Inspiration Fatalities

[O-ring]

George Irvine/Bigot

Another one...

Buddy Inspiration/Dr. Kevorkian

 

[madmole]

Ah, another Americanism .

I had to go and look him up. His notoriety was a little overshadowed by our very own Dr Harold Shipman who managed about 260 folks

Personally I rate being 200m down a tight tube at 30m in absolute zero vis on twin side mounts a lot more risky than diving the yellow peril and I've been known to do that a few times

 

[Fetch]

madmole once bubbled...
In English (as opposed to American ), common use for "Regulator" means to fix a value. ie a speed regulator on a steam engine, or a pressure regulator on the Central heating (that vents above a certain pressure) or the Flow regulator on your HP hose.

An OC first stage does what? That's right, fixes flow from a tank at a certain pressure.

A second stage does what? That's right, steps down IP to ambient pressure.

Unfortunately, the OED as a yearly subscription service is unholily expensive, otherwise I'd just paste from there.

BTW, as far as I'm aware the BI uses 2 computers (in Master/Slave mode) and 3 O2 sensors (with proper voting). The computers themselves do not operate in a proper voting setup.

Now I'm arguing just for the sake of arguing, so I'll let you get the last word in.

jeff

 

[madmole]

OK, Last word on semantics

The pressure in the hose is controlled by the first stage to a value above ambient, and as ambient changes it's not fixed. The first stage IS a demand valve also. It only flows when the interstage pressure drops below a set value above ambient (normally 6-14 bar dependant on make). Like wise the second stage. The two stage drop allows for a smaller first stage. In the good old days of twin hoses, a ruddy great 6" diaphragm (a giant second stage) was the whole release mechanism and the pressure you breathed varied a lot based on how hard you sucked and your angle in the water. Things have improved a lot nowadays. Anyway we are chasing semantics

The Inspiration does indeed have 3 sensors, and two handsets. We can ignore one handset as it will be the slave and taking no part in the control system unless the Master dies or is switched off. When calibrated, each cell recieves its own calibration factor and each cell is monitored and displayed. The voting logic is easy to understand
Handset finds the two closest reading sensors and averages their readings ie the majority vote wins. I agree that this is possibly not the best algorythm in the world.

Its purpose is to ignore a cell thats maybe faulty or drifting. If a single cell drifts more that 0.1 bar out then warnings sound and display, allowing you to abort the dive, while still using the remaining two cells to control the unit. The unit still functions fully and many would continue their current dive in this condition. Personally I have a 4th cell fitted for my VR3 so I can also correlate with this. An out of range cell on the surface when calibrating or going into dive mode, will not allow the unit to go to dive mode until you correct the problem

Unfortunately their are some failure modes in which more than one cell could fail. A good example would be 2 old cells that no longer have sufficient electrolite to reach the output required for 1.3 bar of PP02. in which case they would calibrate fine at the surface, but at a depth of greater than 3 m would not be able to respond to a 1.3 bar PO2 (they would indicate a lower value) as 2 of the cells are in rough agreement the 3rd good cell would be outvoted and ignored resulting in continous injection of O2 leading onto an O2 convultion. There would be no warning alarm or indication in this case. However this is easily prevented by
a) replacing the cells at yearly intervals (they are rated to 18-24 months constatnt use)
b) listening to the solenoid firing (you get a good feel for how often it should fire, once every 6 seconds would be very suspicious)
c) All inspiration users should do a quick test apon reaching the bottom, you inject O2 to take the PPO2 to 1.6 bar quickly, this verifies all cells can respond fully in the range we need
d) You can do a diluent flush at any time to bring the O2 to a known value regarless of electronics.

Needless to say that if at any time during a dive you are suspicious of the PPO2 you should bail out to OC and abort. As the saying goes "Know your PPO2 at ALL times".

Hope thats made it clear how it works and not confused everyone

 

[O-ring]

Ah, another Americanism. I had to go and look him up.

