Anybody feel like giving a rundown of back inflate BCDs to a SCUBA noob?

[tbone1004]

Most of them don't have crotch straps or the ability to easily put one on, this is probably the single most important part of getting any scuba rig to fit and stay put when you're diving.
Most have wings that are far too big and taco like mad, or they tie them down so they don't taco, but are still too big and cause rolling problems.
They're all horribly expensive for what they are, and most aren't modular so if something breaks you can't easily fix or replace it yourself. That being said, you can get a ZET for less than most bp/w systems, but it is limited on what it can do.
There are usually way too many danglies, the most offensive one to me being the buckle waist belt
They all feel kind of cheap when compared to some of the wings on the market, Zeagle is a bit better than most of them, but they just look and feel cheap when you compare it to a Transpac or hard plate.

If you move to doubles, you now have a dedicated singles rig because most of them even if they have interchangeable wings are not durable enough to support the weight of a set of doubles. The Transpac was designed first and foremost to carry doubles, and it has no issues doing it.

Going back inflate in my opinion is just a colossal waste of money. Obviously many people disagree with that, but most of them have never explored the rest of the bp/w options on the market. They dive a what is likely not properly fitted one piece harness once and assume they all suck and never explore options like the Transplate or Transpac, and now a few other companies are making similar type harnesses.

If the dive shop wants you in something more similar to what the students are using, I'd highly recommend checking out the closest Dive Rite dealer and checking out the Transplate harness and putting that on a SS plate with a travel wing. You'll still have quick releases at the shoulders and a chest strap which is what most dive ops get worried about with students because getting out of the rig is different than a normal one, and you still get all of the advantages of the hard plate. The Deluxe harness is also a great option as it is much more comfortable for most people than a one piece because of the bend points in the harness and you can put one QR on whichever shoulder you prefer so you can get out of it more easily.

 

[Kairoos]

If you plan to be an instructor do you really need a BCD capable of carrying doubles? What's the chance of you actually going and becoming an instructor? Lot of money + time to invest, and it may not even be profitable. I see a lot of people that go zero to dive instructor and they're stuck working as DM's on boats for tips because competition is fierce.

I think if you want a BCD to use during instruction, get a BCD that will be comfortable and easy to teach with. If you want a BCD to use doubles on, get another BCD that you can mount doubles on easy. At 28 dives I probably wouldn't get ahead of myself and plan something I might do years down the line, I think you'll see a lot of people that have multiples of each type of equipment for the different dives they do. If you're going to be diving doubles it's likely you're going to get a lot of other equipment related to that type of diving anyways.

 

[danvolker]

If you plan to be an instructor do you really need a BCD capable of carrying doubles? What's the chance of you actually going and becoming an instructor? Lot of money + time to invest, and it may not even be profitable. I see a lot of people that go zero to dive instructor and they're stuck working as DM's on boats for tips because competition is fierce.

I think if you want a BCD to use during instruction, get a BCD that will be comfortable and easy to teach with. If you want a BCD to use doubles on, get another BCD that you can mount doubles on easy. At 28 dives I probably wouldn't get ahead of myself and plan something I might do years down the line, I think you'll see a lot of people that have multiples of each type of equipment for the different dives they do. If you're going to be diving doubles it's likely you're going to get a lot of other equipment related to that type of diving anyways.

The point of the BP/Wings like the Halcyon system ( which most are based on today), is that the harness and backplate creates a far more stable and comfortable platform than ANY softpac or traditional BC, which fit to the diver properly ( among the differences--with the bp/wing, the scuba tank becomes part of your back--and you no longer feel it--when you move the tank has been part of you--with a vest bc and soft pack, most divers move, then they feel the tank moving around on their back as it tries to follow) . There is no need to EVER take advantage of the fact that you can bolt doubles on the backplate, and have the perfect foundation for using doubles --- and I agree, most divers wont need doubles. Still, it is a nice perk that this is ideal should you ever need to go with doubles...

