Looking to Buy a Rebreather

[tbone1004]

WOW! very good input. Divers talk has me hooked lol. They dive KISS. I have nearly a 1000 dives under my belt and ready for more time

The guys on DiveTalk are good guys and have an entertaining show, but not what I would call expert divers, certainly not diversely experienced divers... I don't believe either of them have ever actually dove any other rebreathers than the KISS units they dive.

 

[SentinelAce]

The guys on DiveTalk are good guys and have an entertaining show, but not what I would call expert divers, certainly not diversely experienced divers... I don't believe either of them have ever actually dove any other rebreathers than the KISS units they dive.

They are pretty good divers. They do how ever explain if you listen to the show that they are not experts but just share stories. They even explain how they mess up and make a lot of mistakes. They have no EGOs what so ever. Great show

 

[tbone1004]

They are pretty good divers. They do how ever explain if you listen to the show that they are not experts but just share stories. They even explain how they mess up and make a lot of mistakes. They have no EGOs what so ever. Great show

so by your own statement above, why would you take their recommendations on rebreathers if they are not experts? I wouldn't recommend any of the KISS units as a first rebreather and it has nothing to do with them being leaky valves, I just don't think the base design of any of their units are ideal for open water diving for most divers and they aren't "cheap" so it's not like you can get into it for $5k instead of $10k.
All of the KISS units are between $9k-$10k by the time they are ready to dive. The O2ptima, Liberty, JJ, etc. are all in that price range so it was one thing back in the day when the KISS units were half the price of the others, but they are now in the same price bracket so you have to ask yourself if they really are the best unit for you.
Anyone who spends that kind of money is going to try to justify their purchase and speak highly of it because it was incredibly expensive, just keep that in mind when you are listening to people talk about rebreathers. I'll be the first to tell you the things I can't stand about any of my rebreathers but they are the best compromise given my set of criteria for diving them, but there is no perfect rebreather out there and anyone that says so isn't qualified to have you listening to them...

 

[SentinelAce]

so by your own statement above, why would you take their recommendations on rebreathers if they are not experts? I wouldn't recommend any of the KISS units as a first rebreather and it has nothing to do with them being leaky valves, I just don't think the base design of any of their units are ideal for open water diving for most divers and they aren't "cheap" so it's not like you can get into it for $5k instead of $10k.
All of the KISS units are between $9k-$10k by the time they are ready to dive. The O2ptima, Liberty, JJ, etc. are all in that price range so it was one thing back in the day when the KISS units were half the price of the others, but they are now in the same price bracket so you have to ask yourself if they really are the best unit for you.
Anyone who spends that kind of money is going to try to justify their purchase and speak highly of it because it was incredibly expensive, just keep that in mind when you are listening to people talk about rebreathers. I'll be the first to tell you the things I can't stand about any of my rebreathers but they are the best compromise given my set of criteria for diving them, but there is no perfect rebreather out there and anyone that says so isn't qualified to have you listening to them...

I am taking James Draker's not theirs. That's not what I meant lol

 

[broncobowsher]

FYI,
You can forget about caves for a while after getting a rebreather. Plenty of open water time to get with the buoyancy that you just lost and the added layers of task loading just added. There is a steep learning curve just dealing with the rebreather, without the complication of being in a cave. But your cave experience will get you through the CCR cave classes better.

 

[SentinelAce]

FYI,
You can forget about caves for a while after getting a rebreather. Plenty of open water time to get with the buoyancy that you just lost and the added layers of task loading just added. There is a steep learning curve just dealing with the rebreather, without the complication of being in a cave. But your cave experience will get you through the CCR cave classes better.

This is the plan. Gonna get comfortable first. Dove a kiss a few years back and it was hard has hell lol. What’s all involved in the class and what are the downsides of electronic that auto adds the o2? Why have mechanical? I know that’s how I will have to train but aren’t most people have it set to auto add the o2?

