Deco tank valve recommendations

[Nick_Radov]

I guess putting things in random places is best practice. Now where did I put my car keys…

You seem to be confused. Nothing that we're doing is random. It's all carefully thought through from first principles.

 

[NothingClever]

I do rich right, left lean.

I did that for awhile after AN/DP.

How did I get there?

I was my instructor’s very first student and he didn’t have many of his own deco dives under his belt. LL/RR satisfied my desire for a balanced configuration and I thought it fool-proofed my gas switches. There were almost zero technical divers around for a contrasting example. I did find quickly on my own that I didn’t like the encumbrance with rapid donation.

I moved back to Florida and took the Trimix course with @LandonL. He took a couple of days to get me tidied up (understatement) on things I should’ve learned in AN/DP. Both deco bottles on the left was one of those and it sure made life easier, especially later with a DPV.

I like my deco valve handles outboard to make it easy to turn them with my left hand. My right hand has other tasks.

Good luck with your valve selection and your diving.

 

[NothingClever]

This stuff has been figured out because of actual fatalities.

My post below is prompted by @PfcAJ 's post but not aimed at him.

The above is what motivates me to set my personal preferences aside and adapt to best practices.

I already know the emotional and investigative outcomes of preventable deaths. Even when I know I did everything right, there’s still survivor’s guilt. When a family's putting a loved one in the ground, if we have any doubts about what we did or could have done to save another diver's life, that's a tough burden to carry. Unless, of course, somebody disavows in their own mind the possibility of a different outcome and buries his/her role in the chain of events (but then that burden becomes truly unbearable as our time on earth winds down). I'm not saying anybody here would do that, simply accounting for one of the possible reactions to trauma.

I can't get worked up if somebody wants to dive in a configuration that's sub-optimal because ultimately that person will have to contend with the potential outcomes at the worst possible moment. Technical diving raises the possibility of worst possible outcomes.

It's important to also accept that if we choose to reject best practices that we self-marginalize.

Some will cry "group think" and I'm OK with that. I'm OK with it because I think it's a rather empty accusation that probably just serves to distract but doesn't necessarily proffer a better way.

Tone is often hard to ascertain in a forum. I think if folks heard me, they'd hear sincere care but also candor in my voice based on decades of training and real experience that we have to live with our choices.

 

[Celt]

I guess putting things in random places is best practice. Now where did I put my car keys…

Just verify before you breathe it. Lack of discipline is what leads to skipping NOTOX, not where you do or do not place the deco gas.

If you believe you need helium deeper than 100 feet and can’t deco unless you carry 50% and 100% o2, can’t dive without a scooter, 3 computers, canister light and backup, hoses long enough to go around the dive site to every diver in it and all the knives, cutting tools and smb,s available in the shop you can see how it gets confusing for some to make a simple gas switch.

 

[Diver-Drex]

If you believe you need helium deeper than 100 feet and can’t deco unless you carry 50% and 100% o2, can’t dive without a scooter, 3 computers, canister light and backup, hoses long enough to go around the dive site to every diver in it and all the knives, cutting tools and smb,s available in the shop you can see how it gets confusing for some to make a simple gas switch.

I’m not interested in arguing with or insulting anyone. They do what do, they have their reasons and that is fine with me. They are doing bigger dives than I care to do, if their procedures work for them, that is good.

My point is only that if you have a system and you use it consistently, that is good. Whether it is LLRR or everything on the left or tail mounted, etc. Some are better than others. All of them can fail if you do not test and mark each cylinder and if the NOTOX switch isn’t performed.

NOTOX is the standard, nothing is a replacement for it and anything less is a risk.

 

[Wallowa]

Only my observations and of course I could be wrong....

I read a lot of judgmental and critical comments couched with "sub-optimal" and "best practices'" in this tread....and they never really answers questions posed but say "It's important to also accept that if we choose to reject best practices that we self-marginalize".....I get it, everyone has a set of standards they espouse to because they personally feel they are the safest and those personal standards will and should evolve. But to intone "best" and 'self-marginalize" does not promote diver safety but seem to try to standardize what some feel is the 'right way' , the 'correct way' to configure dive equipment or conduct dives.

Just a suggestion but I feel it is of benefit to read Gilliam and Mounts publications . They don't say theirs is the best or right way, but simply 'a way' and leave the choices up to the individual divers discretion. Best practice is what works best for the individual under specific dive parameters and diver skill sets; or so it seems to me.

OP's question was about "best valve".

 

[Celt]

I’m not interested in arguing with or insulting anyone. They do what do

Understood, it just gets tiring when you have to scroll through the same old dogma from the same people in every post.