???Future of Open Circuit Mixed Gas and Rebreather Diving???

[Wibble]

What would it take, technology wise, to bring CCRs into the realm of recreational diving? By that, I mean what would need to happen to have a unit you could just put on and not need to think about, aside from refilling consumables and cleaning it once in a while? Presumably a reliable system to monitor O2, PPO2, CO2, etc, and something to prevent "caustic cocktails". What else?

It's not the CCR, it's the diver.

Problems that every new CCR diver faces include:

• Buoyancy is not from your lungs as in OC. You need to be able to control your buoyancy even in the shallows which requires subtle addition/dumping of gas from your wing/drysuit/loop. Only time and practice will fix this
• The biggest risk with a rebreather is not maintaining it correctly. Pre-dive builds must be completed according to the checklist and may take a couple of hours. If you fail to be pedantic, your unit may just decide to kill you: CCR breakthrough, no problems. Lung infections, which one do you want. Radical failure of the unit, of course sir...
• You are far more responsible for yourself in CCR diving than if you're just doing a buddy buddy dive. There's so much more complexity and a buddy, even an experienced CCR diver, cannot understand everything that's going on with your unit.
• You must continually monitor your unit. "Ooops, I forgot to turn on my oxygen and died" isn't great on your death certificate. Similarly the cells looked a bit funny over the past couple of months. Or I thought I'd packed a new scrubber...

It simply doesn't fit the recreational throw it all together, breathe, dive mentality of a lot of people. Yes, I'm oversimplifying and stereotyping, but the point remains that you MUST do lots of careful preparation on your unit including cleaning and periodic deep cleaning. Cells must be monitored, etc.

Hence the "recreational" rebreathers are actually semi-closed circuit rebreathers as they remove some of the failure points.

Technology cannot replace human failings and lack of knowledge, experience and drive.

 

[Cthippo]

I feel like rebreathers are about where automobiles were in the teens and 20s. Complex, difficult to operate, persnickety devices that only a few people used. In those days you had to be careful tour gas wasn't contaminated, use a clutch and a choke, perhaps full your carbide lamps for lights, and be careful you didn't roll it over or collide with anything because ot absolutely could kill you.

100 years later we have vehicles you can hop into and drive away without thinking about, and while they can still kill you, you have to work harder at it.

Technology in many cases IS the answer to lack of skill or laziness or difficulty. Good tech not only expands what we can do, but also makes things easier to do and safer because it reduces the likelihood or impact of human fallibility.

Right now, CCRs are doing the first part, they are expanding the things humans can do underwater, but they remain very complicated to use and dangerous for the untrained. I feel that some of those problems can be solved with tech, and am trying to understand which cannot.

I doubt CCRs will ever be as commonplace, and hence as developed, as cars, but I hope they do become simpler, cheaper, and more mainstream before I hang up my fins.

 

[Wibble]

I feel like rebreathers are about where automobiles were in the teens and 20s. Complex, difficult to operate, persnickety devices that only a few people used. In those days you had to be careful tour gas wasn't contaminated, use a clutch and a choke, perhaps full your carbide lamps for lights, and be careful you didn't roll it over or collide with anything because ot absolutely could kill you.

100 years later we have vehicles you can hop into and drive away without thinking about, and while they can still kill you, you have to work harder at it.

Technology in many cases IS the answer to lack of skill or laziness or difficulty. Good tech not only expands what we can do, but also makes things easier to do and safer because it reduces the likelihood or impact of human fallibility.

Right now, CCRs are doing the first part, they are expanding the things humans can do underwater, but they remain very complicated to use and dangerous for the untrained. I feel that some of those problems can be solved with tech, and am trying to understand which cannot.

I doubt CCRs will ever be as commonplace, and hence as developed, as cars, but I hope they do become simpler, cheaper, and more mainstream before I hang up my fins.

I've seen people in "modern cars". Their driving skills are atrocious. The car does the driving, the driver is more of a passenger and doesn't look around them nor have any cutesy nor consideration for other drivers, e.g. moving to the inner lanes when overtaking, looking ahead of the car in front.

Death awaits those who don't treat CCR with respect and closely monitor their unit

 

[kensuf]

A ccr is a really **** thing when the oc divers of a group are already relaxing with a beer and you are still cleaning the unit and preparing it for the next day.
This can be a big disadvantage of ccr diving.

You can drink a beer while cleaning a rebreather.

 

[Germie]

You can drink a beer while cleaning a rebreather.

But I don't do that when I rebuild the unit, then I prefer to concentrate, haha.

 

[broncobowsher]

There was a post above about Oxygen being expensive.

Back in 2019 a group of us went to Truk. One person was doing it OC as the CCR didn't get back from service in time. Did many of the CCR dives with air/O2 but not all of what we did. The O2 was a lot cheaper than the He, but still he used so much more. The gas bill for the OC O2 was double that of the CCR that was using He. The logistics were also playing in that there wasn't enough He for any OC diving. We had just enough for the CCR

 

[formernuke]

You can drink a beer while cleaning a rebreather.

You can do the same while driving.

In one case your risking killing yourself, in the other yourself and someone else.

 

[grantctobin]

You can do the same while driving.

In one case your risking killing yourself, in the other yourself and someone else.

I’m all for ensuring consistency in rig setup, but this is a wild stretch of the imagination

 

[lostsheep]

You can do the same while driving.

In one case your risking killing yourself, in the other yourself and someone else.

Im going to kill myself if I drink a beer AFTER diving my CCR? That’s it, I’m hanging up my fins

 

[Wibble]

Personally, that's my own opinion, is that I'd rather get the unit sorted out the day before I dive.

Take last week; a whole week of wreck diving to MOD2 depths. When the boat ties up, I'll get the box off to the drying room, remove the loop, open the case, remove the scrubbers and clean out the lungs with the cloths (Revo thinks of everything ;-)) then take them to my room so I can rinse them through. Then back down to the unit to cycle the scrubbers (dump and fill one scrubber) and generally stroke and fettle the unit, maybe charge the Nerd. Get the gas sorted if required (in reality this means doing 3 two plus hour dives on the gas I brought). Assemble the unit -- using the written checklists -- and make sure it's tucked up happily in bed for the night.

Then go for a beer.

Fettling and stroking the unit is all part of the diving. As it happened I had a few issues. A cell was getting out of specification so was changed. The drysuit inflator regulator (Apeks DS4) blew its OPV, so removed and cleaned the OPV just to discover the damn regulator's running a very high IP, so swapped the whole reg for a spare and marked it up.

Doing the fettling this way around means peace and love for the unit, and no grief the next day.

Except for changing the dryglove which had a small hole. Some Muppet managed to change the wrong glove, so ended up with two RH gloves, only discovered after kitting up and just before jumping! Unkit and change the correct glove over. Re-kit, then jump in for a lovely dive on the Pathfinder.

Rushing your build is a sure-fire way of causing the wrath of Hades to befall your unit whilst on the bottom.