Double Aluminum 80's

[FIXXERVI6]

I've seen a lot of posts about doubles, questions, comments, some have tried them and hated them others are curious so I figured I would throw this out there.

I dove aluminum doubles for the first time this past sunday, double aluminum 80's with iso manifold on a ranger LTD 45# lift BC.

First thing I noticed was the slow to respond syndrom when adding removing air from my BC, took longer than usual so I had to keep the descent speeds slow to keep from crashing into the bottom, I got used to this quickly.

Second thing was that my cumberbun was not tight enough, I tilted to my side and the tanks shifted hard, a quick tightening of my cumberbun/straps fixed that problem and it never happened again.

Third thing is I had my tanks up quite high to reach the valves so if I was in leval posistion and tried to look forward my head would hit the hoses, but I have a few ideas to fix this in the fugure.

Out of the water they were not bad, I used an aluminum backplate with this setup to add some stability and I noticed if I put the plate a little lower on my back it didn't dig into my lower back, it was actually pretty comfortable and other than the added weight it was ok, I was able to stand on shore for quite a long time without discomfort.

My first experience with doubles was a positive one, to all of those on this board that answered tons of questions I had about doubles thank you very much, you've saved me lots of time and money by listening to your different views/advice.

I must say that I do love my setup a lot, but if I had it to do over again I'd go with OMS backplate and OMS harness rig, little more flexible with customizing the rig, but my zeagle is kicking butt on doubles if anyone else out there has a zeagle and is thinking of doing doubles on it, well I like mine.

 

[Yerba Mate]

Hi I have a ranger Ltd as well and was thinking I might try it with doubles in the future.

How did you mount the backplate to the bcd? One guy I know bolted it to the tank bands through the gromets behind the lumbar pad...Such that the plate was just behind the lumbar pad, but on the diver's side of the harness. (does that make sense?). Is that how you did it?

 

[strider]

I started with twin alum 80's and they were great, I was already used to carrying a 30cuft pony so there wasnt too much of a weight increase and the balance was great. It actually helps with my trim compared to my twin steels which I need to wear ankle weights with to be comfortable.
Lots of people, especially in dive shops that don't know much about anything tec, seem to complain that alum twins are a pain. Some complaints are valid, as valid as they are for diving a single alum tank. The buoyance char. of steel are great, my twin 98s weigh just a few pounds more, carry 40 more cubic feet, are a 2640psi fill, and I can drop about 15 pounds from my weight belt, which feels really nice.

 

[FIXXERVI6]

Hi I have a ranger Ltd as well and was thinking I might try it with doubles in the future.

How did you mount the backplate to the bcd? One guy I know bolted it to the tank bands through the gromets behind the lumbar pad...Such that the plate was just behind the lumbar pad, but on the diver's side of the harness. (does that make sense?). Is that how you did it?

I put the plate on the doubles, then put the bolts through the BC eyelets so when it was all screwed down the BC was drawn tight to the tanks sandwiching the backplate between the BC and tanks.

My understanding is you do not need a back plate to dive doubles with the ranger, the plate just adds some stability and lets you take some lead off.

 

[FIXXERVI6]

Hi I have a ranger Ltd as well and was thinking I might try it with doubles in the future.

How did you mount the backplate to the bcd? One guy I know bolted it to the tank bands through the gromets behind the lumbar pad...Such that the plate was just behind the lumbar pad, but on the diver's side of the harness. (does that make sense?). Is that how you did it?

I suppose either way would work, either way should reduce the flop you'd get from being directly on the tanks, I havn't tried it without the plate so I don't really know how much stability it actually adds.