Yep, building it into a mask is a terrible idea since masks have to actually fit you'd have to make a thousand different versions.
How often do you check your gauges?
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I have the same amount of dives you have and one learns what your own breathing rate is, and like many already mention, if you go deeper your brain already know you need to check more frequently as you know your consumption will be higher, if I'm in the caribbean looking at fish in the shallows sometimes I even look at my gauges after 1 hour or less to take a look just to confirm where the needle is expected to be if diving single
if I dive doubles sidemount your brain compensates automatically to check more often to keep within de 20-30bar difference between tanks
If I pass 20m automatically my brain triggers to look a little more often, more you dive more automated your muscle/brain reflex memory becomes.
I do more see my dive computer, to track depth and time, depending that info is when I look at my SPG, and the triangle becomes more frequent as depth in time pass on.
if I dive doubles sidemount your brain compensates automatically to check more often to keep within de 20-30bar difference between tanks
If I pass 20m automatically my brain triggers to look a little more often, more you dive more automated your muscle/brain reflex memory becomes.
I do more see my dive computer, to track depth and time, depending that info is when I look at my SPG, and the triangle becomes more frequent as depth in time pass on.
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I am not going to argue with you if this system is reliable or not here but you should realize that this is a "Basic Scuba Discussions" forum and to say what you said is extremely dangerous to say the least for novice and even mid-level recreational divers???
It is extremely dangerous for him to say that he checks his SPG when he hits line arrows in a cave? I think you are being a little extreme..
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I paid no attention to what forum this thread was in. I would have to agree, all this discussion of diving doubles, paying attention to cave arrows, etc, does not belong in this thread.
How often do you check your gauges, well, it still depends.
How often do you check your gauges, well, it still depends.
As a number of people have said, it all depends upon the dive.
I read an article that explained how a short order cook working a grill is able to cook multiple items simultaneously. After a lot of experience, the brain develops a built in timer. It keeps track of how long each of the items has been cooking and sends a subconscious signal out when it is time to tend to each one. I think that when you have done certain dives or certain kinds of dives a lot, something similar happens. A newer diver will have to check more often until that built in timer gets enough experience to do the job.
So how does that translate into recreational, single tank diving, since this is the Basic forum? For most of my recreational dives, I again know I have plenty of gas for the dive I am planning to do; I usually end the dive based on time or NDLs, both of which I know nearly constantly from my wrist computer. But even on the most basic dives, because I have done that sort of dive so many times, I have a pretty darn good sense of how fast I am going to go through gas, so I am checking occasionally to make sure things are going as they should.
That changes, though, if my dive plan requires me to turn the dive or begin an ascent at a certain gas pressure, which would be the case for a lot of divers. In that case, once I start getting in the range of that turning point, I will be checking frequently.
I read an article that explained how a short order cook working a grill is able to cook multiple items simultaneously. After a lot of experience, the brain develops a built in timer. It keeps track of how long each of the items has been cooking and sends a subconscious signal out when it is time to tend to each one. I think that when you have done certain dives or certain kinds of dives a lot, something similar happens. A newer diver will have to check more often until that built in timer gets enough experience to do the job.
In one of my tech diving classes, that is pretty much what the text said. You have planned your dive and know you have plenty of gas to do the dive, unless something unusual happens. You check your spg occasionally to make sure nothing unusual is happening.
So how does that translate into recreational, single tank diving, since this is the Basic forum? For most of my recreational dives, I again know I have plenty of gas for the dive I am planning to do; I usually end the dive based on time or NDLs, both of which I know nearly constantly from my wrist computer. But even on the most basic dives, because I have done that sort of dive so many times, I have a pretty darn good sense of how fast I am going to go through gas, so I am checking occasionally to make sure things are going as they should.
That changes, though, if my dive plan requires me to turn the dive or begin an ascent at a certain gas pressure, which would be the case for a lot of divers. In that case, once I start getting in the range of that turning point, I will be checking frequently.
As others have pointed out, many people dive with an spg attached at the hip and a computer on the wrist. The computer on the wrist can be accessed at a glance. The spg on the hip takes a bit more effort.
DiverDownD3
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I check my SPG when I begin my decent, when I arrive at the wreck, about every 4-5 minutes during the dive, and as I begin my safety stop. I glance at my computer more often than that, mostly because it's on my right forearm and I don't have to do anything, but look down. Most of the sites I dive I'm going to be limited by NDL instead of air consumption.
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Depends on how you define "fairly experienced". I've logged somewhere between 500-600 dives at my local mudhole ... probably enough that I'm on a first-name basis with most of the local critters. I have maybe a half-dozen preferred dive profiles ... and can tell you within maybe 100 psi and two or three minutes what my gauges will tell me at any given point based purely on where I am at the time. What I'm doing amounts more to a sanity check than providing me with anything other than what I would already know ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
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@BurhanMuntasser how is that extremist? We teach it in our basic classes....
