JJCCR or AP Inspiration

[rjack321]

Jackson Blue is a dream destination of mine.

You can easily dive JB on open circuit

 

[davehicks]

If you are going to get a CCR, you probably want to focus on diving it and not just occasionally. There is a real skill set and habits that you need to develop to dive these units safely.

 

[Nitrogenius]

Im looking to get certified on a CCR in about the next 2 yrs. Im looking in the future to get into cave diving and deco open water diving. Should i go JJ or Inspiration?

my answer:

Neither of those

As for your timeline: If you are looking into that in thenext 2 years, why not using that time to look at options..
Hint: your choice options are way too narrow at this point..

 

[Norseman1]

The answer is quite simple: You can do cave diving with both units, no problem. They are backmounted, so not for very tight restrictions. But both will do the job and both will work more or less the same.
The difference is just the brand. So you drive a Mercedes or a Vauxhall. Both will bring you from A to B. The rest is personal. So take the one that fits best in your opinion of availability for training and money.
I have done a lot of cavedives on my Inspiration.

Same here, I have dived an Inspiration from Eagles Nest (Super Room) to the Andrea Doria, very capable unit. The first time in each location was on the original electronics (Classic) more than 20 years ago. Time does fly!

 

[Germie]

You can easily dive JB on open circuit

True, you can also do Ginnie/Devis on oc, but sometimes a ccr makes things easier. And it is very nice to dive the Peackock tunnels in 4 hours on ccr without dragging a lot of bo because you are never far from an exit.

But you also must know that a ccr can be a very #$%#$^#$^machine. I requires more attention when setting it up and when everybody is drinking a beer after a dive, you are still cleaning that machine.
If you cannot find the rest to do this, then don't go ccr diving. And this advice means for every unit and every brand. A ccr needs a dedicated person.
And also if you are a beginner in ccr diving, you need to dive the unit almost every time. This means that it is more expensive than oc diving. Sorb is not cheap anymore, oxygen also not. During the dive you have to check things more often and different from oc diving.
And I can tell you that a CO2 hit (I got my first one after more than 1000 hours on the unit and already being instructor for ccr in cave and full trimix) is not nice, expecially not in overhead where I needed to swim out several 100's of meters. So it was not only the deco that was left, but also I had to use my legs to get out in a completely flooded drysuit. The headache lasted the whole rest of the day and the whole night.

People call the Inspiration the 'yellow box of death'. This was in the first years true, but the Inspiration was the first unit on the market for 'fun divers'. And a lot was not known. There was teached that you can dry the sorb by taking it out the scrubber after a dive and put it in again for the next dive. And such things will make from every unit a 'widowmaker'.

Further, if you really want to go for ccr, you are allowed to do a recreational CCR course, so an open water can do nowadays a ccr course. Sounds great, but I have had only 1 student who bought his ccr on an online marketplace and had just 39 dives and was only open water. This person was a very very high consumer of air (did not have a nitrox cert that time). So he thought a ccr would be the solution. As he did not knew what he bought and was an absolute beginner in diving I had to advice to bring the unit to a shop for service. The cells where too old, cylinders out of test, and further I could not see anything wrong with the unit. It was an almost brandnew unit, less than 10 hours on it, but had not been in the water for 2.5 years. So then officially you have to check everything. So I had to advice that as instructor. A lot of divers can service things themselves, this person not. So after 6 weeks he had the unit back, fresh new cells installed, new cylinder tests, all oxygen cleaned, first stages done, etc etc. But he still needed a nitrox cert. And wanted to do that with a club. Then he decided he needed a drysuit cert. So months went. I said remember, you can use the cells for 1 year. He said oh? They are expensive. Yes, true, but they don't have an unlimited livetime. It ended in that I only showed him how he had to set up his rebreather, he never went in the water with it. It was all too complicated. And 2.5 years later the unit was online for sale again with the story 'brand new'. I believe he lost over 3000 euro on it.
So yes, you can dive a ccr as a beginner, but I think it is for most divers too hard.

Another point if you ask advice about your first ccr: most instructors will advice the unit they dive and can teach on. Also the divers here will advice the unit they own.
The same happens when you want to buy a car, a lot of car owners prefer their own car of course.

I have certs for 9 different units, and I can say they all do their job. But some I prefer more than others. I really like my Sidekick for smaller caves, but absolutely not for deep trimixwreckdives. Then I absolutely prefer my Inspiration. But if I need to dive a JJ now on a deep wreck I won't say no. The same with a Megalodon, and even a Poseidon I will dive. It are just preferences. But I also can do deep trimix dives with my Sidekick, but then I lose 1 bo position, it is mCCR, the wob is worser than with my inspiration, and probably (or for sure) the orifice will quit putting oxygen in it around 90m.

But I can say from AP/Inspiration that even as instructor I have a question, I get an answer on my emails soon. Also they have registered the owners of their units (as long as you have a cert and let it serviced by them). This helped me with a unit for a student, the seller gave us a number and it was told by AP that this was for sure not the owner and this number was used a lot of times for scams.

So if you are not experienced, you can buy a ccr and dive it, but it will not be the easiest way I think.

 

[Wibble]

The better your core skills, the easier the transition is to CCR from OC. Similarly, if you've good experience with decompression diving on OC, CCR is far easier to master. Cave/overhead diving depends upon excellent core skills.

When you're ready to move to CCR you need to stick at it for all your diving as you really need to work at getting the hours in to hone your CCR skills. Say 200 hours to be competent and stable. Do not change your CCR unit in that time.

The choice of CCR's almost irrelevant provided it's a "standard" unit, such as the Inspo/JJ/Revo/Meg/etc. Most of your choice depends upon your personal circumstances -- diving with other people on the same unit for the many many hours of practice is a good reason for choosing such a unit.

Given that you're reporting to be a new diver (<24 dives), you've a very long way to go before this "choice" becomes a significant issue. You should focus on your core skills and learning deco procedures.