Getting a proper fit is an issue worth considering a moment....With a traditional BC, or a ( cough) Back inflate wanna be set up....the way these are typically sold, the ability of the average new diver to buy it , and wear it, and for it to be sort of set up to dive for them, is fairly functional, in a mediocre sort of way--which is what the masses are going for.
Most new divers that have a really good instructor, could have their new BC tweaked massively by their instructor, and gain a vast improvement....but the point is, they can be mediocre without this...

When you go BP/Wing, you really dont have this luxuary... Especially for the new diver, most will screw the pooch with this if they attempt to set it up themselves.....Most new divers, or long time divers switching to a bp/wing, are going to benefit enormously by finding a really good instructor that is really good with adjusting the bp/wing.... Ask any of the divers that tried the route of going to a fundies class ( GUE) and how major the changes were to the configuration of the BP/Wing by the GUE instructor.... For most, this wAS HOLY GRAIL stuff.... for people good at watching tutorials and DIY stuff, the DIR videos did a so-so job of helping you rig your own BP/Wing, but again, this is not the masses in diving....

I think a great many shops DO NOT WANT TO SELL BP/WINGS, because NO ONE in the shop would really know how to rig a bp/wing well for most customers....It is much easier for a shop to make a quick sale of a sloppy vest bc, get the money quick, and the diver out the door. A lot more investment has to go into selling bp/wings.....but you CAN GET A LOT MORE OUT OF THEM ( sorry--my religion )

 

[pasley]

You can teach in the Back Plate & Wing (BPW). That is not a problem. I teach in a jacket BCD in the pool to save my BPW from the chlorine. In the ocean I use a BPW. I (as IMHO all instructors should) show my students the different styles of BCD; Jacket, Back Inflate, horse collar and BPW. We discuss how they work and the advantages and disadvantages of each. Remember that BCD stands for Buoyancy Control Device. A BPW is a BCD. It is just a different style, just like a jacket or Back Inflate or horse collar are different styles of BCD.

As for confusing the students, what is there to be confused by? A BPW has an inflator hose, power inflator, deflate button, and an overpressure/dump valve just like any other BCD. So if the students are confused by a BPW, they would be just as confused by any other BCD style or brand that differed from the one they are wearing (and if they are confused by that, should they be diving?). So that argument that the students would be confused just does not hold up. What the dive shop is really saying when they say the students would be confused by an instructor wearing a BPW, is that he does not sell BPW and the students would be confused about his desire that they buy all their gear from him. So it's not a safety concern, it's a marketing concern. As Dan Volker points out, a BPW is not as easily adjusted so it is not a well suited for the rental market as a Jacket or Back Inflate BCD. But once properly fitted, it is more stable and a better dive experience. So it comes back to marketing, BPW are not optimized for rental and the shops tend to sell what they use for rentals.

Backplate and wing are my personal favorite. I would recommend them to most divers for the reasons the OP stated. Cost is about the same as the sloppy jacket BCD. Here in Southern California I have been on many dive boats were 8 out of 10 divers were wearing Deep Sea Supply (DSS) BPW. As others have said many are moving over. The improved trim by placing weight behind the lungs spread out along the back and the added stability of having a plate as wide as the back to hold the tank in place are great. Add to that the modularity of the design. I can change the size of the air bladder any individual part without buying a whole new BCD. Airbladder gets a leak in a place you can't patch (seam)? No problem, pull it and replace it. Now if that happens on a Jacket or Back Inflate BCD well, you have to buy a whole new one. This modularity and durability means the BPW BCD is not something you will be buying again anytime soon as they last and last and last. This means you won't be coming into the shop in 3 to 5 years to buy another Jacket or Back Inflate BCD just because you got a leak in a seam or some other non-repairable location.

When you work for a dive shop (assuming you decide to actually get certified as DM or instructor and to work for peanuts) they often insist that when teaching you only wear gear they sell. So you can see now that since you don't know if you will be working in the industry, or for which dive shop, you need today to buy for your own use today. you can still wear it when you are not teaching. Hopefully you will make it a point to still dive just for fun. If you are seriously looking to going to work in the industry, take an honest look at the income of the DM or Instructor and compare it against the hours they have to work to make that small income. Then there is the ANNUAL RENEWAL of their DM or Instructor card (these are not for life like your Basic, Advanced, Rescue etc) certification cards and of course your insurance. Many DM and Instructors also have day jobs to support their silly habits of eating, and wanting a roof over their heads.

