Best CCR in 2025-2030 Rebreather Markets

[Wibble]

@Mas. -- not sure if you know, that you cannot dive another rebreather type than the one(s) you've been certified upon. This is because each rebreather is quite different from any other, may be subtle differences, but they're all different.

My Revo certification won't allow me to dive, say, a JJ without doing a "Crossover" course.

Of course I could say sodit and just go diving, but I'd need to ensure that I know how to build the thing, run through the checklists and do the various drills underwater (O2+dil flushes, O2+dil inject, shutdowns, bailout, etc.). Whilst my Revo and a JJ may be similar, there's significant differences to mean we cannot jump from one box to another like we can when driving different cars & trucks.

As for a Poseidon, just say no! It's more like an EV with mandatory lane and throttle control with an annoying whiny navigator voice than a Land Rover.

 

[broncobowsher]

Is that the same battery that the seven has?

Correct.

The Poseidon checklist automated self check sounds like a cool feature if you don't know about rebreathers. Watching owners fighting with a failed self-check and end up delaying everyone if not just missing the dive is the more common result. The most missed dives I have seen are with the Poseidons.

As mentioned, they never made the volume needed for the rental plan to ever happen. End result is a huge layer of complexity added that doesn't need to be there. I done one once on a try-dive. I could just feel the large corporate marketing department going to engineering telling them how to do there job. Engineering made what they were told to make. Large corporation design that isn't good.

 

[Mobulai]

Correct.

The Poseidon checklist automated self check sounds like a cool feature if you don't know about rebreathers. Watching owners fighting with a failed self-check and end up delaying everyone if not just missing the dive is the more common result. The most missed dives I have seen are with the Poseidons.

As mentioned, they never made the volume needed for the rental plan to ever happen. End result is a huge layer of complexity added that doesn't need to be there. I done one once on a try-dive. I could just feel the large corporate marketing department going to engineering telling them how to do there job. Engineering made what they were told to make. Large corporation design that isn't good.

Bloatware preventing dives sounds like some sort of a bureaucratic nightmare

Now I understand why I keep finding sevens with under 20hrs for sale @ less than 4k on local classifieds

I did like the idea of SSS, but not at that cost (also BM aint my bag)

 

[OTF]

Small companies generally make the best technical diving equipment. More innovative features, higher build quality, fewer corners cut to pinch a penny. Big companies are just as (if not more!) likely to end support for an unprofitable product as small companies are to die.

 

[macado]

According to Ron Benson: "The rEvo rebreather is a Drager Dolphin/ Ray breathing loop with a unique scrubber that is split into two canisters, with a lid that allows gas to pass through. The direction of the gas flow, the counterlung size and shape, as well as loop hoses and loop hose connectors were all originally Drager rebreather parts or design.... The Drager DSV exemplifies the reason that ....."

Do you guys agree with him?

You keep repeating this but you are misunderstanding what is being said and/or explained here.

The rEvo II / III is NOT a Dräger Dolphin CCR. First, the rEvo started as a homebuild CCR project by Paul Raymakers. It originally used the Dolphin / Ray breathing loop components which consistent of rubber loop hoses and a Dive Surface Valve (DSV). There are some design similarities but it would be a very inaccurate statement to say they are the same unit. The original rEvo II also used Drager p-port connectors BECAUSE they were easy to get and popular (still popular) with CCR homebuilders at the time.

Paul Raymakers used Drager / Dolphin / Ray parts because they are easy to get and very popular with homebuilders as the original rEvo started as Drager Dolphin homebuild that was converted into a full mCCR. For example, I could put a Drager Dophin loop/DSV on my Hammerhead or SF2 or homebuilt sidemount rebreather unit but that DOES NOT make it a Drager unit. I have put a rEvo loop/DSV on my SF2 rebreather. This does not make it an rEvo. I am simply re-using common components. This is incredibly common.

Your statement of "Head Sports offered a Dräger Dolphin CCR by acquiring rEvo III of Mares" is completely inaccurate. I do not know is it is a misunderstanding of rebreathers or simply a language barrier?

