Couple of BC questions, inflater hoses and weight pouches

[j3rmzh]

Hello all, have a couple of questions regarding my BC, first off, it is an OMS bc with an IQ pack harness. I am new to diving just got my OW cert and have just a few dives under my belt, none on this gear yet.

Question 1: Inflater hose
The corrugated inflater hose is really really long am I missing something here? Is it supposed to be strapped down somewhere? It seems like its just going to flop around and drag while I am diving. Should I get a shorter one? Or can I strap it down partially with a bungee or something.

Question 2: IQ Pack weight pockets
I am trying to figure out how to distrubute my weights, when I did my OW cert dives I had a #20 belt +#16 in my BC (I am 5' 8" #245 and had on a 7mil wetsuit) my new BC has a 5# plate in it so I am planning on starting with 31# and seeing what I can whittle down to.

How much weight can I put in the pouches on my BC? I keep reading about people not having to dive with belts anymore but it seems that having 31# of weight in my BC is a ton. Any thoughts on how I should distribute the weight?

 

[sambolino44]

Question 1: short answer, yes to both.

Dive Rite has different lengths of corrugated hose for the inflator, and you can get the LP inflator hoses from them and many other places in whatever length you want. And as far as strapping it down, I think you already know that the answer to that is of course you can.

I just moved to a BP/W from a jacket BC. At first I was going to try to use my Air2 integrated inflator/backup reg, but it turned out to be too much hassle with the hoses. I had to deal with not only the hose lengths, but also the connectors on the end. It was possible, just too much trouble. My DSS wing has a pretty short corrugated hose, and it's taking some getting used to. Mainly, I'm not happy with how the buttons don't fall under my fingers when I grab it, and it's a clumsy process to dump air by depressing that button on the end. What does this have to do with you? Nothing, I'm just whining.

Question 2: I think OMS publishes a figure for the max weight for their pocket; most people do. I just checked the OMS website, and the quick-release weight pouches say 15 lbs each.

Here's what I've done to get weight off my belt (these may or may not all be appropriate for you). I bought my own cylinder, and it's a steel HP 100, which is always negative. I got a steel backplate, and added weight plates to it (the DSS plates probably won't easily bolt onto the OMS plate, but you get the idea). I use a drysuit, and my feet were going up until I got some ankle weights. I ended up with about 8lbs on my belt.

Before I got my BP/W, I was looking into integrated weights, but after several dives with my new rig, I'm happy with the way it is. I have not yet tried swimming it up from the bottom with an empty suit and an empty wing. If I can't handle that, I may take the weight plates off the backplate and put more lead on my belt.