Plan your dive, dive your plan.
AL80, air dive to 60ft using NAUI tables. New diver
Estimated SAC rate based on what was calculated in the pool and validated during open water training dives, .6cfm
MDT based on tables is 55 minutes
DAC based on information above, 1.7cfm, and since I'm using an AL80, that translates to roughly 66psi/min or roughly 350psi every 5 minutes. I know that I'm using a cheap SPG with 250psi increments, so I know that checking any more frequently than 4 minutes is going to be a waste of time since you can't accurately gauge your consumption in smaller intervals. I plan on checking in at 10 minute intervals starting at 10 minutes
Dive Op says to be back on the boat with 700psi-his rule not mine
I estimate that it's going to take 8 minutes to make my ascent with an average depth of 20ft, which equates to 6.4cf of gas or 250psi.
Based on all of that, I know I need to begin my ascent at 1000psi. Assuming I have a full tank, I have 52cf of gas to play with.
I know that since I'm consuming 1.7cfm, to hit my NDL, I need a tank with at least 95cf capacity to execute that dive. My tank is 77.4cf so I know that my NDL is not going to be an issue.
Based on 52cf of gas, I know I should have the ability to stay down for roughly 30 minutes before I hit my gas limit. I know that if I use all of my gas, I have roughly 45 minutes. This is shorter than 55 minutes that is given to me by the dive tables, so I also know that for this dive, I have no benefit from diving Nitrox based on a shallower EAD. I also know that if I want to do a repetitive dive, I may want to dive Nitrox on this dive and certainly on the subsequent dive if I'm going to have a fairly short surface interval since I would need a 3 hour surface interval to be able to repeat this planned dive.
I get to the bottom and find out that I have roughly 2700psi in the tank and my computer says 3 minutes.. I know that every 5 minutes I should be consuming 350psi, so when I glance down to my computer and see 9 minutes, I figure I'll check my gauge since that is close enough to the 10 minutes that I was planning on checking it at. I log myself in for depth air and time because I was trained properly and want to be able to analyze my SAC rate at various points in the dive to adjust for the next dive.
I see that I have 2250psi in the tank. Little bit less than I should have, but I'm using a cheap gauge with 250psi increments, so it's close enough. I continue on my dive, noting that at 20 minutes I will likely be just above 1500psi
At 20 minutes, I estimate that I should have used about 600 psi, and check my gauges. I see that I'm at 1250psi. Again, a little bit lower than I expected, but I'm a new diver and expect some variability in my SAC rate and also had to kick into some unexpected current. And again log DAT
At this point I know that I need to begin my ascent at 1000psi so I decide to turn the dive and kick back to the anchor line.
Once the dive is turned, it really doesn't matter how much gas I have because I either have enough, or I don't.
I'm a new diver and I'm curious, so I check my gauges again and it took me 2 minutes to get back to the anchor line and I burned 150psi so I'm at 1100.
I begin my ascent, complete my 5 minute safety stop, and get back on the boat with 800psi and all is well in the world.
In that dive, my consumption rate was higher than I had planned for, but I checked my SPG 3 times during a dive with a bottom time of 22 minutes, and total dive time of 30 minutes. A bit shorter than the anticipated 30 minutes of bottom time due to a higher SAC rate, but at no point was the safety of the diver in question. Checking any more frequently than that is unnecessary in my opinion so long as the diver is able to use the gray matter between their ears and apply critical thinking and sadly most people these days, instructors included can't *my students are mostly engineering students in college, so your ability to trust your students may be different than mine*. Also frequent checking can lead to anxiety in the diver by focusing on their SAC rate and then lead to other problems.
IF the 10 minute and 20 minute checks had the diver noting more gas than anticipated because the SAC rate was lower, and instead of seeing 1250 psi on the last check, the diver saw say 1800psi, then you know that your SAC rate was quite a bit better than you anticipated so you can keep going on your dive. You are getting close to being low on air and low on time, so you decide to decrease your interval from 10 minutes to 5 minutes. At 25 minutes you check and you're tracking well and see 1500psi, and then at 30 minutes you are again tracking well and are at 1200psi. At this point you turn the dive. Total checks there are 5 instead of 3, but your dive was 10 minutes longer on the bottom.
To each his own, and there is nothing wrong with checking more frequently, but I honestly don't see any reason to check any more frequently than the example above. For reference that is the concepts that we teach to beginning students, and is exactly how I plan all of my dives and ends up being roughly the intervals I check my spg, whether it's a 60ft reef dive, or a mile plus long penetration into a cave. At deeper depths that interval is often shortened to 5 minute intervals when on an AL80, but I believe in not diving with a tank that has less cubic footage than the depth in feet you plan on diving, so diving at 100ft or deeper in an AL80 is something I am strongly opposed to, especially for beginning divers
Plan your dive, dive your plan.
