Gear organization advice!

[tbone1004]

sounds like you have yourself a nice little unicorn scenario there. carpooling on tech dives will create issues like you've seen and requires compromises. Where I would begin to compromise personally is to leave the fridge and haskel behind, but that's just me.

I have a BIT of experience traveling a long way to the dive site, in a large truck, with a lot of gear. take or leave my advice obv, but you may want to rethink your setup here.

The fridge doesn't come when we carpool since it lives in my Expedition. If we take the F150 it doesn't go. The Haskel is usually a last minute decision. Somehow this derailed a bit though, for me the main organization issue was how to keep things from getting tangled while they're in their storage containers and moved into a capacity constraint. Even without any capacity constraints *me diving solo out of my Expedition*, the gear is still getting jumbled about and that's where @PfcAJ 's suggestion of assembling before the trip may be the best solution and a "just deal with it" when I am carpooling if the reusable ties don't work.

 

[LiteHedded]

The fridge doesn't come when we carpool since it lives in my Expedition. If we take the F150 it doesn't go. The Haskel is usually a last minute decision. Somehow this derailed a bit though, for me the main organization issue was how to keep things from getting tangled while they're in their storage containers and moved into a capacity constraint. Even without any capacity constraints *me diving solo out of my Expedition*, the gear is still getting jumbled about and that's where @PfcAJ 's suggestion of assembling before the trip may be the best solution and a "just deal with it" when I am carpooling if the reusable ties don't work.

Regs on bottles before a trip so no one is waiting on you to assemble gear. If you can’t, put them in a dedicated bin

 

[The Chairman]

These are about a buck apiece

https://www.amazon.com/KUUQA-Drawst...uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

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[JahJahwarrior]

For charging, I picked up a harbor freight knockoff of a pelican case, because it doesn't really need to be that tough or waterproof. I custom cut several of the cables so the lengths are great. Open it up, plug in one power strip, and I can charge two strobes, 4 18650, can light, DPV, and a ton of USB stuff. The problem I'm having is getting velcro to stick and stay stuck. Black case in the hot car, and all my nicely organized charging stuff fell off the lid as the "heavy duty" velcro adhesive melted. Still need a good adhesive for that type of plastic, if anyone has ideas.

I used to keep a nice charging station at home, and then an extremely portable one for travel, but I like more the idea of having a moderately sized, well packed kit that is easy to unplug, close the top and throw in the car, so I'm not really breaking it down for travel. But with all of the chargers on velcro so if I need to stuff them in a backpack for an airplane trip, it's easy to do that.

The black home depot bins, I used to use them for everything, but as one person said, any extra space is just wasted. I've got several full sized ones in the attic now, and down to 1 smaller one for caves, and one smaller one for ocean diving. Reg bags keep my less used regulators organized, cave diving regulators mostly stay on the tanks or rebreather. So the bin is for reels, fins, drysuit, and camera rig.

I also used to use milk crates, and they were good too, but stacked awkwardly in my car and required either stuffing multiple regs in, or wasted space. Maybe you just need 2 stage regs, but the milk crate has room for 8 of them, so do you stick sidemount and stage regs in one bin, or waste all that space?

The put it together before you leave home method is superior in my opinion. It lets you setup in peace, test your stuff in peace, and transport relatively compact, compared to transporting in pieces. Save your reg bags for spare regs, and then you just have to figure out your save a dive kit. I keep mine in a small pelican case, but it doesn't have room for CO analyzer. I'm considering getting a second, one for regularly used items that are really more dive prep than save a dive, and one for save a dive.

 

[Jack Hammer]

Knowing how to pack stuff can make a lot of extra room. I put doubles/rebreather, stages, deco bottles, scooters, gear, spares, and suitcases for 2 in the back of my Honda Fit. Air springs help with the weight.

 

[tbone1004]

@JahJahwarrior have you tried sanding the case side before you put the velcro on? It's on the to do list to figure out with my booster case since it keeps coming off *and that's with the tape supplied by Pelican...*

@Jack Hammer sadly no air spring options for the Expedition. It's one of the biggest drawbacks to that vehicle.... It is long enough that it stays relatively level, but it would be nice when it's fully loaded to have the couple of inches back

 

[tep]

I would coil the regs and use these reusable Wire Ties. They come in lots of sizes, up to some that can keep a garden hose coiled. I use them for everything from desktop computer cables to 50' extension cords.

https://www.amazon.com/Nite-Ize-Original-Reusable-Rubber/dp/B07MJ7S9YH?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1

 

[wKkaY]

What about small laundry nets? One net per reg should keep the regs separated, cheap, and they're porous so you don't need to specially dry them.

 

[KDAD]

@tbone1004 any chance you are secretly hoping to get get a dedicated scuba wagon? Sounds like something like this might be in your future: The New Scuba Wagon... 2016 350 Transit XLT

Hang the regs, haul the tanks, mount the Haskell...if my gear (and budget) didn't fit in 1 or 2 Rubbermaids I would be building one.

 

[The Chairman]

@tbone1004 any chance you are secretly hoping to get get a dedicated scuba wagon? Sounds like something like this might be in your future: The New Scuba Wagon... 2016 350 Transit XLT

My van is for sale at that!