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- I'm a Fish!
When we talk about pricing on these, we are talking about a 4-pin Petrel primary and hud. This is to get it "close" to the way the eCCR's come standard from the factory. Yes I know the 4-pin is more expensive, no I do not think that hardwired controllers or fischer cables are an intelligent decision. The DiveCAN's are all using SubConns so we have to use it to compare properly, but more important to that the hardwires are prone to corrosion up the cable which means sending the entire head back for a cable replacement which is egregiously expensive and time consuming, and Fischer cables are not actually fit for purpose in a rebreather environment and need to go the way of the dodo ASAP. Unfortunately @Shearwater is not supporting conversion of older units since they do not allow dealers to purchase the 4-pin variants of the Petrel/NERD so those of us with Fischer cables are stuck with them unless we go to another brand. So much for supporting rebreather divers, but whatever that's their business choice. I am glad they came out with the 4-pin since Revo has been using them for many years, but it is a shame they only sell them to the manufacturers as many of us would gladly get the new units to convert ours but if we don't have a KISS or a Revo we can't do anything about it. Rant over, sore subject if you couldn't tell, but point is the 4-pin is infinitely better than the Fischer or Hardwired, and you also need to add a HUD as most agencies require a secondary device for training and all the other rebreathers come with them as standard.Can you elaborate more on this for the kiss ones please?
Also note that KISS pricing is very misleading because you actually need to fully configure the rebreather which means adding tanks, first stages as appropriate, oxygen sensors *which are an option and not standard*, and bp/wing *backplate comes with some of them since they are custom, but no wings*.
Classic-No real objection to the Classic other than it is egregiously expensive for what it is and offers no benefits vs other CCR's in its class and is actually more expensive than several of them. The can is not sturdy enough to turn into a rack mounted unit by bolting things directly to it so you need a frame and that's annoying. I really don't like open water diving without a rack mounted unit, it's so much nicer.
Spirit-again, egregiously expensive, strange form factor, exhale straight into the scrubber, no flood recovery, can't really reach the OPV or ADV behind your head, it's "fine" but at $9k to get it configured comparable to the eCCR's out there it's ridiculous. If you want something with a strange form factor the O2ptima is $10k even and is a full eCCR and can actually be used without strapping any bottles to you if you are diving fairly shallow and is a much more robust unit.
Sidewinder-getting into the rig on a picnic table is a PITA heaven forbid a boat that is bucking up and down, and that still ignores all the normal hassles of diving sidemount in open water. Sure it is being done, but it is being done by guys that are trying to jam a square peg into a round hole, not because it is actually fit for purpose.
Sidekick-actually is probably the least offensive of the lot for open water diving because similar to the Choptima concept it allows you to clip it onto any rig and you have a CCR. Problem with the sidekick is the breathing is really bad in any sort of vertical orientation so if you have to go vertical for some reason for any length of time you have to come off the loop. Also these without a sphere on the bottom are not fun to dive and the spheres are both very hard to find and extremely expensive *also not technically legal to transport or fill since they don't have DOT stamps and can't be hydro'd but that's a different discussion*
Basically, none of them are cheap enough to warrant looking at as a way to save money compared to something like an O2ptima *and I don't even dive an O2ptima, I'm just using it as an example because DGX has them on their website for easy pricing comparisons, but the Liberty and others are in the same price bracket*, and none of them have any redeeming qualities for open water diving that make them better fit for purpose than an eCCR. Sure the Sidewinder is "sexy" because all the cave divers are using it and talking about it and Woody from Dive Talk has given the Spirit some renewed life from the Youtube channel but none of those make any valid arguments for why you would choose any of their units over a comparably priced unit that is better built, better supported *support for DiveCAN is VASTLY superior to analog units. If KISS didn't exist I'm 99% sure that @Shearwater would discontinue the analog monitors* and less annoying to deal with *yes solenoids are less annoying than CMF's*.