Dry Suit inflator hoses - Which 1st Stage for which hose ?

[Roy_W]

We have just bought our first dry suits and my question concerns the inflator hose... Which 1st stage do you attach your D/S inflator hose to ?


My current setup :

1st stage Primary (right shoulder) : Primary regulator , SPG, wing inflator.
1st stage Alternative ( Left Shoulder) : Alternative regulator , Shearwater AI, D/S Inflator.

What are the current thoughts on safety/redundacy etc as far as using the 1stage primary for the Wing and the Secondary for the D/S inflator hoses?

I have heard differeing opinions on this method where the Wing and the D/S inflators should be on the opposite 1st stages from what I initially thought to use. The opinion opposite to my current setup is that breathing from the primary and inflating the BCD at the same time could possibly cause a free flow when in cold water.. We dive cold water and we use cold water 1st stages, Apeks xtx 200s, so I would "presume" that they would easilly be capable of handling both an inflator and a primary at the same .

What are you thoughts on the best setup for the inflator hoses ?

 

[jborg]

I would presume the same; if they're that close to free-flowing just due to a short burst of inflating that seems like a problem that should be rectified. On the other hand, I seldom inflate the wing much underwater; once I'm down, additional air usually goes into the drysuit... So even if it were an issue, which I'd be hard-pressed to believe, there'd still be a reason to keep things the way they usually are.

 

[rongoodman]

Why do you have your SPG on the right shoulder? Other than that, I'd have the same arrangement as you do now.

 

[Alastor]

SPG is on the right, but a trasmitter is on the left, probably this is due to the wrist the computer is weared on.
All the other hoses are correctly routed as prescribed by most agencies.

 

[Wibble]

For twinsets/doubles, use the DIR configuration:

• LHS (as worn, looking forwards): SPG, drysuit hose, shorthose backup regulator
• RHS: wing inflate, longhose

Also use the same configuration for sidemount.

 

[Roy_W]

"SPG is on the right, but a trasmitter is on the left, probably this is due to the wrist the computer is weared on.
All the other hoses are correctly routed as prescribed by most agencies."

Yes, I have my computer on my left arm , so the transmitter is also on the left.

Ok thanks for your replies, I will leave the routing as it..

 

[grantctobin]

"SPG is on the right, but a trasmitter is on the left, probably this is due to the wrist the computer is weared on.
All the other hoses are correctly routed as prescribed by most agencies."

Yes, I have my computer on my left arm , so the transmitter is also on the left.

Ok thanks for your replies, I will leave the routing as it..

Why would you not remove the SPG? We can ignore any transmitter vs SPG debate, but having both is entirely unnecessary.

 

[grf88]

To me it makes the most sense to have the inflator for your primary buoyancy whether it be dry-suit or wing, on the opposite post to your primary regulator reducing the work of the primary and helping to avoid free-flow in cold water.

 

[rhwestfall]

I don't cross the lpi hoses....

left/wing & right/suit

 

[Roy_W]

Why would you not remove the SPG? We can ignore any transmitter vs SPG debate, but having both is entirely unnecessary.

I can quickly give a good reason.. At home before going on yesterdays dive, my Perdrix was showing the battery level on the lower part of the green level... I thought that's should be Ok for today so I didn't change the battery..

What I didn't expect was that the cold water influenced the battery life and after only a few minutes on the surface the gauge turned yellow, I signaled this to my dive so that he knew in advance . After 20 more minutes I had the first yellow warning text of "Low Battery Level", the warning that you have to click to make it go away.. It's at these moments you are glad to have a secondary. We weren't too deep, only 25m so there was no issue with deco.. By the end of the dive, the battery indicator was in the red... I have no idea how long it would actually have continued beyond this point..

For me the SPG is a redundant system which could make a huge difference should the computer have shutdown or malfunctionned.

When diving with a twinset it also allows me to know that I have opened both tanks at the beginning of the dive. The AI only knows that one of the tanks is opened.

When I returned home more than 2 hours later and I switched the Perdix on in order to download the dive , the battery level was back at the bottom of the green level again.. This confimed to me that the cold water made a huge difference to the battery. So even though everything was checked and Ok beforehand, things could have gone slightly askew just because of the termperature difference..

The contra argument would be that I should have changed the battery because it was at the lower level of the green.....