Review Diving the Avelo System

[EdMcNeill09]

I'm amazed you can fit 7 liters of water in there. Is that really the capacity (or something higher)?

The basic tank is a 10 liter tank. There is also an 8 liter tank. By comparison an Al 80 is 11.1 liters.

 

[EdMcNeill09]

As someone with a financial interest in this sytem, I hope you don't take this as a hostile dialog. I don't doubt that the Avelo system assists in buoyancy control, which is certainly a problem for likely the overwhelming majority of recreational divers. It is not targeted to the technical diving commmunity (twinsets, sidemount, CCR) which is disproportionatily represented on ScubaBoard. For single tank vacation divers, I can see potential for a large number of customers.

Has anyone used this for sidemount?

I really don't think much about buoyancy at all, and I know I'm not alone. But we are the minority.

For people in my area (Puget Sound) who dive year round and have many tanks, I'm not so sure about this solution. How is the hydro process? For someone with 4 or more tanks, this is quite a pricey system.

I'm really not offended at all. I get it actually. I'm on Oahu so it was an easy trip to go to Maui to try Avelo out for myself. I would have never gone at all except one of my DMCs started working for Avelo as the VP of Operations. She's helping them bring Avelo to market. Michele kept telling me I had to try this. I was dubious. It looked gimmicky and frankly I love my xDeep Zen. I couldn't imagine needing or wanting Avelo. But I went over and drank the koolaid. I was the 17th person worldwide certified on Avelo and became the 5th Instructor. Like a lot of Avelo Divers I prefer diving Avelo over standard scuba. It's a more sublime experience. As an instructor I love that my divers have no inflate button to press and hold!

I know there's a lot of chatter about using Avelo for Sidemount and Tech. To the best of my limited knowledge Avelo isn't working on this. I expect some of the Avelo Dive Centers may be playing with configurations but honestly I have no idea. That said I think it would be easier to do this with a twin set rather than side mount. Going side mount would require a pump for each tank or very careful management of PSI. If you exceed 4350 in a tank you will almost certainly get an uncontrolled free flow of the regs. The limitation on PSI for Avelo is not the tanks. It is our regs. Until someone develops or adapts a reg set for higher PSIs we're limited to 300 bar. If that happened going Sidemount with a single pump and battery would be a matter of hose routing. Actually I wonder about that. Would running the pump to 4 tanks simultaneously cause all pumps to see similar PSI increases or would the low tank get more of the ballast? Lots of questions.

Finally, I didn't think I thought that much about buoyancy until I didn't need to. Currently I frequently switch between Avelo and standard. I log 10-12 dives a week. Going back to standard after a couple of days on Avelo is disturbing and increasingly annoying. I heard this from other Avelo Instructors and now get it.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I'm really not offended at all. I get it actually.

I appreciate that.

I'm on Oahu so it was an easy trip to go to Maui to try Avelo out for myself. I would have never gone at all except one of my DMCs started working for Avelo as the VP of Operations. She's helping them bring Avelo to market. Michele kept telling me I had to try this. I was dubious. It looked gimmicky and frankly I love my xDeep Zen. I couldn't imagine needing or wanting Avelo. But I went over and drank the koolaid. I was the 17th person worldwide certified on Avelo and became the 5th Instructor. Like a lot of Avelo Divers I prefer diving Avelo over standard scuba. It's a more sublime experience.

I would certainly give it a try. I just don't know when or where I will be that offers it. I won't go out of my way for it.

As an instructor I love that my divers have no inflate button to press and hold!

Hold on there! The inflate button is for going up and the deflate button is for going down!

I know there's a lot of chatter about using Avelo for Sidemount and Tech. To the best of my limited knowledge Avelo isn't working on this. I expect some of the Avelo Dive Centers may be playing with configurations but honestly I have no idea. That said I think it would be easier to do this with a twin set rather than side mount. Going side mount would require a pump for each tank or very careful management of PSI. If you exceed 4350 in a tank you will almost certainly get an uncontrolled free flow of the regs. The limitation on PSI for Avelo is not the tanks. It is our regs. Until someone develops or adapts a reg set for higher PSIs we're limited to 300 bar. If that happened going Sidemount with a single pump and battery would be a matter of hose routing. Actually I wonder about that. Would running the pump to 4 tanks simultaneously cause all pumps to see similar PSI increases or would the low tank get more of the ballast? Lots of questions.

Given the size of the market, if I was running Avelo, I wouldn't bother with anything but the single tank diver. the ROI is just too small. I think growing market penetration for vacation divers is the smart thing to do.

Finally, I didn't think I thought that much about buoyancy until I didn't need to. Currently I frequently switch between Avelo and standard. I log 10-12 dives a week. Going back to standard after a couple of days on Avelo is disturbing and increasingly annoying. I heard this from other Avelo Instructors and now get it.

I can see that. Human beings are naturally lazy (I don't mean that as an insult, but just our nature for the sake of preservation). There's just the cost issue for the year round local diver with a number of tanks.

 

[Still Kicking]

The Horse Collar BCD of the 70s worked fine.

Actually, you can go even further back than horse collars. I know scuba divers who to this day dive use the original style of scuba and dive without any kind of buoyancy control device ... they weight themselves appropriately and use the buoyancy shifts in their wetsuit and their tank to their advantage.

Whether Avelo is better I can't say. I would love to try it but I am not in a position to pay for an introductory course. I am happy with how I dive now. I am not a rental diver and therefore I am not your market. Best of luck though. Innovative thinking is a good thing.

