Cold water Wing lift - again

[Centrals]

CONSIDERING we use them already, with low failure rates, and you have a wet plug you can unplug at any time....and you could also have a backup.....
And....considering there is FAR MORE that is likely to go wrong with a CCR Rebreather ( which most of you guys are not screaming foul about...) , I think this is a viable direction.

Worst case, I abort a dive.
No harm, no foul.

If it(heated wet suit) is selling for around US$150.00 then I am interested.

 

[Storker]

if you need to balloon your suit to be comfortable you may need better undies.

Undies are of little use if they aren't lofted. It's not the underwear that insulates, it's the air it traps. No air, no insulation.

And a couple of liters of air above the bare minimum is pretty far from "balooning" a drysuit. At least for a normally-sized adult.

 

[danvolker]

If it(heated wet suit) is selling for around US$150.00 then I am interested.

C'mon....If a new Drysuit or new rebreather was selling for $150...if you were silly enough to buy it, you would be likely to get what you paid for....nothing useable.
The heated wetsuit concept is going to run much closer to a decent Drysuit, and be much better, because it will be slick in the water, and will not cause the diver to be forced to wear dangerously heavy amounts of weight.

I don't see this heated wetsuit concept helping for deeper tech dive issues, until we get an upgrade from the insulation of present goretex-like fabric suits, that can be near equivalent to rubber wetsuits ( Yamamoto rubber being much warmer /better insulation than current high tech fabric....Fabric does not get less insulating at depth....so when hi tech fabric catches up with rubber--evolves alot, there will be a tech depth suit for this) At 200 feet or deeper, I don't think the insulation potential is presently feasible for my heated wetsuit aspirations....maybe in a few years, with higher tech fabric evolutions. For now, 130 feet deep is about all I would plan on current heated wetsuit technologies to be good for.

 

[Storker]

Worst case, I abort a dive.

And provide me with the amusement of watching one already cold, wet, naked American turning blue in below-freezing temps and a Northernly breeze.

Pardon my ignorance ....but I thought you had been discussing the need for Dry suit divers to use very large amounts of weight, that could allow a great deal of air into the drysuit for better warmth ....and that this huge amount of weight could often SINK a BC or wing, unless it had massive lift potential.....Did I miss something?

Either you did, or I'm seeing a nice attempt at strawmanning there. AFAIK no-one mentioned "a great deal of air" or "huge amount of weight".

To give you some numbers and perspective since you apparently know nada about cold water drysuit diving: My single tank rig weighs some 30+ -ish kilos topside including fixed weight. It's some 15+ kilos negative in the water with an empty wing. A 30# wing is somewhere between marginal and inadequate to float it, particularly when the tank is full. Thus, I need a 40# wing to float it. IMO that's not "massive lift". I prefer to weigh myself about 2 to 3 kilos (up to 4 depending on water temp and duration of the dive) above the bare minimum needed to avoid corking uncontrollably from the safety stop, to stay warm and comfortable. IMO, that's not a "huge amount of weight".

If you think this is "massive lift" and a "huge amount of weight", we obviously have a different understanding of those words.


EDIT:
Speaking of amusement, I have, on a few occasions, dived with people who swear to the "minimum weighting" mantra. They've usually called the dive before me, and, unlike me, they've been shivering and swearing after the dive. We who prefer to weigh for the conditions and accept that we have to be a little bit more diligent in handling the bubble inside the suit haven't been able to see the problem.

 

[cool_hardware52]

Undies are of little use if they aren't lofted. It's not the underwear that insulates, it's the air it traps. No air, no insulation.

And a couple of liters of air above the bare minimum is pretty far from "balooning" a drysuit. At least for a normally-sized adult.

No, it's not that simple. Some undies are less compressible, and have a higher R value.

The "free gas" in a dry suit is mostly on the divers back and shoulders (assuming a horizontal diver) No matter how much gas you put in your suit your belly (again assuming a horizontal diver) won't see a higher effective insulation value. That's where a less compressible undergarment benefits the diver.

Tobin

 

[danvolker]

I consider no wing, to be best case scenario, but often not feasible with the heavier tanks like HP100 or 120's....With Steel 72, or al 80, I don't need no stinking wing.
An 18 pound wing is all I would use for anything from an 80 pound al tank, to an HP120.
To me, a 30 pound wing is a really big wing, and is the largest I will use unless I am diving double 80's.
My double 80's bp/wing set up uses a 40 pound lift wing...and is way more than I need. Diving/swimming this double 80 rig around, is so slow that you really need a scooter to get anywhere. Add a drysuit, and speed drops so low that now I am thinking of the joys of a Triton Sub

 

[Centrals]

C'mon....If a new Drysuit or new rebreather was selling for $150...if you were silly enough to buy it, you would be likely to get what you paid for....nothing useable.
The heated wetsuit concept is going to run much closer to a decent Drysuit, and be much better, because it will be slick in the water, and will not cause the diver to be forced to wear dangerously heavy amounts of weight.

I don't see this heated wetsuit concept helping for deeper tech dive issues, until we get an upgrade from the insulation of present goretex-like fabric suits, that can be near equivalent to rubber wetsuits ( Yamamoto rubber being much warmer /better insulation than current high tech fabric....Fabric does not get less insulating at depth....so when hi tech fabric catches up with rubber--evolves alot, there will be a tech depth suit for this) At 200 feet or deeper, I don't think the insulation potential is presently feasible for my heated wetsuit aspirations....maybe in a few years, with higher tech fabric evolutions. For now, 130 feet deep is about all I would plan on current heated wetsuit technologies to be good for.

I was only joking.
Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to produce heated undergarment to wear under the dry suit than wet suit?

 

[danvolker]

I was only joking.
Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to produce heated undergarment to wear under the dry suit than wet suit?

Sure,
but the buoyancy and drag of the drysuit ruin it for me.

 

[Storker]

The "free gas" in a dry suit is mostly on the divers back and shoulders (assuming a horizontal diver) No matter how much gas you put in your suit your belly (again assuming a horizontal diver) won't see a higher effective insulation value.

I hear what you're saying. But frankly, although my diving experience is limited (only 100-200 dives, however 90+% of those with a drysuit and more than half of those again in what I'd call cold water, i.e. below 10C) I tend to trust my own experience more than I trust what someone I've never dived with writes on the 'net. And my experience tells me that if I dive shrink-wrapped with minimum weighting I'll freeze my butt off, while if I add a few kilos of lead to my belt I'm decently warm. As TSandM said on a few occasions: Lead = warmth.

I've understood that you have some compulsion to have the last word in any discussion you're in, so be my guest. I'm outta here.

 

[dmaziuk]

CONSIDERING we use them already, with low failure rates, and you have a wet plug you can unplug at any time....and you could also have a backup.....
And....considering there is FAR MORE that is likely to go wrong with a CCR Rebreather ( which most of you guys are not screaming foul about...) , I think this is a viable direction.

I don't doubt that. I think the image is still funny.
You made me google: the available option uses a "non-metal" heating element, not the lightbulb filament.