Review Diving the Avelo System

[inquis]

I would expect a loss of 8 lbs at 100 ft/30 m based on the study linked up thread. They are pretty consistent in recommending to start at +2 lb to start. Run the pump, get neutral, swim down, and find yourself at -8 lb. Dump the ballast you took on at the surface and you're -6 lb at depth.

Compensate using your lungs for this amount, ala the old-school BC-less divers. Fend off the CO2 headache by frequent full exhales. Alternatively, channel your inner seahorse. Likely a bit of both.

At the end of the dive, you've lost 5 lb, so you're -1 lb at depth. Ascend, gaining 8 lbs on the way, but adding ballast to lose 7 lb on the way -- maintaining neutrality. Purge at the surface and you're +7 lb waiting on the boat.

BTW, I thought the pump achieved 2 lb per min rather than 2 min per lb.

 

[lowwall]

BTW, I thought the pump achieved 2 lb per min rather than 2 min per lb.

Could be. Or maybe 1 pound per minute?

I've only dived a 3mm full suit, started 2 lb positive, single 2 min pump to neutral.

 

[inquis]

I thought the pump achieved 2 lb per min

Confirmed!

It takes a minute to add 2lbs of water to the tank.

 

[scubadada]

...BTW, I thought the pump achieved 2 lb per min rather than 2 min per lb.

Could be. Or maybe 1 pound per minute?

Confirmed!

Oops, you are correct, 1 min pump. I miswrote in posts 371 and 389 and have corrected them with clear edits. Thanks

 

[jakeluther]

It's interesting reading all the comments.

In some of the comments you can clearly see that the writers have tried the system. And a lot of comments from people that haven't.

I have my two cents as well, but honestly....try it.... All the negativity in the innovation may actually change if you just try it.

To sum it all up (before i go further, this is a personal view, im not afilliated in any way with anything avelo or dive centres)

Positive things to start:

- Not having to worry about filling or deflating your BCD as you go up and down is the biggest winner out of everything. This will also save you air supply by not having to do this.3

- Its different..... very different. and this is why you need to be trained in it to understand it. But once you understand it and how it all works together. 90% of the negative comments/Questions here might fly out the window once you try it. it will also answer all the concerns about battery loss, purging, non-rapid descents etc. Even D.A.N are labelling it as safer than traditional diving

- Weighting. I still had to put 4.5kgs of extra weight on with my (new) 5mm wetsuit and normally with a bcd with a steel tank i run 6kgs of weight. So weight-wise there is a difference.

- Streamlined..... without all the crap.. this thing is super streamlined. Once i work out a better way of streamlining my hose management it will be great

- The experience..... this is the biggest thing. It's a totally different feeling from wearing a BCD (jacket or wing) nothing is holding you into a position. it feels like you swimming freely underwater with nothing to hold you. I found it extremely easy to manage my trim as there's nothing pulling you or holding you. In saying this it is a lot more rolly, but once you get used to it. the phrase 'time to fly' actually kinda explains it.

- This isn't a replacement of a traditional system. You must have good buoyancy control to use this and know when you are positive or negative and have breath control to control your buoyancy. When you do the RAD course when the instructor dumps the Data from the computer they can see if you are positively buoyant, or negative and the range you need to keep in to control your breathing. Avelo has some extremely cool tools that the instructors have access to when you use an avelo mode dive computer

Now the Negative:

- God damn is it expensive, Its pushed it out of the rec purchase market for now. I had a pre-order placed. and cancelled it as soon as I saw the price. Once the price comes down, i will purchase a system of my own.

- Small niggle, But the way the system goes together you need to put the regulator backwards. This means if I want to use my own reg set I need to reverse the hoses around from a standard scuba setup.