Dang...forgot you were on the other side of the pond. I should have used:

Buddy Inspiration/Suicide Bomber Pack

Now I'm arguing just for the sake of arguing

Jeff, me too...always

Unfortunately their are some failure modes in which more than one cell could fail. A good example would be 2 old cells that no longer have sufficient electrolite to reach the output required for 1.3 bar of PP02. in which case they would calibrate fine at the surface, but at a depth of greater than 3 m would not be able to respond to a 1.3 bar PO2 (they would indicate a lower value) as 2 of the cells are in rough agreement the 3rd good cell would be outvoted and ignored resulting in continous injection of O2 leading onto an O2 convultion. There would be no warning alarm or indication in this case. However this is easily prevented by
a) replacing the cells at yearly intervals (they are rated to 18-24 months constatnt use)
b) listening to the solenoid firing (you get a good feel for how often it should fire, once every 6 seconds would be very suspicious)
c) All inspiration users should do a quick test apon reaching the bottom, you inject O2 to take the PPO2 to 1.6 bar quickly, this verifies all cells can respond fully in the range we need
d) You can do a diluent flush at any time to bring the O2 to a known value regarless of electronics.

Is this stuff all covered in the classes for the Buddy? I am just wondering if all the BI users have your level of expertise, thoroughness in planning, and solid understanding of basic diving principles (or does the Buddy cull them from the herd so to speak)? Sounds to me like most of the deaths on these things can be attributed to solo diving or same ocean buddy diving.

 

[madmole]

It should be covered. Although it is not all in the Inspiration manaual. Like OC scuba training most of what you learn and practice is for when it goes wrong.

I think one of the problems is that the unit works too well and people get complacent. How many OC divers do a complete buddy check after a few years?

I was luckyin that I did my Training with dave Thompson, the units designer and I was determined to get every bit of knowledge anmd insight from him during my time with him

I can see that those that expect to just turn up, do a weeks training while on holiday and take away a unit could easily come unstuck

 

[roakey]

Since the claim has already been made that George Irvine is a bigot, I guess it won't hurt to post some recent mail from DIR/Quest where he gives the inspiration both barrels.

Might explain why the deaths/unit rate on the thing is so astronomically high versus OC, ESPECIALLY when you limit the sample to experienced divers.

Roak

=====================================

From: "George Irvine" <girvine@bellsouth.net>
To: "Quest@Gue. Com" <quest@gue.com>
Subject: Desperation Rebreather - shovel and all
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 16:33:46 -0400


Since those who do not know want to make an issue of me not being willing to
waste my time talking about why elephants can't fly, I will waste all of
your time with this one to get at those who keep recommending the Buddy
Inspiration, and who apparently have an agenda with this thing and other
shade tree rebreathers out there.


Besides all the failure modes common to all rebreathers, like if the
mushrooms in the mouthpiece malfunction and take the diver hypercapnic or
hypoxic right away, or a loop hose failure, etc, the Desperation has its own
plethora of problems idiosyncratic to the unit. Other units have many of the
same issues, and almost all of the civilian rebreathers are poor excuses for
anything other than assisted suicide devices. In fact, most are merely
copies of each others bad ideas, and most are poorly funded , poorly
capitalized, poorly tested and otherwise poorly conceived wet dreams. The
Halcyon is a clever device, made more clever by Reinhard Buchaly, but is
still a dangerous piece of "kit", whereas the Buddy is a dangerous piece of
"****".


I will talk about the Inspiration Rebreather as it comes from the factory.
There are many ways to modify the rebreather as one may observe on the Star
Wars Bar Scene lists like "rebreather@nwdesigns.com" and is a complete topic
onto itself. I will stick to
the basics here and leave the "fix it at home" mods to the die hards on the
other lists.


There is a small metal screw inside the oxygen sensor compartment, it is
located directly across from sensor number two. Condensation often forms on
this metal screw and will allow droplets to fall onto the oxygen sensors.
This will happen particularly if the diver moves from side to side as in
dumping gas from a drysuit or if they invert from horizontal for any
reason.


Condensation is inherently found within this area and will form on the
oxygen sensors even without this metal catalyst. The O2 sensors are located
on the inhalation side of the breathing loop, so you have warm gas that
just
went through the scrubbing process meeting with cooler gas that you will
inhale thus the condensation forming on the cell faces. This condensation
causes discrepancies/inaccuracies within the cell readings and they begin
to
VOTE trying to figure out which one is more than .2 bar out of line with
the
other. Cell warnings will manifest within this period of time and the diver
will begin to get audible and visual alarms ...task loading increases.


