First rebreather choice

[Preach]

Hey all,

I'm thinking about buying a rebreather between now and a year. It would be nice to hear some opinions from the experienced rb divers on this forum.

The reason i want to switch to a rb is simply to make wreck dives between 40 and 80 meters (130/200 feet) using helium. dive time from 90 tot 180 minutes. Ofcourse after i have enough hours and experience on the unit.
I started tech diving about 4 years ago, but the last 2 years i've been leaning towards cave diving in Mexico.
For the same price of deep wreck diving a week in Europe (helium price), i can fly to Mexico for a few weeks (cave diving on 32%). I know a rb is expensive to purchase but i know for sure if i buy one the step to go wreck diving would be a lot smaller.
I'm not interested in cave diving with a rb (yet). All my cave dives i did so far are made in Mexico, and i like oc here for it's simplicity.

The unit i was thinking about is an inspiration, why?
- My instructor of choice teaches on this unit (I know, this is the worst reason)
- It's easy to get parts in The Netherlands for this unit
- Easy to find a decent 2nd hand model
- Heard that it has a good wob and that its a versatile unit
- Edit: I also will be flying with the unit, so size/weight does matter in this case

I'm looking to get a try dive on this unit somewhere this year. But i can't compare it to other units, cause it will be the first unit that i dive.

So my question is, how well will this unit do for deep wreck diving? any cons and pro's? any advice from experienced rb divers will do, especially if you have experience on diffrent units. Are there better options?

Thanks in advance!

 

[PT4476]

Hello, there are many, many, many threads on this subject here and all over social media. View any advice, particularly the most ardent posts—either pro or con any unit, with a grain of salt. Look for unbiased opinions, here's my (attempt) at an unbiased response… there's a lot to be said for diving a unit that other divers in your group dive, advice from divers you know when you're learning the ropes is very helpful, as is having a source of spare parts. I think choice of instructor is at least as important as choice of unit, does your 'instructor of choice' teach a lot? Try to get some references from his former students. The Inspiration is by far the most common rebreather out there, it's got some downsides (all rebreathers do) but many of my friends dive them and are very happy with them. Rebreathers are great for deeper wreck diving, over the five years that I've been diving mine I've watched the number of open circuit divers on most of the trips I'm on dwindle down to almost none. Hope you enjoy your transition to CCR diving, I did.

 

[tbone1004]

based on what you said, it sounds like the YBOD is a reasonable choice. Do you have buddies that will be diving CCR that are on YBOD's or are they on another unit?

 

[Vicko]

Try different units first, maybe finish your mod 1 on Inspiration and then try other units, but don't buy a rebreather until you know why you want that exact model.
In the Netherlands you have a number of rebreather instructors, give them a call and try to organise some demo dives.... Everyone dives a Inspiration, but a lot of people also die on the Inspiration

 

[Preach]

Hello, there are many, many, many threads on this subject here and all over social media. View any advice, particularly the most ardent posts—either pro or con any unit, with a grain of salt. Look for unbiased opinions, here's my (attempt) at an unbiased response… there's a lot to be said for diving a unit that other divers in your group dive, advice from divers you know when you're learning the ropes is very helpful, as is having a source of spare parts. I think choice of instructor is at least as important as choice of unit, does your 'instructor of choice' teach a lot? Try to get some references from his former students. The Inspiration is by far the most common rebreather out there, it's got some downsides (all rebreathers do) but many of my friends dive them and are very happy with them. Rebreathers are great for deeper wreck diving, over the five years that I've been diving mine I've watched the number of open circuit divers on most of the trips I'm on dwindle down to almost none. Hope you enjoy your transition to CCR diving, I did.

The instructor of choice has a lot of experience, especially on very deep dives and also on cave dives. I did courses with her before, and i'm overall happy with them.
She is next to being an instructor also a diving buddy, so maybe it would be easy to dive the same units.
I hope the transition from oc to ccr will go smooth, i heard it feels like having to start over learning to dive again. Hope to find out soon with a try out.

based on what you said, it sounds like the YBOD is a reasonable choice. Do you have buddies that will be diving CCR that are on YBOD's or are they on another unit?

