Question Good first rebreather for non-cave diving?

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And I bet you’ve had no problems with the rEvo! Compact, reliable and inspires confidence, I know of 3 of my friends that have done 200m+ dives on them, very low on sofnolime appetite too!!
Never been locked out from a dive. Never had to tell my buddies to wait yet another 10 minutes because the computer had to re-do something. rEvo is not perfect, but overstepping parental controls aren't the issue. Also, I am probably in the minority of divers in my area, as I think that Poseidon is a good unit. I just despise the seemingly random lockouts and have seen how they may affect dive ops and otherwise enjoyable time off.

One of the forum members asked "why not?" I gave the answer in the context of Poseidon 7.

P.S. You're not buying a rebreather. You're buying a philosophy. That's why some people love Poseidon and other folks embrace manual units like Fathom.
 
@stolfyadventures defo consider whom you might be diving with, since it is best to be doing this with others who have gone through proper training with you, ideally from same instructor(s) or same course(s) as you had. (Though this is not the only way.)

In NSW there is Ryan Duchatel for JJ-CCR? JJ-CCR Rebreathers, Tech Diving Gear, Technical & Rebreather Dive Courses

If you get a weeks/month off or gap year or something, then you could also considering head up to Bali/Lombok and get into a training progression with Will Goodman / Chris Gamlin, Marc Crane (rEvo), Antoine Martin (but don't have too much fun up there ...)


JJ's and rEvos can and do travel. Ditch the JJ steel plate for an alum or carbon one for warm water/wetsuit diving.

Cal Academy is/was on Prism2 CCRs, not on anyone's sexy list anymore but they are lighter for travel I think.

Is anyone solid doing consumer-level chestmount CCRs in NSW/Australia? Seldom considered good 'first units,' but there is clearly a large push in that sector this year. Always something new... even though Tritons have been known to Australia and Asia for 10(+) years now.

Strongly recommend diving CCRs in 'stock' configuration, as it comes from the manufacturer, for at least 50+ hrs before considering any customizations to tanks, hoses, fittings etc. I personally would steer clear of instructors or agencies that significantly modify the config for their 'own way' of doing it, unless you know what you are getting yourself into.

You /could/ go down the GUE road where you are, but I would suggest you only consider this if you are prepared for their fairly exclusive culture, loooong progression to CCRs, and non-standard config. But it works very well for them, within their system.
 
I wouldn’t own another Poseidon ccr based on personal experience,
As you’ve already heard, they are quite partial to failing pre-dive auto tests, mine particularly enjoyed failing positive tests and of course if it does you then have to start all the tests again ,, and again,,, and again, each time the unit just gobbles gas until the owner is tearful,
The counterlungs (chest) just dont facilitate putting bale out cylinders on , I honestly don’t know how they managed to design them and forget about bale outs, they have D rings at the bottom of the lungs yes, but just like the FMCL on inspo’s they’re just too damn low, in the water the cylinder valves are so far away underneath the diver it’s awful, I’m a fabricator so managed to make a custom set of D rings to peek out the side of the harness at a better height between the lung Velcro attachment to harness webbing,
The battery,, every so many cycles the battery has to do a learn cycle which takes quite a few hours, and it doesn’t warn you of this per-se so when your halfway through your weeks diving on a hardboat you can bet your bottom dollar it will pull that card on you and you can’t defer it until later it just won’t charge to get you in the water without going on learn cycle for 5hrs or so (if memory serves on time there) oh and the batteries are depth specific, £££…
Trim, awful machine to trim even worse with inverted cylinder set up and drysuit, I used to have 2kg zip tied on the top of each shoulder under the counter lungs just to trim out, (inverted cylinders, dry suit, sea)
The mk6,s were even worse if you wanted to put a helium mix on, as unless the mix was completely accurate to agree with the handset it simply said incorrect gas and wouldn’t pass test, ie, you test the mix and your analyser said 18.3 / 34.6 you’d have to guess and hope the automatic machine test agreed with you, so your 18/35 as you understand it could be 18/36 or 19/35 but it wouldn’t tell you that, you just got “incorrect Gas” and wouldn’t play.

The mouthpiece is very good
The self packing scrubber is good
The size is good

But you’ll never see one on a boat off to do 60-100+m dives, or at least I never have,
Their principle is a good one, it’s just not executed very well, you can buy a standard 7even with cylinders valve up with a 40m battery, and then the tec version has bigger lungs inverted cylinders etc etc and it can’t have been engineered correctly to trim and work in both guises, plus look at the new prices of them? Straight in at the price I’d want a full shearwater controlled JJ, rEvo or XCCR and if you dive one of those it is honestly night and day compared, embarrassing really. I would say if you have the money and go shearwater controlled unit if you ever use a Nerd instead of HUD you have a hell of a yardstick, (sorry for rant, I don’t hate them, they’re just so outclassed, it disappointed me hugely, I missed epic dives, and at least twice I actually shed a tear being frustrated with it on the boat when people were getting in and the slack window was gone for me)

If you dive a JJ and a rEvo you will know which is more harmonious for you and either is built well and performs very well.

Alex, thanks for your comprehensive feedback, much appreciated!
 
In a similar vein, have seen AP Inspirations that threw a hissy fit on the boat preventing the dive. Something about calibrating.

FWIW, have hundreds of dives on my Revo and it's yet to let me down pre-dive. It's got two sensor networks (Petrel & Nerd) which are completely separate so should one go down, the other's still working. (Mine has Petrel on the DiveCAN bus monitoring 3 cells, with the Nerd on the analogue bus monitoring the other two cells)
Do you remember when they used to suffer with screen freeze? 🫣😱, I remember vividly being told by a guy on another dive vessel at scapa about two fellas having it on their units on the same dive,, luckily each separately realised things weren’t right when their depth altered but the display didn’t budge,,, I’d rather have no information than false!!
Even the new ones have their heads forever going back to AP for fixes, usually to do with depth sensor, but have seen one flooded completely on a dive with bubbles coming out, I could post pics (and will pm on request) but I don’t want to have “well known Instructors” in the uk identified,,, as they all get their units very cheap from the manufacturer as the manufacturer like market dominance… if they instructor has one they must be good??? 🤦‍♂️
 
Out of this thread I get that AP has a problem with the head, Cheers
I can only speak of my experience with AP and over the last 5 years of diving about 1-3 times a week on it (in the tropics) the only issue I had to have repaired was one of the wire connector going to the O2 cells got corroded (my fault) and a solenoid quit. I now know how to overhaul the solenoid so that won't be an issue again and I use dielectric grease in the fitting.
 
I have a Kiss Spirit LTE in oz that I would sell.
Its a great ccr and very lightweight for traveling.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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