Didn’t I read here elsewhere that the I3 has now been discontinued?
Aqua Lung Axiom i3 BCD -- Thoughts on i3 Inflator Mechanism
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ljpm
Contributor
Not sure what you mean by elephant trunk. If it is the hose to fill by mouth, but is just a simple tube with a compression mouth piece. (on left shoulder). There is also a manual dump, right shoulder.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p...8iC_UOqOrChpzq9q-TNgtLoJof-t6d_h1A33o8ZAiFZpw
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p...8iC_UOqOrChpzq9q-TNgtLoJof-t6d_h1A33o8ZAiFZpw
ljpm
Contributor
Thanks, I don't think I have ever heard that expression. Make sense now. To stretch the analogy, I guess the i3s have more of an elephant tail. lol
Also, I edited my first post. I wasn't clear enough on the failure. It was only on the dump system. I could still inflate with the i3 lever. I just couldn't deflate. I used the shoulder valve for that.
More of a mouse's tail that's been wrapped up in a burrow for warmth. And there's no obvious dump.
Point is that any person who's never seen an i3 wouldn't know where things are and if it's "urgent" help (e.g. if the person with the i3's in trouble) then it makes rendering assistance much harder and could mean the rescuer, in extremis, might let go and send you straight to the surface if they can't dump it in time. Hurtling to the surface out of control really isn't a good thing. Rule one of rescue: don't put yourself in danger.
Same with arriving at the surface, if the 'victim' isn't with compos mentis, the rescuer will always need to fully inflate the BCD. How can that be done if the switch and the -- for want of a better description -- "auxiliary inflation tube" is hidden under a flap?
Every other BCD or wing, be that backmount singles, doubles, sidemount, and rebreather has an elephant's trunk inflator/deflator.
If divers do their Pre-dive Checks with their Buddy, the very first thing you check is BCD. So if you’re Instant Buddies this is when you point out that you’re inflator is an I3 and how it works.
Hopefully this type of BCD mechanism is covered in the Rescuer’s course. I know I cover and let students practice on Std Jackets, I3s, BP/Ws and Sidemount style BCDs. Even if a rescuer has never seen an I3 inflator, they can still establish positive buoyancy by removing the weight. Or just following the hose down from the 1st stage to the inflator.
They are not hard to handle in an emergency.
On another note, I would not recommend one for someone who does a lot of shore diving. Our repair shop’s #1 malfunction with these is that they fill with small particles of sand. It doesn’t take much to jam the internal shreader valve inside the I3. I have seen them self inflate on the pier and I have seen them not inflate at all. All these malfunction were fixed with either flushing the I3 with a hose attachment or the shreader value was corroded to the point it would not work or had sand stuck in it preventing it from functioning. All these were a direct result from lack of proper cleaning.
I recommend that all I3 owners purchase this simple hose attachment and flush sand and stagnated salt water out.
BC Washout Hose — XS Scuba - Everything For The Perfect Dive
Hopefully this type of BCD mechanism is covered in the Rescuer’s course. I know I cover and let students practice on Std Jackets, I3s, BP/Ws and Sidemount style BCDs. Even if a rescuer has never seen an I3 inflator, they can still establish positive buoyancy by removing the weight. Or just following the hose down from the 1st stage to the inflator.
They are not hard to handle in an emergency.
On another note, I would not recommend one for someone who does a lot of shore diving. Our repair shop’s #1 malfunction with these is that they fill with small particles of sand. It doesn’t take much to jam the internal shreader valve inside the I3. I have seen them self inflate on the pier and I have seen them not inflate at all. All these malfunction were fixed with either flushing the I3 with a hose attachment or the shreader value was corroded to the point it would not work or had sand stuck in it preventing it from functioning. All these were a direct result from lack of proper cleaning.
I recommend that all I3 owners purchase this simple hose attachment and flush sand and stagnated salt water out.
BC Washout Hose — XS Scuba - Everything For The Perfect Dive
I'm going to partially disagree with you here. I do agree that one downside to the i3 is its nonstandard configuration, which could cause an issue if another person needs to assist an i3 diver.
But let's think about it. There are three situations where the i3 diver might need help related to the i3 diver's buoyancy (because that's the only issue with the i3, inflating/deflating the BCD):
1. i3 diver needs help and is very negatively buoyant. Solution? Assisting diver can drop one (or both) of the i3 diver's weight pouches. So this scenario is not affected by the i3 system.
2. i3 diver needs help and is slightly negatively buoyant. Solution? Assisting diver can easily compensate for the slight lack of buoyancy while they figure out how to adjust the i3 diver's buoyancy. Not a serious issue.
3. i3 diver needs help and is positively buoyant. Solution? Quick pull of the right shoulder dump valve, which has a traditional pull string. So this scenario is not affected by the i3 system.
How do I know this? Because I used my i3, with a traditional inflator attached, as an instructor. And I would remove the traditional inflator (replace the original inflation tube) for certain scenarios with my students in the Rescue class. My students were not told in advance I was doing this, but they all figured it out pretty quickly. Even running rescue scenarios with the "victim" in an i3, the students had no trouble getting it done.
Need more evidence? There are a LOT of i3's out there. So if the safety of the i3 system was a real issue, we would have heard about it. I agree that it's a solution without a problem. But it's also not as bad as you make it sound.
I'd compare it to the power motors they put in the driver's seat of luxury cars... the ones that allow you to push a button and the seat adjusts via the motors. Is this necessary? No... I can't imagine anyone ever had a problem adjusting the seat themselves, sliding it forward, sliding it backward. And power seats are more complicated, expensive, likely to have failures. And they are marketed as an "upscale" option. But there's nothing really dangerous about them. You could try to argue that if a power seat driver is in a crash and the paramedics have to extricate the driver from the car and they need to move the seat back they might not be able to find the switch! But if you ask paramedics, I'd bet they'd tell you they have it under control.
This is an incorrect statement.
The i3 is covered in the Rescue courses I run.
I find it interesting that you think you are sufficiently familiar with every instructor's rescue course that you feel confident enough to make this statement.
It's also worth noting that AL's i3 is not the only "one lever for inflate & deflate" system on the market. I wouldn't say they are "common", but certainly they are "common enough" that instructors should address alternate configurations in their rescue courses.
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