NEW TS Sidemount system

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I thought Toddy Style system including 2x1m hose was based around using aluminum cylinders only for balance and the idea to trade tanks in oog.
So why does the bottom of the top "backplate" have rails for tanks? Those don't work well for ali cylinders because of the change in buoyancy, just for heavy steels.
 
if you dove true sidemount cave restrictions you would know that all the air is dumped out of the wing prior to entering the restriction in order to minimize profile. You're scraping along the bottom anyway, so there is no need to worry about being neutral, much more important to be as flat as possible. The hard backplate increases your vertical profile in an unforgiving manner because it is rigid and it does that on the thickest part of your body *chest*

Sure man, sure...you are the king of true SM and the rest doesn't know......bring it on !!
Again, I don't know yet, what I do know is that these guys are producing awesome footage and are doing some serious stuff I find fascinating....stuff I haven't see from you.
You strike me as card collector screaming I know it all diver...maybe I am mistaken, if so..I apologise, english is not my first language.
We got your point, we will get stuck on this system
 
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I thought Toddy Style system including 2x1m hose was based around using aluminum cylinders only for balance and the idea to trade tanks in oog.
So why does the bottom of the top "backplate" have rails for tanks? Those don't work well for ali cylinders because of the change in buoyancy, just for heavy steels.

There is much more to it, I leave that up to the guy himself ;-) I just got it ;-)
Much more like SM rebreathers, multiple stage etc..
 
Sure man, sure...you are the king of true SM and the rest doesn't know......bring it on !!
Again, I don't know yet, what I do know is that these guys are producing awesome footage and are doing some serious stuff I find fascinating....stuff I haven't see from you.
You strike me as card collector screaming I know it all diver...maybe I am mistaken, if so..I apologise, english is not my first language.
We got your point, we will get stuck on this system

A. you have no idea how many c-cards I have. You'd be shocked at how few there are.
B. I have no desire to take cameras into caves and do the post processing because I am too busy actually enjoying the dive and have no means to profit from it. If I want to see it again, I go back to that passage. Toddy has a lot to profit from videos like that, as do you. Which btw, your youtube channel is actually really interesting and appreciate it as a learning tool when teaching.
C. The lack of video footage has no bearing on me actually doing those dives or not. I wish I was doing exploration dives in Mexico on the regular, but I do plenty of true sidemount only dives in Florida.
D. I have been sidemount diving for close to a decade, and been sidemount cave diving since 2010, so I have been at it for a while, and yes I have dove sidemount with a hard backplate and enjoyed it in open water.

Now, if you read my first comments. I have no issue with this for caves that you are not planning on going into any restrictions. 99.9% of sidemount cave divers fit into this category and obviously all open water sidemount divers. The system is an evolution of the Nomad that Dive Rite developed 20 ish years ago when they first took a rec wing and stuck it under a transpac. For the cold water where you live, that is very advantageous so you can take advantage of the negative buoyancy. Where I dive in Florida, we are usually focused on getting weight off of our body, and due to the essential requirement of using steel tanks because of how deep our caves are, we don't usually wear any lead, even with all fabric sidemount rigs. The shallow cave depth, combined with wetsuits, combined with aluminum 80's as cylinders go to how small of a profile that rig can attain because there is almost no air in the wing. It looks the same as a Dive Rite Nomad XT in the same type of environment, just without any lead strapped to it. Great, for that environment.
I could not safely dive it in many of the environments I have dove in, and I don't take my Nomad XT into those environments. I take my Hollis Katana which has a smooth back profile and nothing to stick up to get caught on the ceiling. Divers have gotten stuck using hard backplates in sidemount, it is nothing new, and it is very real. Those divers no longer use hard backplates for their true sidemount diving.

I have much stronger opinions about the choice of hose configuration for the regulators and plan to switch tanks than I do about the choice of a hard backplate.
 
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A. you have no idea how many c-cards I have. You'd be shocked at how few there are.
B. I have no desire to take cameras into caves and do the post processing because I am too busy actually enjoying the dive and have no means to profit from it. If I want to see it again, I go back to that passage. Toddy has a lot to profit from videos like that, as do you. Which btw, your youtube channel is actually really interesting and appreciate it as a learning tool when teaching.
C. The lack of video footage has no bearing on me actually doing those dives or not. I wish I was doing exploration dives in Mexico on the regular, but I do plenty of true sidemount only dives in Florida.
D. I have been sidemount diving for close to a decade, and been sidemount cave diving since 2010, so I have been at it for a while, and yes I have dove sidemount with a hard backplate and enjoyed it in open water.