On 99% of the dives i do, my wife is my buddy (cave/tech/normal ow). So the idea is to get 2 of the same units and do the course together. The instructor i had in mind, is also a diving buddy and dives an inspiration.


Another point is traveling. I add that one to my first post.

 

[rjack321]

Certainly JJs, revos, and SF2s are potential choices in NL as well. Personally I don't like the inspo cases, you can dive it without the plastic case using larger dil/o2 tanks but seems like a kludge. The inspo also has the least upgradable scrubber of those three.
For wreck diving in the 40-70m range any of those will work but some are more or less viable for cave diving.

 

[Preach]

Try different units first, maybe finish your mod 1 on Inspiration and then try other units, but don't buy a rebreather until you know why you want that exact model.
In the Netherlands you have a number of rebreather instructors, give them a call and try to organise some demo dives.... Everyone dives a Inspiration, but a lot of people also die on the Inspiration

Would be fun to attend some demo's, geuss it wouldn't hurt to try some of them.
I hope that the fatalities are in relation to the number of inspiration divers tho .

 

[JohnnyC]

Many people start with an Inspo as their first rebreather, and far fewer buy an Inspo as their last rebreather. It's big and bulky and not super adaptable, and primarily viable for deep open water diving. Doesn't mean it's the wrong choice, just that there are more optimal choices out there that didn't exist when APD was owning the market. I would suggest exploring those options further before making a significant financial decision. There is a bonus to the APD units, they're dirt cheap on the used market. Hence plenty of firsts, very few lasts.

Would be fun to attend some demo's, geuss it wouldn't hurt to try some of them.
I hope that the fatalities are in relation to the number of inspiration divers tho .

Definitely. And it's not a bad idea to do your MOD1 on a rental unit so you're better prepared to understand units you're try-diving.

Of course there's a correlation between the sheer number of units on the market in terms of fatalities, but the Inspo also had a couple of design flaws that didn't help. There was a certain level of complacency that, coupled with those design issues, lead to some dead divers.

 

[Preach]

Certainly JJs, revos, and SF2s are potential choices in NL as well. Personally I don't like the inspo cases, you can dive it without the plastic case using larger dil/o2 tanks but seems like a kludge. The inspo also has the least upgradable scrubber of those three.
For wreck diving in the 40-70m range any of those will work but some are more or less viable for cave diving.

For now it will be mainly for wreck diving (but maybe thats different in the future, who knows). Apdiving states that the inspiration scrubber lasts 2,5 hour (2,5kg), is this really the limit?
My longest dives oc are 4 hours cave dives in Mexico, but i don't think i will hit those bottom times on the ccr. I will probably keep diving OC in caves, aslong as there is no helium involved.

The plastic inspiration casing doesn't look as good as the jjccr or the sf2 that don't use a case. , But i can live with that.

 

[tbone1004]

Would be fun to attend some demo's, geuss it wouldn't hurt to try some of them.
I hope that the fatalities are in relation to the number of inspiration divers tho .

I called it a YBOD for a reason, though it was more tongue in cheek as I suspect @Vicko 's comment was as well. It was a really early rebreather, with a lot of BAD diving habits on untrained divers etc.

That said, the rebreather is a perfectly good unit, and if you're diving a backmount unit they're all pretty much the same. @JohnnyC and I have a similar thought and recommendation that is very much not "common". I don't think try dives on rebreathers are useful UNTIL you have mod1. You need to have the training on a unit *doesn't actually matter which one*, in order to dive these things well enough to really see what the difference is.

My recommendation to all new CCR divers is find your instructor first and take the course on a unit that they teach. In this case you seem pretty settled on the instructor friend that teaches on a YBOD, so take the course with her on the YBOD. If you find a screaming deal on a pair of used ones that are in good shape, then no harm in buying those first since you can flip them for close enough to what you paid for them.
Only after you are trained on a unit, IMO are you now qualified to make any sort of decisions on a unit based on a try dive. PRIOR to this training you may well settle on a rebreather based on other choices, but it's not based on the try dive. I.e. my dive team ALL dives this unit, well that's as good of a reason to choose as CCR as any, and there may be one out there that is marginally better for you based on a "try dive", but if it means you're now the odd man out for compatibility of parts, etc. then it's not worth it to me.