts of inventory, bring in new makes and models before old models have sold. I don't believe they will be able to sustain that type of management.

When OMS was purchased no spare parts were available for products. Which left divers with equipment that was hard to impossible to service. If OMS goes out of business this could again be the case.

Thanks Kathy! It is just sad when a great product suffers because company issues and typically after they get sold to a bigger brand. But this kind of eliminates OMS from my list. May be that's the reason a lot of dive shops are selling them at a discounted price!

 

[ams511]

Thanks Kathy! It is just sad when a great product suffers because company issues and typically after they get sold to a bigger brand. But this kind of eliminates OMS from my list. May be that's the reason a lot of dive shops are selling them at a discounted price!

I don't doubt Kathy's story but you need to remember that a regulator is much more complicated than a wing. Also most (but not all) wings use standard parts. So if you need a new inflator, dump valve, elbow, etc. you can buy one from DGX or your LDS. I am not sure of foreign availability. The only thing you cannot buy is a new bladder. You can patch an old one if necessary.

Also the takeaway I get from the story is DUI did the right thing by recalling the regulators in the US, while their European partner didn't. Unless you are buying in Europe, I don't see the relevance.

I have no first hand experience with OMS and I don't own any of their gear.

 

[tbone1004]

@ams511 the problem is any customer service stuff combined with the companies general mentality towards quality. Incidentally, regulators are a lot easier to machine properly than it is to RF weld bladders and sew covers properly. Machining is easy, computers do it. Sewing is done by people... and that is where you do get what you pay for... The quality control of DUI's drysuits over the last few years should say enough about that one. When the focus goes from quality to money, it's never a good thing

 

[ams511]

Thanks! Fresh water is a concern. I am planning to go to Yucatan for diving the cenotes. So, thanks for bringing that perspective! I started diving drysuit sometime back but went back to semi-dry/wetsuits. I just couldn't wait that long to relieve myself..LOL But it does make sense from the buoyancy perspective

If you are worried about suit compression you can measure its buoyancy in a pool. Roll up the wetsuit and put it in a mesh bag and add weight until it sinks. This is your buoyancy at one atmosphere. For example if the buoyancy of your suit is 30 lbs and you dive to 33 ft then you are at 2 ata and the lift will be approximately half. (30 lb x 1/2 = 15 lb.) If you dive to 66 ft then you are at 3 ATA and your suit would have (30 lb. x 1/3) 10 lbs of lift and so on as you go deeper.

To add another variable, lift may not be as advertised. The wing may be sandwiched between the backplate and tank and cannot expand fully. This will cut down on lift.

 

[elgoog]

@Abhijit Roy BP/W is hard to try-before-buy. How often and where do you dive? We can try to co-ordinate and you can dive with the DSS 30lb wing, steel plate and the 8lb weight plates. I've used that with 7mm farmer john + dive jacket combo, 8mm semi dry and I still use it with my drysuit, thick Thinsulate undies and steel tank on the occasions I do single tank dives.

 

[tbone1004]

@ams511 one of the nice things that @cool_hardware52 does for all of the DSS wings is he actually mounts them to a backplate, with an 8" diameter tank, and then measures how much water it will hold. This gives an actual lift capacity for his wings in a "worst case" scenario, and the lift may actually go up a bit with smaller tanks. Unfortunately most other mfg's either "calculate" it or they measure them empty which can give you with a lower than advertised lift

 

[ams511]

@ams511 the problem is any customer service stuff combined with the companies general mentality towards quality. Incidentally, regulators are a lot easier to machine properly than it is to RF weld bladders and sew covers properly. Machining is easy, computers do it. Sewing is done by people... and that is where you do get what you pay for... The quality control of DUI's drysuits over the last few years should say enough about that one. When the focus goes from quality to money, it's never a good thing

Does OMS manufacture the products in-house or do they purchase from a third party? Their 27 lb wing looks similar to a Zeagle and the older style S-25 by Hollis which are "inspired" by the shape of the Halcyon.

While a machine can manufacture the parts of a regulator, it still needs to be assembled by hand. If the regulator is improperly assembled then there will be issues. I believe HOG experienced this when they first came out with their regulator line. The hard parts were fine but there was QC issues with the soft parts and assembly.

 

[tbone1004]

@ams511 I imagine they are getting their products from Taiwan vs. manufacturing in house, but that makes the problem of quality to money even worse. It's one thing to deal with it in house, it's an entirely different story when you have vendors and they will get away with everything they can. The issue to me is more the customer service risk if something does go wrong and whether it's a company worth supporting when they are better and cheaper products out there. There is nothing in the OMS line that you can't get higher quality and cheaper from other manufacturers