 

[inquis]

The basic tank is a 10 liter tank. There is also an 8 liter tank. By comparison an Al 80 is 11.1 liters.

Sure, but you need room for air. Your note got me thinking about it further: for comparable dive times to the ubiquitous AL80, you'd need about 80 cf of air (at 1 bar). Compressed to 300 bar, that would occupy 7.5 L, so the maximum amount of water you can take on in a 10 L cylinder is only 2.5 L.

This is a possible buoyancy adjustment of 5.5 lb. However, since you personally drop 16 lb of lead coming from the neutrally buoyant Hydros+5mm wetsuit, that means the Avelo itself must be approximately 10 lbs negatively buoyant without water ballast.

This concerns me, because someone in a rashguard & shorts would then be dangerously negative.

Obviously, I have misunderstood something somewhere. Is there simply less gas available than with an AL80?

 

[tekkydiver]

I think both are right. Of course they know what the current price would be, they're not stupid. However, at this time in development, the price would be (too) high. They're currently trying to raise awareness, interest and -hopefully for them- some buzz, all the while judging the waters and developing everything further. Some people are enthusiastic and want the stuff but too few at the moment to be really worthwhile and probably at a cost that would scare people away.

My guess is they're currently trying to get more training centers, get a bit of momentum going and if there's a decent client base that wants to buy it, they are further along (i.e. lower production costs) and have a better idea what the market would be willing to pay (i.e. margin).

All in all I think it's an interesting thing. Not sure if I would go for it, but then again, I'm not the primary target market (my guess would be holiday divers).

I'm thinking this will turn in to a small, niche type item for a very small group in the market. My fear on purchasing would be it won't be profitable enough to continue production of parts and the gear will end up being 'orphaned.' I just don't see the advantage. I dive with steel 100's with 3-4 lbs of weight to put me slightly negative. With a bag full of bugs it's easy enough to put a couple of puffs of air in my BC to compensate

 

[EdMcNeill09]

Sure, but you need room for air. Your note got me thinking about it further: for comparable dive times to the ubiquitous AL80, you'd need about 80 cf of air (at 1 bar). Compressed to 300 bar, that would occupy 7.5 L, so the maximum amount of water you can take on in a 10 L cylinder is only 2.5 L.

This is a possible buoyancy adjustment of 5.5 lb. However, since you personally drop 16 lb of lead coming from the neutrally buoyant Hydros+5mm wetsuit, that means the Avelo itself must be approximately 10 lbs negatively buoyant without water ballast.

This concerns me, because someone in a rashguard & shorts would then be dangerously negative.

Obviously, I have misunderstood something somewhere. Is there simply less gas available than with an AL80?

I'm not a math nerd but I think you might have missed one thing. We only add 2lbs or water at a time. For example if we are one lb buoyant as we enter the water we run the pump once adding 2lbs of water. As a result we are now extremely comfortable at -1lb buoyancy. We don't need to add any more water until we breathe off 2 lbs of air.

We typically fill a 10L Avelo tank to around 3200 psi. After running the pump once it typically goes up to 3500 - 3600 psi. In real terms you have a little less gas than in an al80. However these are high pressure tanks and you can boost them. So "theoretically" you could boost a tank to 3600 psi and start your dive at about -1lb buoyant. You would have more air than an AL 80 and not have to run the pump to start your dive. I imagine people who end up owning these tanks will get comfortable doing this.

 

[fred32176]

Captain Hook's out of Big Pine Key is advertising Alevo Diver Speciality Course. I was planning on doing 3 1/2 day trips in July. This could be an interesting alternative.

 

[Wibble]

For single tank vacation divers, I can see potential for a large number of customers.

Hint: take a Peak Performance Buoyancy course (or whatever name other agencies call it) and learn how to ensure you're correctly weighted***.

End of problem. No extra kit required. Life long diving nirvana.


Was astounded on a recent warm-water dive trip how much weight people would carry. Alas not surprised at how they sank like a brick and were furiously finning to stop.


*** It is utterly dependent upon the skills of the instructor. Challenge: how to find one who really knows about this... Maybe the Avelo instructors are the best place to start.

 

[lowwall]

Depends on your reg. I use Deep6 regs. I haven't actually weighed it. It's very close to the weight of a full Aluminum 80. so let's say 40-42 lbs. I might be off. THere's a rumor that the next gen tanks will be significantly lighter.

For comparison a Scubapro Hydros weighs 13lbs. I use another 14-16 lbs of lead. Let's assume 3lbs for regs. That's around 30lbs plus 40lbs for a full aluminum 80. So my Avelo setup is around 28lbs lighter than Standard Scuba. I definitely notice that when I climb the ladder after a dive.

People trying to sell this keep comparing it to someone using an AL80 plus a bulky BCD. If system weight is super important to you, then the appropriate comparison is an HP80 and a backplate with streamlined wing. My rig with a steel plate and regs weighs 10 pounds, add 29 for a HP80 with valve and I'm at 39 with no need for additional lead in warm water.

So I'm 3-5 lbs lighter out of the water. Meaning the only advantage of the Avelo is you don't have to think about managing the air bubble in the wing as you change levels. But if I'm properly weighted, the only time I ever have to think about this is at the beginning of an all-shallow dive. Something like Blue Heron Bridge.

I can't see trading all the flexibility and relatively low cost of a rig like mine for this minor advantage.