- I had an issue with one of my batteries (which was more operator error from my end), Now we worked it and tested it afterwards and it was because i was trying to do a pump and the fill hose wasn't connected properly (even though i thought it was and it was locked on) my trainer fixed the hose issue but I drained a fair amount of the battery at the start before i know what was going on (i hit the button like 5 times). and under water when i started to feel positive and went to do another pump.... nothing happened and i started rising. The good thing is, it wasn't a rapid descent. and as i slowly made my way to the surface, and was still able to make my safety stop due to how slowly the ascent was. The thing i took away from this was that no matter what happened i was still going to be ok.

- following on from the above. That hose connection i think could be designed better, but that's just a niggle of mine.


All I can say to everyone is TRY IT. It will answer most of your questions and comments. I love it, will it replace traditional scuba gear, No.. But its an innovation and a progression of whats possible. Will I use it wherever it's available? most definitely.

I did my RAD at Abyss Scuba in Sydney with Rachael, and she was brilliant through the whole thing. A lot of the guys there that have over 1500 dives under their belt are using the system every chance they get as they love it also.

 

[lowwall]

@jakeluther

Thanks for the post. It's great to have another first hand account from someone who is not affiliated with the company.

I'd love to try it, but I can't get over the cost. There's no way I'd buy it outright, but I guess we'll see if rentals end up cheap enough to make it worth considering on a trip somewhere.

 

[Belzelbub]

- Small niggle, But the way the system goes together you need to put the regulator backwards. This means if I want to use my own reg set I need to reverse the hoses around from a standard scuba setup.

Are you saying that the valve outlet faces to the back of the diver? Odd choice. And looking at their website, it seems to be inconsistent. Some photos graphic show it like this, and in others, it’s more like a standard scuba setup.

Regardless, if it is indeed backwards, there may be a simpler solution if you switch between Avelo and standard with one reg set. When mounting backwards, mount the first stage upside down. That should put the hoses where you are used to them. I discovered this accidentally when my buddy had a problem with his reg and used my daughter’s. He normally had the body of the first stage facing up, where my daughter’s was in a face down orientation. Instead of switching it to face down, he spun the tank.

All I can say to everyone is TRY IT. It will answer most of your questions and comments. I love it, will it replace traditional scuba gear, No.. But it’s an innovation and a progression of whats possible. Will I use it wherever it's available? most definitely.

I do appreciate the perspective. I also appreciate the technology and attempting to do something different. Doing something different just to be different is not a blueprint for a disruptor. If they have solved a problem that has plagued most divers, that’s disruptive technology.

At $700 for the cert*, and $4K for just the jet pack, the problem must be huge. From my perspective, it’s just not that big of a deal. I have no desire to try it. With a new product, the burden is on the manufacturer to convince the consumer to part with their money in exchange for the product. From this consumer’s perspective they’ve failed. What I’ve read from their own marketing does not convince me that this is necessary. The numbers they use for a standard scuba system seem drastically inflated. Now, others may see different. Time will tell. I’ve never been annoyed with having to make minor adjustments to my buoyancy throughout a dive.

* $700 was taken from the OP. This actually includes additional dives after cert. So cert pricing is less as identified below.

 

[EdMcNeill09]

Thanks for the info. And that's not the only thing wrong with my post. After 25 years of diving, it can be hard to hard to wrap my head around adding ballast instead of buoyancy and I went the wrong way. Let me try again.

If you are wearing a 7mm and are starting at neutral at the surface, you'll need to increase your buoyancy at depth at depth by several pounds to offset the shrinking of the bubbles in your neoprene. Estimates of the amount of buoyancy lost at 30m compared to the surface for a 7mm single layer suit without hood and gloves range from 5 to 15 pounds.

Let's think about what we can do with Avelo assuming we will start the dive neutral. The only answer I can think of is that you need to start with a fill to 200 bar, wait on the surface for 14.6 minutes while the pump adds 7.3 pounds of water, adjust your weight so you are neutral and then begin your descent.

I think the piece you might be missing is that if we enter the water with swimmers buoyancy (about 1 lb positive) we only need to add 2 lbs of water to descend by exhaling and swimming down. Most divers are very comfortable at -1lb buoyancy.