The unit alarms if it senses a PO2 over 1.6, which is a good thing. Problem
with this is that many of the divers will run 100% oxygen at 20 ft which is
a PO2 of 1.6, if they drop below the 20 ft they get an alarm, fair enough.
If you have several Inspiration divers in close proximity with cell warning
alarms, and high PO2 alarms it becomes very difficult to know if the alarm
is coming from your unit or from another diver. Some will be able to
assimilate this to being in an area where several cellular phones begin to
ring and everyone pulls out their phone to see if it was theirs. Mix this
with CCR divers using wrist computers that alarm and you really have an
orchestra playing down there, so much for the peace and tranquility of "no
bubbles".



Weight must be placed on the top of the rebreather in order to balance the
trim. If divers put to much gas in the counter lungs the upper body is
lifted and trim is then off center. Gas in a counter lung is just another
source to administrate, along with drysuit, BCD, PO2 on handsets, pressure
in O2 and DIL cylinders.



Many divers use the Inspiration to extend their times in open ocean, this
in
itself may pose problems. If the decompression gained by the increased
bottom times is met with undesirable conditions such as rough seas it is
not
so easy to adjust buoyancy as with breathing open circuit. Many of the
buoyancy characteristics involved with rebreathers require a longer
learning
curve and must be anticipated, if the diver is not up to par they are much
less forgiving than OC. If the constant PO2 is increased or decreased too
quickly due to unforeseen circumstances the diver could quickly become
hypoxic/hyperoxic.



Mouthpiece does not have OC bailout built into it, bailout is a time of
increased stress so it is pertinent the transition should be smooth without
chance for a mistake. The bailout procedure on the factory unit uses a
device called an Auto Air, this duals as a breathing device and BCD
inflator. I couldn't imagine this being an effective tool for gas sharing,
nor proper bail out for the user either, as the CCR mouthpiece has to be
effectively closed before the transition to OC bailout is performed or it
will flood the breathing loop making the diver negatively buoyant. Bail out
should be in the form of a combination unit on the mouthpiece to facilitate
safe transition.


If the O-ring on top of the cartridge lid is dirty or not aligned properly
CO2 will take the path of least resistance and bypass the carbon dioxide
scrubber therefore breathed back into the loop. Hypercapnia begins and the
diver is faced with another problem to solve.


As the diver descends they must equalize the counter lungs, if this
procedure is not adhered to and they begin an uncontrolled descent the
lungs
collapse and the diver is not able to breath, an automatic diluent add is
an
aftermarket product which does combat this. But since we are talking
factory
here the diver is faced with equalizing counter lungs, ears, sinuses, mask
drysuit, BCD, monitoring PO2 on handsets, buddy position, light and depth
in
the water column. It has been mentioned before that this is "a busy time".


Inspiration does not have SS backplate and utilizes many plastic fastex
clips, which some view as failure points. There are seven quick releases on
the soft harness including the crotch strap and handset clips. The clips
that hold the yellow casing lid on the unit break frequently so spares are
required as well.



Often difficult to transport with Sofnolime, if you do not have an MSDS on
your person you will be declined, even if you do have the Material Safety
Data Sheet on hand and the handler does not feel comfortable with the issue
they will not let the scrubber material on the plane. Most Inspiration
divers seek out "Inspiration friendly dive Centers" so they are able to
obtain the wide array of parts required to service and maintain.


The oxygen sensors are proprietary to the Inspiration which limits the
diversity on this product. Many of the CCR's will allow various types of
sensors to be used but not so the case with Inspiration's and it is
strongly
voiced by Martin Parker. Patrick Duffy with Oxycheq in the US sells similar
sensors and says there is absolutely no difference between the Teledyne's
he
sells and the Inspiration sensors.


Scrubber canister is small (2.45 Kg of 8-12 mesh, 797 diving grade
sofnolime) and does not facilitate the use many of the mixed gas
Inspiration divers put it through. At depth CO2 breakthrough is rapid even
with a resting diver, if breathing resistance is elevated the scrubber is
near void. With increased CO2 build up the diver is of course exposing
oneself to further malady. Diving high helium concentrations assist with
this problem as it is less dense than air, easier to breath therefore less
CO2 buildup and the scrubber should last longer but it is playing on the
edge. High PPN2 should be ultimately avoided.


