I'm 99% convinced I'm going to learn to dive on a choptoima. Convince me I'm wrong.

[VikingDives]

Like the title says... I'm leaning towards the chop.

I like the simplicity of the kiss, but I am hundreds, maybe 1k+ miles from shallow caves. Most of my training is going to be in deep cool water.

I'm also partial to the jj.

The only no-go for me is bm doubles style valve drills. I don't have the mobility

 

[mr_v]

You're not wrong. Many people dive and enjoy Choptimas. Also, most new CC divers won't know how to evaluate a unit without CC experience. All commercially available rebreathers are quite capable of sustaining life under water, so your choice is a matter of preference that... is hard to have without experience. Hence, go diving!

Enjoy your Choptima and let us know how it goes. Cheers!

 

[VikingDives]

You're not wrong. Many people dive and enjoy Choptimas. Also, most new CC divers won't know how to evaluate a unit without CC experience. All commercially available rebreathers are quite capable of sustaining life under water, so your choice is a matter of preference that... is hard to have without experience. Hence, go diving!

Enjoy your Choptima and let us know how it goes. Cheers!

But if you were to say I was making an uninformed decision it would he because:

 

[PEDiver]

I wish I had done some try-dives before purchasing a Chop a few years ago. I ended up selling it and crossed over to a BM unit and have not looked back. It wasn’t a bad unit, just not ultimately what I wanted. I much prefer the WOB of BMCLs and like to have a clutter-free chest.

 

[InWay2Deep]

I like the simplicity of the kiss, but I am hundreds, maybe 1k+ miles from shallow caves.

What are you implying here? KISS (you didn't mention which one) isn't soley designed for 'shallow caves'. Having spent sometime w/ another diver using a chop in mx in shallow caves he had a bit of a fight w/ the unit due to the depth wanting the PPO2 higher at shallow depths where yes a mCCR is easier. In fact our instructor had converted his eCCR to an mCCR. Given the limited amount of information in your post it would be difficult to recommend any unit.

Me personally I intended to sidemount cave dive in shallow and deep caves so the sidewinder has worked out great.

 

[rx7diver]

... The only no-go for me is bm doubles style valve drills. I don't have the mobility

Is it possible to dive the Choptima with inverted BM baby doubles (e.g., LP46's or LP50's)?

rx7diver

 

[nadwidny]

You don't define what your goals are (deep wrecks, mexican caves, shallow reefs, getting an RB to impress my clientele. etc.) That will make a difference in recommendations.

However If the choice is between a Chop or a JJ (or a Meg) I would go with the JJ/Meg 100% of the time

 

[Wibble]

Once you’ve moved to the CCR world you must get lots of experience as rebreathers will kill the unwary. Most people have at least one significant event in the first hundred hours or so due to inexperience.

Have heard on here of people choosing their ChOptima for their first unit. However, most people go for backmount as their first unit.

It’s largely down to your motivations for diving CCR.

• Are you aiming for deep diving, in which case backmount is better — longer scrubber durations, “standard” bailout/deco tank configurations, etc.
• Are you intending to dive caves in which case chestmount may be better as you can unhook it and push it through restrictions
• If flying with the unit the unit In which case the featherweight ChOptima at 6kg knocks every heavyweight backmount unit into a cocked hat.
• Etc…

The fact is there’s no perfect rebreather. Every unit has its pros and cons. The most important thing is to put the hours in to perfect your skills and experience, especially when there’s problems.

One other thing is to find someone else that you can train and practice together. Having similar units will help.


I’m currently researching a chestmount unit for travel and caves. The ChOptima is not on the shortlist because it is so US centric; no CE approval nor support outside the US. The iQSub FX-CCR is imminently CE approved, is better supported and has more features, such as the orifice/needle valve and appears more robust with a long 4h scrubber duration (the ChOptima doesn’t specify scrubber time except for the very expensive and impossible to obtain ExtendAir cartridges).

The Triton is a manual unit with CE approval hasn’t changed much over the past ten years but is well regarded as a compact manual unit. Both the FX and Triton are fully enclosed which is important in mucky environments and both seem to be more rugged than the ChOptima.

Two others in the pipeline are the DiveTalk which is US only and quirky; the Halcyon Which will be international and CE approved in a couple of years or so.

Will be try diving the Triton and FX-CCR to make my decision. Can’t test the ChOptima as it is not sold nor supported in Europe.

 

[RedSix]

Most people have at least one significant event in the first hundred hours or so due to inexperience.

Most = more than 50%. Do you have an evidence for this?
At least in my bubble this isn't true. There it is below 20%, maybe even lower than 10%. And it often isn't caused by inexperience but complacency and/or diving a CCR without really understanding how it works.

 

[Wibble]

Most = more than 50%. Do you have an evidence for this?
At least in my bubble this isn't true. There it is below 20%, maybe even lower than 10%. And it often isn't caused by inexperience but complacency and/or diving a CCR without really understanding how it works.

Of course this is anecdotal.

Did you not have a complacency-related CCR incident during your novice period? Everything from screwing up your pre-jump checks (how many times have you left off your drysuit hose?), screwing up your bailouts, freeflows, buoyancy farts, not turning on valves, not testing your ADV, exploding hoses (e.g. where the second stage detatched from the LP hose because it wasn't checked), etc., etc.

My biggest and life-threatening incident was a full-on caustic caused by me being a blithering idiot. My bailout practice literally saved my life and had a peaceful OC deco ascent on bailout.

Of course, some divers will be perfect and never have issues. The rest of us -- the vast majority -- will learn by experience.

Some highly experienced rebreather divers still die through rookie errors.