To enter the water with swimmers buoyancy we have to account for the added buoyancy of our wetsuit/drysuit. We add lead. Then we test our swimmers buoyancy in the water and add/remove lead as necessary.

Most wetsuit compression occurs in the first 15'. Avelo did extensive testing of basically every wetsuit made by a major manufacturer to arrive at their weighting formula. Like all such things it is a good estimator but needs to be adjusted to the individual.

During your descent you will purge water from the tank more or less continuously as you try to stay close to neutral. At the bottom, you'll be back to around 200 bar and hopefully neutral. As the dive progresses, you'll add ballast to compensate for the gas breathed as usual. You will likely have to do an extra addition of ballast if you make a major ascent.

Adding blast before a major ascent isn't necessary unless you have breathed down enough gas that it's time to run the pump again anyway. I typically run the pump before ascending to my safety stop just to be more comfortable. At the beginning of a dive you can easily be neutral at 15' and equally neutral at 100'. I do this regularly at one of our wrecks here on Oahu. No adjustments needed.

As has been noted previously the first certification dive includes a descent below 50' with a 30 second hover followed by an ascent of at least 30' with a 30 second hover. When I teach this it is closer to 40' of change in the water column from 58' or so to 18' or so.

At the end of the dive you now have the problem @inquis first suggested. Assuming you are doing a square profile and used 2/3rds of your gas and have added 4 pounds of water to offset it, you will be able to compensate for about 6 pounds of lift from your wetsuit decompressing by running the pump for 12 minutes as you ascend.

This might be enough to prevent corking if you have the time, but it will be a struggle to keep control if for any reason you require a normal or accelerated ascent rate.

The key here is that you enter the water initially with swimmers buoyancy. Returning to the surface is simply returning to swimmer's buoyancy. You only need to account for the weight of the air you breathed.

My wetsuit is a 5mm, but it's a bit worn so let's call it a 4mm. In Catalina they are diving thicker suits with Avelo. I haven't done this yet so can't comment on the experience but assume it is the same as I've described as I've had no teaching updates concerning wetsuit compression.

 

[EdMcNeill09]

Are you saying that the valve outlet faces to the back of the diver? Odd choice. And looking at their website, it seems to be inconsistent. Some photos graphic show it like this, and in others, it’s more like a standard scuba setup.

Regardless, if it is indeed backwards, there may be a simpler solution if you switch between Avelo and standard with one reg set. When mounting backwards, mount the first stage upside down. That should put the hoses where you are used to them. I discovered this accidentally when my buddy had a problem with his reg and used my daughter’s. He normally had the body of the first stage facing up, where my daughter’s was in a face down orientation. Instead of switching it to face down, he spun the tank.

Yes. Turning the reg upside down works.

I do appreciate the perspective. I also appreciate the technology and attempting to do something different. Doing something different just to be different is not a blueprint for a disruptor. If they have solved a problem that has plagued most divers, that’s disruptive technology.

At $700 for the cert, and $4K for just the jet pack, the problem must be huge. From my perspective, it’s just not that big of a deal. I have no desire to try it. With a new product, the burden is on the manufacturer to convince the consumer to part with their money in exchange for the product. From this consumer’s perspective they’ve failed. What I’ve read from their own marketing does not convince me that this is necessary. The numbers they use for a standard scuba system seem drastically inflated. Now, others may see different. Time will tell. I’ve never been annoyed with having to make minor adjustments to my buoyancy throughout a dive.

I don't know who is charging $700. Our price for the one day cert is $450 and a second day of diving on Avelo is $195.

 

[Belzelbub]

I don't know who is charging $700. Our price for the one day cert is $450 and a second day of diving on Avelo is $195.

I took the $700 from the first post in this thread, but on a re-read, that includes additional dives after cert. pretty close with your pricing. I’ll edit my post for clarity.