If counter lungs are not situated adequately they will float above the
divers shoulders and increase breathing resistance. It is taught in the
basic course to watch for this ... But they are clipped down with fastex
buckles which as we know do fail on occasion. With the diver already quite
task loaded on the CCR it is easy not to notice the lung has crept up, CO2
will then increase from breathing resistance.


The LP hoses which feed the diluent and the oxygen inlets on the counter
lungs use a different end than the BCD inflator. The BCD is inflated with
Diluent gas, the same which you are adding into the counter lung, there is
no sound reason not to have the same end on this for diversity. The reason
the end is different on the BCD inflator is to supply a greater amount of
gas to the Auto Air regulator used as a bailout/inflation device. This Auto
Air is prone to free flow situations and can dump the diluent gas if not
tended to quick enough. Most Inspirations divers discard this Auto Air
early
into their CCR career.


If both handsets shut off in the water the diver is faced with a series of
questions in order to "reboot" the system. One of the questions ask if you
would like to calibrate "yes or no" if the diver is stressed and chooses
"yes" they will effectively be adding 100% oxygen into the breathing loop
no
matter what depth they are at in the water column.


If the battery is low it will not supply enough EMF for the oxygen solenoid
to open the valve and add life sustaining gas.


The control handsets are secured to the canister via rubber hose, the
wiring
is run through this conduit down to the electronic handsets that are
monitoring the dynamics of the oxygen sensors. These rubber conduits enter
into the scrubber/O2 sensor compartment where it is humid and if not
perfectly sealed will allow condensation to migrate into the hose and wreak
havoc with the electronics in the handsets. Many electronic problems with
the handsets have involved this scenario.


See Mike Pizzios complaints on techdiver, see the archives of techdiver for
info on the Dsperation, see the UK coroner for what the bottom line on this
thing is. My take? "needs to be sold with a shovel".



---------------------------------------------------------------------
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[madmole]

I've just got to respond to this

roakey once bubbled...
Since the claim has already been made that George Irvine is a bigot, I guess it won't hurt to post some recent mail from DIR/Quest where he gives the inspiration both barrels.

Might explain why the deaths/unit rate on the thing is so astronomically high versus OC, ESPECIALLY when you limit the sample to experienced divers.

Roak

=====================================

Funnily enough the Halcyon unit has sold 80 and had 1 fatality the Inspiration has sold about 5000 with 14 fatalitys. thatgs makes the Halcyin unit about 8 times worse!!!!

Wrom: JMVRESKPNKMBIPBARHDMNNSKVFVWRKJVZCMHVIBG
To: "Quest@Gue. Com" <quest@gue.com>
Subject: Desperation Rebreather - shovel and all
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 16:33:46 -0400


Since those who do not know want to make an issue of me not being willing to
waste my time talking about why elephants can't fly, I will waste all of
your time with this one to get at those who keep recommending the Buddy
Inspiration, and who apparently have an agenda with this thing and other
shade tree rebreathers out there.


Besides all the failure modes common to all rebreathers, like if the
mushrooms in the mouthpiece malfunction and take the diver hypercapnic or
hypoxic right away, or a loop hose failure, etc, the Desperation has its own
plethora of problems idiosyncratic to the unit. Other units have many of the
same issues, and almost all of the civilian rebreathers are poor excuses for
anything other than assisted suicide devices. In fact, most are merely
copies of each others bad ideas, and most are poorly funded , poorly
capitalized, poorly tested and otherwise poorly conceived wet dreams. The
Halcyon is a clever device, made more clever by Reinhard Buchaly, but is
still a dangerous piece of "kit", whereas the Buddy is a dangerous piece of
"****".


I will talk about the Inspiration Rebreather as it comes from the factory.
There are many ways to modify the rebreather as one may observe on the Star
Wars Bar Scene lists like "rebreather@nwdesigns.com" and is a complete topic
onto itself. I will stick to
the basics here and leave the "fix it at home" mods to the die hards on the
other lists.


There is a small metal screw inside the oxygen sensor compartment, it is
located directly across from sensor number two. Condensation often forms on
this metal screw and will allow droplets to fall onto the oxygen sensors.
This will happen particularly if the diver moves from side to side as in
dumping gas from a drysuit or if they invert from horizontal for any
reason.