AL80, air dive to 60ft using NAUI tables. New diver
Estimated SAC rate based on what was calculated in the pool and validated during open water training dives, .6cfm
MDT based on tables is 55 minutes
DAC based on information above, 1.7cfm, and since I'm using an AL80, that translates to roughly 66psi/min or roughly 350psi every 5 minutes. I know that I'm using a cheap SPG with 250psi increments, so I know that checking any more frequently than 4 minutes is going to be a waste of time since you can't accurately gauge your consumption in smaller intervals. I plan on checking in at 10 minute intervals starting at 10 minutes
Dive Op says to be back on the boat with 700psi-his rule not mine
I estimate that it's going to take 8 minutes to make my ascent with an average depth of 20ft, which equates to 6.4cf of gas or 250psi.
Based on all of that, I know I need to begin my ascent at 1000psi. Assuming I have a full tank, I have 52cf of gas to play with.
I know that since I'm consuming 1.7cfm, to hit my NDL, I need a tank with at least 95cf capacity to execute that dive. My tank is 77.4cf so I know that my NDL is not going to be an issue.
Based on 52cf of gas, I know I should have the ability to stay down for roughly 30 minutes before I hit my gas limit. I know that if I use all of my gas, I have roughly 45 minutes. This is shorter than 55 minutes that is given to me by the dive tables, so I also know that for this dive, I have no benefit from diving Nitrox based on a shallower EAD. I also know that if I want to do a repetitive dive, I may want to dive Nitrox on this dive and certainly on the subsequent dive if I'm going to have a fairly short surface interval since I would need a 3 hour surface interval to be able to repeat this planned dive.
I get to the bottom and find out that I have roughly 2700psi in the tank and my computer says 3 minutes.. I know that every 5 minutes I should be consuming 350psi, so when I glance down to my computer and see 9 minutes, I figure I'll check my gauge since that is close enough to the 10 minutes that I was planning on checking it at. I log myself in for depth air and time because I was trained properly and want to be able to analyze my SAC rate at various points in the dive to adjust for the next dive.
I see that I have 2250psi in the tank. Little bit less than I should have, but I'm using a cheap gauge with 250psi increments, so it's close enough. I continue on my dive, noting that at 20 minutes I will likely be just above 1500psi
At 20 minutes, I estimate that I should have used about 600 psi, and check my gauges. I see that I'm at 1250psi. Again, a little bit lower than I expected, but I'm a new diver and expect some variability in my SAC rate and also had to kick into some unexpected current. And again log DAT
At this point I know that I need to begin my ascent at 1000psi so I decide to turn the dive and kick back to the anchor line.
Once the dive is turned, it really doesn't matter how much gas I have because I either have enough, or I don't.
I'm a new diver and I'm curious, so I check my gauges again and it took me 2 minutes to get back to the anchor line and I burned 150psi so I'm at 1100.
I begin my ascent, complete my 5 minute safety stop, and get back on the boat with 800psi and all is well in the world.
In that dive, my consumption rate was higher than I had planned for, but I checked my SPG 3 times during a dive with a bottom time of 22 minutes, and total dive time of 30 minutes. A bit shorter than the anticipated 30 minutes of bottom time due to a higher SAC rate, but at no point was the safety of the diver in question. Checking any more frequently than that is unnecessary in my opinion so long as the diver is able to use the gray matter between their ears and apply critical thinking and sadly most people these days, instructors included can't *my students are mostly engineering students in college, so your ability to trust your students may be different than mine*. Also frequent checking can lead to anxiety in the diver by focusing on their SAC rate and then lead to other problems.
IF the 10 minute and 20 minute checks had the diver noting more gas than anticipated because the SAC rate was lower, and instead of seeing 1250 psi on the last check, the diver saw say 1800psi, then you know that your SAC rate was quite a bit better than you anticipated so you can keep going on your dive. You are getting close to being low on air and low on time, so you decide to decrease your interval from 10 minutes to 5 minutes. At 25 minutes you check and you're tracking well and see 1500psi, and then at 30 minutes you are again tracking well and are at 1200psi. At this point you turn the dive. Total checks there are 5 instead of 3, but your dive was 10 minutes longer on the bottom.
To each his own, and there is nothing wrong with checking more frequently, but I honestly don't see any reason to check any more frequently than the example above. For reference that is the concepts that we teach to beginning students, and is exactly how I plan all of my dives and ends up being roughly the intervals I check my spg, whether it's a 60ft reef dive, or a mile plus long penetration into a cave. At deeper depths that interval is often shortened to 5 minute intervals when on an AL80, but I believe in not diving with a tank that has less cubic footage than the depth in feet you plan on diving, so diving at 100ft or deeper in an AL80 is something I am strongly opposed to, especially for beginning divers
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