Again, the Drager Dolphin was a Semi-Closed-Rebreather (SCR). Many homebuilders would modify their Dragers to be fully closed-circuit rebreathers (CCR). While they share components, design and common lineage they are not same thing.

Rebreathers, ultimately are a very niche and small market is something you need to understand. Several larger companies have (Drager, Hollis, Mares/rEvo, Poseidon) have all tried to bring recreational semi-closed rebreathers or recreational rebreathers to mass market and have utterly failed.

 

[evandroairton]

AFAIK trying to enter in sport diving was Dragger biggest finnancial faillure

 

[ChristianM]

Glad that the misunderstanding with "rEvo and Dophin" was already clarified.
I just wanted to add another rebreather. I just saw this at boot beginning of the year. No idea how big the company is.

MCM100 Multi-Role Military Diving Rebreather | Avon Protection | Avon Protection

 

[broncobowsher]

Glad that the misunderstanding with "rEvo and Dophin" was already clarified.
I just wanted to add another rebreather. I just saw this at boot beginning of the year. No idea how big the company is.

MCM100 Multi-Role Military Diving Rebreather | Avon Protection | Avon Protection

Avon is a large rubber company. I've known them for decades for tires. Mostly motorcycle tires. I know they have several other products, but don't follow them.

While the rebreather part may be new, the company is not. I am pretty sure they have done commercial/military drysuits for a long time as well.

 

[evandroairton]

Avon is a large rubber company. I've known them for decades for tires. Mostly motorcycle tires. I know they have several other products, but don't follow them.

While the rebreather part may be new, the company is not. I am pretty sure they have done commercial/military drysuits for a long time as well.

They've assumed the sentinel and VR technology for a period if i'm not wrong

 

[Pavao]

Glad that the misunderstanding with "rEvo and Dophin" was already clarified.
I just wanted to add another rebreather. I just saw this at boot beginning of the year. No idea how big the company is.

MCM100 Multi-Role Military Diving Rebreather | Avon Protection | Avon Protection

Just look at that chosen picture of the 2 divers the company decide to use to be the best 1st impression showcasing their product.
Even in that dark and far picture you start to notice the little details which tells a lot about the view of the engineers as divers, the more you look, the worse it gets.
Recreational type BC, with all the buckles and fasteners everywhere, makes it fUlLy AdJuStAbLe, anaconda size inflator hose dangling on the side, quick release weight pockets… and that cable attached to the mask, a hud(?) tugging the guys mask sideways to break seal lol.

If a big company like Scubapro decides to launch a CCR into market, this is a glimpse of what it’d look like.

The scuba industry in general is plagued with suboptimal gear, anyone who has gone through a quality tech diving course, can’t help but notice the abismal disconnect between tech and recreational diving, little things like wrist lanyard vs tied bolt snap on lights for example, to exploration rebreathers vs recreational rebreather (explorer, horizon, etc) and literally every piece of gear in between.
It isn’t that a wrist lanyard works well on rec but doesn’t on tech, it’s a suboptimal way to secure a light no matter the diving, but think about how many dive lights you see sold a lanyard is part of the package.
If the manufacturer is selling you a light and a wrist lanyard comes with it, they’re telling you using it is a good way to carry your light, because they themselves think it is, and unless you know better, you will attack it to your light and carry it that way.

@Mas. Think about the developers of equipment on these big companies you think would give you a superior CCR were they to develop one. When we look at their gear portfolio now and realize it’s a glimpse into their knowledge as scuba divers and they can’t even give us the simplest products free of nonsense, what makes you think they’d be able to put out a quality product at the highest demand of performance at the highest level of diving, CCR?

As has been mentioned here already, small companies that produce CCR are generally born out of passion and desire to make a product they brainstorm from the needs they have as divers, they are doing the dives for which they created the product for, often I guess, driven by the fact such a product doesn’t exist in the market, we are much more likely to see a quality product, because it will feature designs based on real life experience, and it’ll generally come directly from the tester themselves, not a lab engineer answering to corporate demands $$$.