Who swims on their backs??? which it what youd have to do to get this to happen

Condensation is inherently found within this area and will form on the
oxygen sensors even without this metal catalyst. The O2 sensors are located
on the inhalation side of the breathing loop, so you have warm gas that
just
went through the scrubbing process meeting with cooler gas that you will
inhale thus the condensation forming on the cell faces. This condensation
causes discrepancies/inaccuracies within the cell readings and they begin
to
VOTE trying to figure out which one is more than .2 bar out of line with
the
other. Cell warnings will manifest within this period of time and the diver
will begin to get audible and visual alarms ...task loading increases.

Dont know about you George, but I'd definately want to be measureing the Oxygen level somewhere between where it was mixed and me breathing it. Where else are you going to put it ? (up your arse hopefully as thats where all the hot gas is) . have you ever seen an actual unit. The sensor have PTFE coatings so water CAN NOT sit on them, it just runs off. At least we have PPO2 monitoring unlike some units

The unit alarms if it senses a PO2 over 1.6, which is a good thing. Problem
with this is that many of the divers will run 100% oxygen at 20 ft which is
a PO2 of 1.6, if they drop below the 20 ft they get an alarm, fair enough.
If you have several Inspiration divers in close proximity with cell warning
alarms, and high PO2 alarms it becomes very difficult to know if the alarm
is coming from your unit or from another diver. Some will be able to
assimilate this to being in an area where several cellular phones begin to
ring and everyone pulls out their phone to see if it was theirs. Mix this
with CCR divers using wrist computers that alarm and you really have an
orchestra playing down there, so much for the peace and tranquility of "no
bubbles".

If I want 100% O2 I'd use an OC reg on the thing. This shows GI doesn't understand rebreathers. having been on a very high PPO2 for the WHOLE, and LONG dive, most people with brain cells dont actually want to be on 100% as they are at this point near their CNS limits. 80-90% is high enough

Weight must be placed on the top of the rebreather in order to balance the
trim. If divers put to much gas in the counter lungs the upper body is
lifted and trim is then off center. Gas in a counter lung is just another
source to administrate, along with drysuit, BCD, PO2 on handsets, pressure
in O2 and DIL cylinders.

No must about it. Different divers prefer different attitudes. if you dive with minimum loop vol (as you should) theis isi not a problem. Hey George, how does the Halcyon unit store its gas then if not in a counterlung

Many divers use the Inspiration to extend their times in open ocean, this

yep, 3 hours at 20m with no stops!!!

in
itself may pose problems. If the decompression gained by the increased
bottom times is met with undesirable conditions such as rough seas it is
not
so easy to adjust buoyancy as with breathing open circuit. Many of the
buoyancy characteristics involved with rebreathers require a longer
learning
curve and must be anticipated, if the diver is not up to par they are much
less forgiving than OC. If the constant PO2 is increased or decreased too
quickly due to unforeseen circumstances the diver could quickly become
hypoxic/hyperoxic.

Let me see air in dry suit and counterlung on CCR and Drysuit and BC on OC. Why is this different. And this task loading from a God like you who can manage 2 scooters and 20 stage cylinders at once

Mouthpiece does not have OC bailout built into it, bailout is a time of
increased stress so it is pertinent the transition should be smooth without
chance for a mistake. The bailout procedure on the factory unit uses a
device called an Auto Air, this duals as a breathing device and BCD
inflator. I couldn't imagine this being an effective tool for gas sharing,
nor proper bail out for the user either, as the CCR mouthpiece has to be
effectively closed before the transition to OC bailout is performed or it
will flood the breathing loop making the diver negatively buoyant. Bail out
should be in the form of a combination unit on the mouthpiece to facilitate
safe transition.

I can fit one of the built in mouthpieces if I want to. But why would I. George, you have limited your bailout options. How do you swap mixes on OC bailout is they all have to come through the one DV? I can carry bail out or borrow from my buddy. They all have their own DV's

Also the Auto air exceeds all the CE tests for a regulator (something that many "normal" regulators failed to do. You dont have to use it if you dont want to. It does NOT free flow if the thing is serviced and the interstage pressure is corectly set

If the O-ring on top of the cartridge lid is dirty or not aligned properly
CO2 will take the path of least resistance and bypass the carbon dioxide
scrubber therefore breathed back into the loop. Hypercapnia begins and the
diver is faced with another problem to solve.