Now, if you read my first comments. I have no issue with this for caves that you are not planning on going into any restrictions. 99.9% of sidemount cave divers fit into this category and obviously all open water sidemount divers. The system is an evolution of the Nomad that Dive Rite developed 20 ish years ago when they first took a rec wing and stuck it under a transpac. For the cold water where you live, that is very advantageous so you can take advantage of the negative buoyancy. Where I dive in Florida, we are usually focused on getting weight off of our body, and due to the essential requirement of using steel tanks because of how deep our caves are, we don't usually wear any lead, even with all fabric sidemount rigs. The shallow cave depth, combined with wetsuits, combined with aluminum 80's as cylinders go to how small of a profile that rig can attain because there is almost no air in the wing. It looks the same as a Dive Rite Nomad XT in the same type of environment, just without any lead strapped to it. Great, for that environment.
I could not safely dive it in many of the environments I have dove in, and I don't take my Nomad XT into those environments. I take my Hollis Katana which has a smooth back profile and nothing to stick up to get caught on the ceiling. Divers have gotten stuck using hard backplates in sidemount, it is nothing new, and it is very real. Those divers no longer use hard backplates for their true sidemount diving.

I have much stronger opinions about the choice of hose configuration for the regulators and plan to switch tanks than I do about the choice of a hard backplate.

Fair enough,I understand you a little bit more, still, I will never understand this type of attitude, you act if the rest is stupid and even worse I bet you even haven't tried any 1 meter hoses system and you haven't tried this system, probably not even a BP system.(just saw you did)
I would first try and than have my opinion ( as a pro...if you were an OWSI or a rescue diver..I wouldn't even start this discussion)
Also, in my book, to share your opinion ( as a dive pro, like you present yourself) in the way you do, also towards people that do things you (and ME!!) might only ever do in your dreams, is a bit respectless.
I think that even if you don't like something, or don't understand something that doesn't mean it doesn't work, this wing is not 2 BP's on top of each other...
This is the way I look at it and why I posted it....as something interesting, another way that seems to work.
We have all heard about you, I am not going to start about me here..., but I hope you have figured out by now that I kind of know that a BP SM system is not the most logical choice generally speaking, that is why I thought this particular setup was interesting and to start something about the stealth or the new blahblah.....?...;-)
I hope you understand me a bit better, thank you for liking my channel and referring people to it.
 
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@bluemed no issue with short hoses in open water. The issue is passing cylinders is not practical in a cave, and essentially not possible with cylinders other than AL80's. This is a system that is very specific to what can be used and very limiting with what can't be used. Especially when diving in mixed teams with backmount divers.

This wing is in fact two backplates on top of each other. The red one is just smaller. The issue isn't just the red one, the skeleton backplate in your pictures is also problematic for that type of environment, and quite possible more problematic than the red one.

You say that a backplate sidemount system is not the most logical choice, so what is different about this one that makes it the most logical choice?
 
@bluemed no issue with short hoses in open water. The issue is passing cylinders is not practical in a cave, and essentially not possible with cylinders other than AL80's. This is a system that is very specific to what can be used and very limiting with what can't be used. Especially when diving in mixed teams with backmount divers.

This wing is in fact two backplates on top of each other. The red one is just smaller. The issue isn't just the red one, the skeleton backplate in your pictures is also problematic for that type of environment, and quite possible more problematic than the red one.

You say that a backplate sidemount system is not the most logical choice, so what is different about this one that makes it the most logical choice?

I won't spend another calorie in a wise guy like you, you know it all.....and it is NOT a backplate, is a lot smaller than a regular backplate, bye
 
Hey Tom, legit question here as this is an area I do not have a lot of experience in.....when passing restrictions that require the flexibility not allowed by a riggid "plate" or even the TS style plate, is the pushing of the tanks through the restriction a good indicator? Logic being the plate is much shorter than the inflexible tank.
 
Hey Tom, legit question here as this is an area I do not have a lot of experience in.....when passing restrictions that require the flexibility not allowed by a riggid "plate" or even the TS style plate, is the pushing of the tanks through the restriction a good indicator? Logic being the plate is much shorter than the inflexible tank.

no because the tanks are generally a lot thinner than your chest is *unless you're a string bean*. The issue with this system is the spine of the backplate is not removed. Doesn't matter what they say about how much smaller that red plate is, it doesn't matter if the plate is 2" wide or 12", the spine sticks up from your back and is rigid, then you have the second spine and the thickness of the wing+webbing making the whole thing thicker. Your back bends forwards not sideways and when you bend forward the plate sticks up even farther.
Mike ironically shows this perfectly in the third picture he posted showing the red backplate. You can see that as his head bends forward the backplate doesn't come with it and the spine is very much exposed. That spine of the backplate is what will ratchet against the ceiling and get you stuck. When you go to reverse and bend down, the crotch strap should prevent it from getting caught going backwards

Backplate sandwiches have been used in sidemount cave diving for something like 30 years in the very beginning of that part of exploration and have been abandoned in true sidemount cave diving for a reason. It isn't my direct experience that has me writing these comments, it's me learning the easy way of what not to do from the guys that tried it and failed early on. There is a reason Dive Rite started using the transpac in the early days of the DIY rigs instead of a hard plate. It wasn't that they wanted to move more transpacs, it was that they tried the hard plate first and it failed.
 
I figured something like that, thanks Tom.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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