Inflator Hose Routing

[victorzamora]

So essentially the same configuration minus the whacky no turret 1st stages.

Pretty close. I use MUCH shorter inflator hoses than tbone does, and he uses a 9ft hose instead of a 7ft hose (he's 6'3" and I'm 6'6", so 7ft just is barely enough...it's not nearly enough without the turret). Also, he's started routing his long hose behind his head and hanging on his left shoulder. I don't much like that for a few reasons, but it works well for him and he can donate quickly and easily (my only concerns). But he has reversy-upside-downsie regs, and swapping the hose to left-input on the second stage (like on my Dive Rite second stages) wouldn't fix it because the long hose routing when in single-file would be suboptimal.

My current routing is similar to the "standard" Razor/Stealth routing but with the inflators not on fifth-ports.

Up or down orientation on spg's and 1st's?

I've been using 1st stages up and SPGs back, a la Razor, for about 18months but I'm looking at switching it back. My tanks are riding notably higher than they were when I switched and I'm contemplating the switch back to lolipopped SPGs and first-stages down. The centerline of my tanks is on my body centerline, a few inches higher than the Razor/Stealth guys run theirs. It makes reaching my gauges that much harder, and would make lollipopped gauges that much flatter. When properly configured, first stages down presents no more danger than first stages up and lollipopped SPGs provide no more entanglement hazard or cave-impact potential than the "SPGs-back" style routing.

I've got a number of rigs here. Been diving a stealth tec the last few weeks with nearly the same configuration on lp85's without any real issue. My biggest problem with the stealth really is the awful dump placement, but that's what I signed up for when I got it.

Yeah, there's literally no reason why the Stealth would have any impact on your hose routing.

Also, I've been trying to guilt tbone into taking a cave country trip for months. Help me keep pestering him.

 

[Patoux01]

Well have a look at what all known guys are doing with the stealth... Would they all be wrong?

 

[sphyon]

Pretty close. I use MUCH shorter inflator hoses than tbone does, and he uses a 9ft hose instead of a 7ft hose (he's 6'3" and I'm 6'6", so 7ft just is barely enough...it's not nearly enough without the turret). Also, he's started routing his long hose behind his head and hanging on his left shoulder. I don't much like that for a few reasons, but it works well for him and he can donate quickly and easily (my only concerns). But he has reversy-upside-downsie regs, and swapping the hose to left-input on the second stage (like on my Dive Rite second stages) wouldn't fix it because the long hose routing when in single-file would be suboptimal.

My current routing is similar to the "standard" Razor/Stealth routing but with the inflators not on fifth-ports.


I've been using 1st stages up and SPGs back, a la Razor, for about 18months but I'm looking at switching it back. My tanks are riding notably higher than they were when I switched and I'm contemplating the switch back to lolipopped SPGs and first-stages down. The centerline of my tanks is on my body centerline, a few inches higher than the Razor/Stealth guys run theirs. It makes reaching my gauges that much harder, and would make lollipopped gauges that much flatter. When properly configured, first stages down presents no more danger than first stages up and lollipopped SPGs provide no more entanglement hazard or cave-impact potential than the "SPGs-back" style routing.


Yeah, there's literally no reason why the Stealth would have any impact on your hose routing.

Also, I've been trying to guilt tbone into taking a cave country trip for months. Help me keep pestering him.

Yeah I am finding that 1st's down with lollipopped SPG's is presenting no real entanglement or clearance issues. It's really just getting the hose routing streamlined and stopping the 5th ports from digging into my ribs that I am obsessing over.

@tbone1004 What's the point of work if you can't live a little? You could be eating breakfast at the Country Store and looking at Wet Rocks all day!

Well have a look at what all known guys are doing with the stealth... Would they all be wrong?

I am not saying that Stealth operators are wrong, rather that there is more than one way to configure that specific rig with equally effective results. Hell, Sebastian was the one who recommended I use standard loops with mine in the first place. How do you configure your specific rig, @Patoux01 ?

 

[tbone1004]

@sphyon I've been in England for most of the last 2 months than I've been home, though I did get 3 days in cave country while I was home so was quite happy. I'll be here for another 2 weeks, then teaching OWT with NC State for the two weeks after that. Cave Country unfortunately won't be until June which is immensely depressing, but current job gives me oodles of time off, so in the fall I should be down more regularly.

@victorzamora I should have some Deep6 regs coming in here shortly so they're likely going to get swapped out. For everyone else curious, my long hose is run basically mirror image of my short hose, and I can donate just as fast as a hog loop which is nice. I prefer it not crossing my chest, but it really should only be done with regulators that are not sided, i.e. Poseidons, Hollis 500se, Oceanic Omega's, etc. If you do it with a reversed Apeks XTX, Dive Rite XT, or anything else that can be swapped to the other side, it causes a cross under the diver when sharing air which is not good.
The only justification for turrets is to not allow a kink to form in the long hose when sharing air. Only advantage of using the fifth ports on the bottom of them is because the drysuit hose won't flip up when you end up sharing air.

@Patoux01 if you are going to say that my hose routing is wrong and suboptimal, and only justify it by saying that because all of the stealth guys do it, it must be right, then I frankly have to disregard anything you contribute to this thread. What you have just proven is that your opinions are based on blind trust and not on understanding and comprehension. This removes all credibility from your comments. If you have some real information that want to use to critique the why with regards to my hose routing being "wrong" then please bring it to the table as I always want to entertain others opinions and experience. That said, telling me that it is wrong because all of these Stealth guys are mimicking what was done by Steve Boegarts 10 years ago which requires custom sized hoses and is truly restricted to use on that style of rig, then I'm going to continue to dismiss your comments.

The rigging above is truly universal and works perfectly fine with any rig on the market. When the first stages are placed where they are on my rig and not chest mounted like the single bungee will place them, the fifth port is completely useless at it points directly into your rib cage. The low pressure inflator hose in this instance goes directly into the inflator. Now that my tanks are mostly stabilized, I will be ordering another hose of that length for use with my drysuit which is one of @victorzamora 's issues that was addressed by using standard length drysuit hoses. That was mainly stemmed from having quite a few of them and "making it work" with what I had at the time. It was low priority to get it perfect since I hadn't settled on the location of my tanks and orientation of my valves which would cause a bit of an issue if my drysuit inflator was too short.

 

[Patoux01]

How do you configure your specific rig, @Patoux01 ?

Well, both inflators are almost exactly in line with the 5th port, hence why we use the 5th ports on our regs to feed those.
If I don't have access to 5th port, inflator hoses go down and then up again after having been through the hose retainer.
If I'm diving single tank drysuit, then it gets messy and without a 5th port that turns into a bloody mess. Drysuit and long hose down, inflator off 5th port, short hose up. If I don't have the 5th port, then inflator goes up but that's not gonna be as clean as the 5th port.

People have been able to dive "properly" with aqualung Legends in sidemount, I did it with Apeks FST (and standard rec length hoses, with a drysuit), that doesn't mean they're the best, definitely not.

These 2 pictures should illustrate almost perfectly why "one routing doesn't fit all rigs". (although mine's a bit lower than on that picture)