Thats why you clean it and check it before each dive. ALL dive equipment has O rings that it would be nasty for them to leak, including your beloved halcyon

As the diver descends they must equalize the counter lungs, if this
procedure is not adhered to and they begin an uncontrolled descent the
lungs
collapse and the diver is not able to breath, an automatic diluent add is
an
aftermarket product which does combat this. But since we are talking
factory
here the diver is faced with equalizing counter lungs, ears, sinuses, mask
drysuit, BCD, monitoring PO2 on handsets, buddy position, light and depth
in
the water column. It has been mentioned before that this is "a busy time".

Funny that a British woman has just been to 520ft without an ADv and her lungs didn't "Collapse" maybe you should attend some basic scuba lessons. Also you can feel the squeez easily. the task loading is only that for the first couple of dives, before you master it

Inspiration does not have SS backplate and utilizes many plastic fastex
clips, which some view as failure points. There are seven quick releases on
the soft harness including the crotch strap and handset clips. The clips
that hold the yellow casing lid on the unit break frequently so spares are
required as well.

Agreed on the backplate. The fittings however are usual AP vlaves ones that easily stand up to the rigours of diving (and UK cave diving, which is far more hostile thanyour great holes). As for the clips. Mine are 2 years old and fine. A spare comes with the units, but they are actually a LOT stronger than they look.

Often difficult to transport with Sofnolime, if you do not have an MSDS on
your person you will be declined, even if you do have the Material Safety
Data Sheet on hand and the handler does not feel comfortable with the issue
they will not let the scrubber material on the plane. Most Inspiration
divers seek out "Inspiration friendly dive Centers" so they are able to
obtain the wide array of parts required to service and maintain.

Same for all scrubber material in all rebreather. Most of us carry our own spares. What we want to know is if we can buy Scrubber there rather than have to transport it and can we get an O2 fill. You wouldn't know about such things, as you only dive your nice comfy Waukala hole. the rest of us like to dive in different sites

The oxygen sensors are proprietary to the Inspiration which limits the
diversity on this product. Many of the CCR's will allow various types of
sensors to be used but not so the case with Inspiration's and it is
strongly
voiced by Martin Parker. Patrick Duffy with Oxycheq in the US sells similar
sensors and says there is absolutely no difference between the Teledyne's
he
sells and the Inspiration sensors.

You can put whatever sensors you like in the unit. The warranty and CE approval is only valid if you use the correct ones. Doesn't the halcyon manufacturer sell cells. Oh, I forgot, its never undergone any third party testing or approval. The Inspiration meets all European safety standards for Personal Protective Equipment, including breathing resistance, reliabilty, Scrubber duration and breakthrough, and has been independantly tested to gain this

Scrubber canister is small (2.45 Kg of 8-12 mesh, 797 diving grade
sofnolime) and does not facilitate the use many of the mixed gas
Inspiration divers put it through. At depth CO2 breakthrough is rapid even
with a resting diver, if breathing resistance is elevated the scrubber is
near void. With increased CO2 build up the diver is of course exposing
oneself to further malady. Diving high helium concentrations assist with
this problem as it is less dense than air, easier to breath therefore less
CO2 buildup and the scrubber should last longer but it is playing on the
edge. High PPN2 should be ultimately avoided.

Scrubber duration is what it says it is, 3 hours. this has been tested by offical agencies under high CO2 output and flow conditions. No other rb has been tested this way. If you choose to extend the duration, thats your life. Has the halcyon been tested,like this, No, its duration is based on the "GI got 5 hours out of it last week" method

Also the people in the US who have bben complaining about breakthrough are not using the approved Sofnolime, but medical scrubber that has widely different properties (Moisture content is far higher for one), funnily its these same people who have condesation problems

If counter lungs are not situated adequately they will float above the
divers shoulders and increase breathing resistance. It is taught in the
basic course to watch for this ... But they are clipped down with fastex
buckles which as we know do fail on occasion. With the diver already quite
task loaded on the CCR it is easy not to notice the lung has crept up, CO2
will then increase from breathing resistance.