 

[bmorescuba]

I dive an Aqualung Zuma and I love it. I'm very big - 6''5" and not svelte . I started with a Sherwood Avid jacket style but my size means the BC weighs 12 lbs dry! So I got the Zuma for travel. I came to love the simplicity, photography benefits, and ease of cleaning. When I became a DM, I was worried my Zuma would make some demos harder, but that hasn't been the case. It's actually a great opportunity to point out differences in releases, straps, designs,etc. The Zuma is affordable, simple, and versatile. I'm just amazed their XL/XXL size fits me.

 

[tbone1004]

dan, don't come out with that BS, Halcyon was a decade+ behind the competition, so don't go out and say that most are based on that rig today because it couldn't be farther from the truth. Comments like that are the reason the GUE and Halcyon supporters have the reputation they do. GUE was certainly not the first to come out with training standards like they have, Halcyon didn't come out with anything innovative to the market other than maybe some wing shapes, don't be a kool-aid drinker.

Dive Rite invented the backplate as we know it, they standardized the 11" bolt spacing, and they came out with the first modern style wings. Doesn't mean they are any better, but don't go out spreading lies about how Halcyon is what the modern bp/w's are based on. They have literally done nothing innovative to optimize that design except maybe the circular wing design pattern that they use.

 

[danvolker]

dan, don't come out with that BS, Halcyon was a decade+ behind the competition, so don't go out and say that most are based on that rig today because it couldn't be farther from the truth. Comments like that are the reason the GUE and Halcyon supporters have the reputation they do. GUE was certainly not the first to come out with training standards like they have, Halcyon didn't come out with anything innovative to the market other than maybe some wing shapes, don't be a kool-aid drinker.

Dive Rite invented the backplate as we know it, they standardized the 11" bolt spacing, and they came out with the first modern style wings. Doesn't mean they are any better, but don't go out spreading lies about how Halcyon is what the modern bp/w's are based on. They have literally done nothing innovative to optimize that design except maybe the circular wing design pattern that they use.

Tbone,
My post was not meant to offend you or Diverite, or anyone....
I suppose each of us has our own way on deciding what happened in the past....


I do believe that in the 80's and early nineties, there were cavers in North florida using all manners of contraptions for backplates for doubles--some even including stop signs they cut up and drilled holes in..if these stories were true...

I also know that in the mid nineties, the 100 man WKPP team was very unhappy with the existing offerings for doubles, with backplates and wings...there was NOTHING that they liked, and a great many other divers had the same great distaste for what currently existed in the marketplace, and that would have included what Diverite was making available at the time.

I know that JJ and George, of the WKPP , put together a "spec" for what they thought would be ideal for the WKPP divers, and that they sent this to DiveRite, as well as Scubapro, and to most of the big brands at the time.....

What I also know, because I was hearing the results of these conversations at the time, was that no one would get anywhere near the spec they wanted--no one would deviate at all from their own plans...Most thought the market was so tiny as to be a ridiculous waste of time...this was practically an industry joke at the time....

So, Robert Carmichael, the owner of Brownies third lung, had a small but pretty sharp R&D facility, and Robert decided he could get his guys to create the spec Jarrod had been pushing for...His guys cut the Stainless backplate, they created the harness, and he had his team create the first wings to the spec JJ was asking for.....The first several bp/wing set ups were tested bny George and JJ, and soon all WKPP members wanted one...or more...as Carmichael decided to do a couple of different Wing lifts, for different needs in cave, and even a single tank version for ocean diving....I was diving with these guys in those days, and Carmichael asked me if I would help market the Halcyon line...which is what he decided to call it...