 

[davehicks]

I suggest that a mCCR with a leaky valve is the superior design. It is sort of "auto" in its way in that O2 is always flowing until the tank is empty, which may take 5+ hours from a full tank. It is very difficult to actually get to hypoxic mix on an mCCR. Beyond that there are few failure points in the system and no opportunity to build the bad habits of not managing your loop and letting the computer fly you into danger.

 

[SentinelAce]

I suggest that a mCCR with a leaky valve is the superior design. It is sort of "auto" in its way in that O2 is always flowing until the tank is empty, which may take 5+ hours from a full tank. It is very difficult to actually get to hypoxic mix on an mCCR. Beyond that there are few failure points in the system and no opportunity to build the bad habits of not managing your loop and letting the computer fly you into danger.

which one? Right now I am learning towards the XCCR

 

[tbone1004]

This is the plan. Gonna get comfortable first. Dove a kiss a few years back and it was hard has hell lol. What’s all involved in the class and what are the downsides of electronic that auto adds the o2? Why have mechanical? I know that’s how I will have to train but aren’t most people have it set to auto add the o2?

I suggest that a mCCR with a leaky valve is the superior design. It is sort of "auto" in its way in that O2 is always flowing until the tank is empty, which may take 5+ hours from a full tank. It is very difficult to actually get to hypoxic mix on an mCCR. Beyond that there are few failure points in the system and no opportunity to build the bad habits of not managing your loop and letting the computer fly you into danger.

the last fatality in Ginnie would beg to differ with that comment... It's quite easy to go hypoxic on a leaky valve if you are moving. Mine is set to my deco consumption which is what it should be, and if I am kicking around it will drop fairly rapidly. Obviously it drops slower the deeper you are, but at 100ft it drops about .1 every couple of minutes. The mCCR's are not a full parachute in that they can't sustain consciousness, they only delay the decay. While they are more simple by not having a solenoid and only have a direct connection to the monitors, they are vastly inferior in terms of their ability to have reliable dual displays compared to digital communication since the splitters have had all sorts of issues.

@SentinelAce if you take an eCCR course, you SHOULD spend most of the time on manual mode with the unit set into setpoint low *typically 0.7 ish*, and you will be asked to maintain a setpoint of something higher than that. In terms of what is done after the class, in cave diving especially you'd be surprised how few people tend to run them in full eCCR more. Reasons for that in cave diving is because we have a lot of depth changes so it can cause a lot of buoyancy issues. The only time I ever let my Meg run the show is when doing working scientific dives where we are at one depth for a long period of time and I need to be focusing on what my hands are doing. Photography/videography would be the same. I actually took a YBOD class last week with @LandonL and one of the required skills is actually changing setpoint from low to high. I typically run a setpoint of 1.0-1.1 and I had forgotten that the YBOD has a default of 1.3 for the high setpoint. I had neglected to change it during predive because I never planned on using it and Landon started laughing hysterically when I turned it to high setpoint and the solenoid starts going apesh!t and I started rising. I was alternating between blowing gas out of my nose while cursing at the computer and myself for being an idiot. Point of all of that is that if you were running a high setpoint and letting the unit drive and made some sort of ascent, it's going to start dumping O2 into the loop which can cause your buoyancy to go all over the place. You'll learn all of this in class, but it's something to be aware of.

The xCCR is just a glorified hammerhead, which was a Meg with a different brain, and now that the xCCR has DiveCAN, it's basically the same as a Meg. BUT it has bayonet connections *really nice* and a bayonet head *really nice*. Can't go wrong with it. It's not a unit I would personally choose these days, but I wouldn't be buying a backmount unit due to my current diving style.

 

[rjack321]

@nadwidny went hypoxic on his classic last year due to a clogged orifice. He's alive today due to an attentive buddy and immediate emergency care that was coincidentally on the beach.

mCCR is not "failure proof" and anyone who claims its safe (or 'safer' whatever that means) is full of hooey.