A 1 or 2 incgh movement will make SOD all difference. But has anyone broken an AP fitting??? yes iyt does have lots of quick releases, so that when you are hanging on the side of a UK dive boat in a swell and current, trying to get up a swinging ladder you can dump it quick and pull it in afterwards. Something the DIR, one piece straight jacket people cant do

The LP hoses which feed the diluent and the oxygen inlets on the counter
lungs use a different end than the BCD inflator. The BCD is inflated with
Diluent gas, the same which you are adding into the counter lung, there is
no sound reason not to have the same end on this for diversity.

ytes there is and your about to give it

The reason
the end is different on the BCD inflator is to supply a greater amount of
gas to the Auto Air regulator used as a bailout/inflation device. This Auto
Air is prone to free flow situations and can dump the diluent gas if not
tended to quick enough. Most Inspirations divers discard this Auto Air
early
into their CCR career.

crap, a few very vocal ones do. The vast majority continue to use it. Personal preference, oh I forgot you are the kit Police and we MUST wear what you approve. GI you have NO experiance of UK open water conditions and Caves at all. I dont tell you what to wear in your gin palace caverns and you shouldn't tell me what to wear in conditions youve never experianced. the DIR kit is NOT suitable at all in many of them and would get you killed very quickly in most UK caves

If both handsets shut off in the water the diver is faced with a series of
questions in order to "reboot" the system. One of the questions ask if you
would like to calibrate "yes or no" if the diver is stressed and chooses
"yes" they will effectively be adding 100% oxygen into the breathing loop
no
matter what depth they are at in the water column.

Why would you shut off both handsets. Do I worry about you turning off both of your twinsets, no, you wouldn't do it, neither will I turn off both handsets.

Anyway I can turn them on again.

Oh a FACT for you. YOU CANNOT CALIBRATE A CURRENT ISNPIRTION UNDERWATER. the electronics prevent you

If the battery is low it will not supply enough EMF for the oxygen solenoid
to open the valve and add life sustaining gas.

if the battery is low, it gives a low battery warning and you can swap the handsets over. you can also fly it manually. batteryu warning comes on a long time before there is not enough power to fire the solenoid. thats why we have redundant power supllies and controllers

The control handsets are secured to the canister via rubber hose, the
wiring
is run through this conduit down to the electronic handsets that are
monitoring the dynamics of the oxygen sensors. These rubber conduits enter
into the scrubber/O2 sensor compartment where it is humid and if not
perfectly sealed will allow condensation to migrate into the hose and wreak
havoc with the electronics in the handsets. Many electronic problems with
the handsets have involved this scenario.

The handsets require being at ambient pressure and so HAVE to have the open cable. the handset problems are NOT due to this, but more due to the fact they are longer than the unit and so can get squashed, crushed and swung about. Normally while in air freight

See Mike Pizzios complaints on techdiver, see the archives of techdiver for
info on the Dsperation, see the UK coroner for what the bottom line on this
thing is. My take? "needs to be sold with a shovel".

The UK coroner was not aware of many facts, and had no advice from the manufacturer, The statistics were made up by someone claiming compensation and are not true. bit like most of your complaints

The only thing that George has got right IMOA is that Solo rebreather divers seem to get exactly what they deserve

If you want facts go take a look at the Inspiration accident reports on]Diver Mole

George, when you are Inspiration trained and an owner you can pass comments on something you know about. Until then stop behaving like a novice commenting on advanced Trimix Diving. Better still why dont you come over here to England for a week or two and I'll take you on some real open water dives and some cave dives. Feel free to bring you DIR kit. We will see how much of it you are still wearing after a trip in Mersham Mines and a trip to sump 12 at Swildons Hole. Then we can do some nice wrecks on the south coast from the hard boat and RIB (No Scooters)

 

[O-ring]

That was over on quest...thanks for the crosspost, Roak. Madmole - you should take that up with GI...his email address is:

trey@myacc.net

 

[madmole]

No point

"There are none so blind as those that WONT see"

I've offered Trey a trip over here before, but the guy only takes on arguments remotely. He needs to be careful as from what he has written APD would have a very good Slander case against him if he ever sets foot in Europe