How do you "sidemount" rental tanks?

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Many thanks everyone for your posts! I am planning a trip to Iceland and have not yet received an answer what type of cylinders they have got. 12L steels, I surmise, with ordinary DIN valves.

No, a situation with rental tanks was not covered in my Sidemount course, Andy. If you have a free moment, a picture would help a lot. Thanks again.
 
Johanan, I have rigged some removable 'stage straps' that I can just clip on to any tank rental or not, Dive Rite make a set of stage straps, and all I have done is to use the cam bands I removed from the harness when I went side mount and added a D ring and slider to these so that the bottom bolt snap of the stage straps are held against the tank by the cam band, and the top of the stage strap just loops over the neck of the bottle and tightens like normal.

Only thing I haven't liked so far is the neck of the bottle hangs down a little too much for my liking so I have fitted a 'choker' to hold the bolt snap close to the neck.

I think Dive Rite now sell a similar thing direct. - I will try to post picture later - P
 
Thanks, Phil! I use steel jubilee bands for fixing the lower boltsnaps, but cambands might be an easier and quicker solution for traveling and with rental tanks. I'm curious how yo have fixed the top of the cylinders. I use a continuous bungee loop, no boltsnaps but I imagine, it should be possilble to use a boltsnap in a similar way as in a stage rigging kit. I'm looking ahead for the picture. :)
 
Hi Johanan, I away from home on a business trip this week so will try to post a picture this coming weekend when I get home. The strap is 3/4 inch webbing which goes to a slider and bolt snap at the top for the neck of the tank with a loop of the webbing going around the neck and back through the slider.

When you slacken off the slider and you can expand and put the loop over any tank neck, then just tighten it again to snug the bolt snap up against the neck - Regards - P
 
Andy. If you have a free moment, a picture would help a lot. Thanks again.

Will try and get some snaps today.

I use steel jubilee bands for fixing the lower boltsnaps, but cambands might be an easier and quicker solution for traveling and with rental tanks.

I use jubilee clips. I find them smaller/lighter for travel, compared to cam-bands. You just need to carry a small screw-driver (or a Leatherman). I carry both. I find it no more convenient to use cam-bands.

I'm curious how yo have fixed the top of the cylinders. I use a continuous bungee loop, no boltsnaps but I imagine, it should be possilble to use a boltsnap in a similar way as in a stage rigging kit.

Continuous bungee methods don't work well with rentals IMHO. Most rental tanks don't have an extended 'stem', so you need to detach the bungee to wrap the cylinder neck/valve handle for good security.

I've done advanced sidemount stage diving course/s with 'regular' rental AL80s using this method. A demanding course, with lots of cylinder detachment etc... zero issues.
 
DR_GM2053W_7-640.jpg

I have found this picture of the Dive Rite set I bought - you can see the bolt snap and loop at the top left of the picture - that goes over the cylinder neck. Bottom right I have attached the bolt snap to the cam bands I took off of the harness by putting a "D" ring (one of the ones you with a screw gate) through the bolt snap and then held that in place on the cam band by a stainless steel weight keeper so the bolt snap is held where I want it.

I don't use the stainless locking band, that is now just spare. The other thing in the picture is a elastic bungee to go round the tank and hold hoses etc.

P
 
Sorry picture didn't work - I will try again

Stage_Straps.jpg
 
DR_GM2053W_7-640.jpg

I have found this picture of the Dive Rite set I bought - you can see the bolt snap and loop at the top left of the picture - that goes over the cylinder neck. Bottom right I have attached the bolt snap to the cam bands I took off of the harness by putting a "D" ring (one of the ones you with a screw gate) through the bolt snap and then held that in place on the cam band by a stainless steel weight keeper so the bolt snap is held where I want it.

It sounds (without a pic of your actual kit to see what you mean) that you are just 'stage-mounting' tanks, rather than sidemounting them?!?

Or are you using a ring-bungee type set-up for the actual attachment to the harness? Have you refined the top-mounting (around the cylinder neck) to stop the cylinder hanging-down and swinging??

Also; it sounds like your bottom cylinder connection utilizes a metal-to-metal connection. There are very valid reasons why this is frowned upon.
 
We often have to travel with our own inline valves when renting rebreather tanks (the cylinders are standard size, the valve configuration is not). Why not just bring a set of valves with you?

For people thinking of this (although the discussion seems to have tacked away from this idea), be aware of the incompatibility between 3/4 NPS and M25 threads used in tank necks. They look pretty close but when travelling between the US and Europe the tank necks aren't quite the same as these poor fellows found out: Dangers associated with mismatching portable (scuba) cylinders and valve fittings - Workplace Health and Safety Queensland
 
This really depends on what type of rig you are diving, which bungee system you use and whether the tanks are steel or aluminium....

There a bit on using standard aluminium cyclinder with a bungee wrap here at post 15:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/si...ounting-al80s-how-do-you-trim-your-tanks.html

Basically I'd suggest a double (well, 1.5 times) wrap on the left post, standard wrap around on the right post, always wrap outside to in, inside to out doesn't work well - assuming you are mounting regs facing upwards. The images below show a non-standard (extended stem valve) and standard (1.5 wrap on typical valve) on the left tank.

Tank Wraps- std.jpgDouble wrap attachment.jpg

It's much easier using a single continuous bungee than independents, this lets you even out the cylinders and allow for different valve types, this should be no problem with a correctly sized bungee as the left tank is normally donned first. The right tank is pretty much the same wrap as with the non-standard extended stem valves, only looped over the handle. If the wrap on the right tank keeps slipping off into a standard loop it normally mean the bungee is too loose, with a continuous bungee it's easy to adjust one end or make a temporary fix by tying a small half-hitch loop in the middle to reduce the length.

Karl
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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