Regardless of what you may find in print... PST's website says their LP 95 is only 1 pound negative! Don't know how they're figuring that - maybe in the Great Salt Lake. Mine is 11 pounds negative at 500psi with "H" valve in fresh water. If the tank itself were only 1 pound negative, then at 500psi my "H" valve would have to weigh over 8 pounds - it weighs 2 pounds 4 oz. My method of comparison - and why I won't back off on my numbers no matter what the "book" says - is to hang the 80 in the water on one side of a balance suspended under the diving board, and the 95 on the other, both with 500 psi in 'em. To balance them the 80 has to have 12 pounds attached. I was shocked the first time I did it, because the printed data I'd seen was the same stuff you're seeing. So shocked, in fact, that I switched sides of the balance with the load, just to make sure something wasn't biased there, and got the same result.
PST's new 95's are also less buoyant than the older ones - cavers I know suspect there's more steel in 'em because PST realized how they were being used in cave country. Older tables have the PST 95 weighing in at a bit over 37 pounds; PST says 42 for the new ones. My 95's weigh a hair over 43¼ each empty without valve - maybe I got a little extra zinc.
Bottom line - when I switch from an 80 to a PST 95, I drop 12 pounds, and my buoyancy remains the same.
Rick
). I was wondering if any of you dealers, or others in the loop, heard anything about that.