So a year goes by, I put out plenty on rec.scuba about what this new Halcyon bp/wing would be like ( George and Bill did this on the Cavers and Tech list)..and about the DIR set up of long hose primary and necklace reg back up..it was a complete system, the wings had so much higher puncture resistance than diverite's or any others, I mean, exponentially so...So much that part of the way Halcyons were demoed was by showing the competition right next to the halcyon, and to physically show the difference in the wings....Cave divers were blown away.....Halcyon had just taken a huge leap over all those that were supposed to be competition, but that had not been listening to what the WKPP, and many other cave groups had been asking for...( there was so much more to the demos, that would be a post all by itself..probably, there is still a video or two lying around, showing the A-B differences for every competing system in the market--this would have been 1996 or 1997....whatever the year was when Halcyon was first introduced to the dive world at DEMA in New Orleans).

So...DEMA...Halcyon--about 5 of us, had a little single size booth...and maybe 500 brochures...We did all have our black Halcyon long sleeve polo shirts, and the all black both theme was kind of cool....but about 50 feet away, you could see the small town sized "booths" for Scubapro and Mares and all the big guys..including DiveRite....They were monsters--huge, Halcyon was a joke to them all during set-up..we would see their Sales execs wandering over, pointing and snickering....

So this first morning, about 20 minutes before the DEMA show begins, a huge line of the public is stetching for what looks like a mile, backwards to far beyond where we can see.
All of us in the Halcyon booth are anxious--we think we have a great product, very different in the way it fits, in the Wing shapes, in the safety from punctures in cave, easy to clean inside the wing, a great wing for singles diving, and we had this great long hose and necklace reg concept, that was absolutely INTEGRAL to the Halcyon system...this is the only way we wanted to see it dived

Finally it is time..the crowd Rushes in....the huge booths like Scubapro and Mares are stoked over how much traffic they will get with their enormous town-like booths.....and then the IMPOSSIBLE happens...a line forms right up to the Halcyon booth, and goes back all the way to the door you come in at...thousands standing in line to see and touch and feel the Halcyon system, to see the first real response from a dive equipment maker, that would give the tech and cave crowd what they wanted....it was not a hot yellow BC with even bigger pockets ( like some of the huge booths had), it was not what the big guys expected, at all.....

We had this deluge of divers, all over us...our 500 brochures were gone in the first hour, and we had our artist Preston struggling to make xerox copies in the thousands, pretty much non-stop for the entire duration of the show...for each day of it.

The Sales execs at the big equipment mfg's were horrified...for hours each morning, we had pretty much all the crowd they had hoped for, and they were ghost towns. They would get visited AFTER us, but the "cat was out of the bag"...the cave and tech divers DID NOT just want bigger pockets or bigger wings, or other marketing nonsense--which was EXACTLY WHAT THE INDUSTRY HAD BEEN DOING THE 4 YEARS PREVIOUS to this...

The very next year....at the next DEMA show, Scubapro had a system decked out in Black, marketed in black, that looked so much like the Halcyon system it was enough to make all of us very happy....copying is a form of flattery.....

In the years that followed, many mfg's began to listen--all of a sudden there was a market for bp/wings....one I remember vividly had not existed before that first DEMA show....not an actual market...

And I am pretty sure we could find some big kahunas from some of those big Equipment mfg's that would admit this today

 

[MichigandiverJon]

Couple of options, back inflates are all junk imho. If you need to make the shop happy, buy a Dive Rite Transplate system so you can get a harness that looks like what everyone else is wearing, but still get the stainless steel plate to help sink you in the ocean.

There are a few Dive Rite shops in Oz, I'd recommend going to find one of them, you'll likely be much happier with that crowd. Also, FWIW you should come back to the shop with the argument that switching all of their instructional equipment to BP/W's would save them a considerable amount of money and hassle because they wouldn't have to load all of the students up with as much weight on the weight belt, a SS plate with STA and SS cam bands can take up to 10lbs off of a weight belt, and they would only need as many rigs as there were students with a couple spares because they are infinitely adjustable for body sizes so they wouldn't have to stock as many rental sets.... Just saying

I just recently switched from a jacket B/C to a Translate w/ voyager wing and love it! I'll never go back to a jacket style.

 

[phlegm]

the softpack still holds the tank firm? no bouncing around?

 

[MichigandiverJon]

the softpack still holds the tank firm? no bouncing around?

I see that I didn't check my spelling. Sorry. I switched to a DiveRite Transplate. BP/W with a STA. Yes its very sturdy but you may have been thinking of a TransPack maybe?