not impressed with the meg

[idiot fish]

Hi List,

Does anyone here dive the Meg? I saw one last week for the first time. I honestly have an open mind on preferences but I have to say I was very unimpressed with the build quality and some of the features.

The lungs were nice and compact but looked like they are made from Neoprene? They also appeared to be glued together (could not see any stitching) and the lungs glued also to the straps. The glue was coming apart on the new unit I saw (not yet dived)

I was wondering if there is a liner inside the lungs - it looked like they are just one layer (The Neoprene)

If this is the case I must admit the idea of trusting my life to a few glued together bits of neoprene gives me the willies especially as I mentioned the glue was coming unstuck. Or is there another liner inside?

The handsets look great and the wires are not too fat so easily wrist mounted. I didn't see an ADV which although not essential does make a more pleasant dive and less task loading.

It can take a variety of tank sizes so that's a plus. Its black which suits the sad techies but I think is downright stupid on any dive gear let alone a rebreather

Why wouldn't you wish to be seen underwater? (it makes it a lot easier for body recovery)

The handset cables coming from the top of the unit are not fitted by 90 degree elbows but straight threaded connectors coming vertically out of the lid (with plenty of ptfe tape!) I wonder how this would cope with the occasional scrapes against wrecks. The straight connection must be a stress point. I would have thought having an elbow fitting and the cables coming across the lid top would be better. The looping cables did look like they would be a entanglemt liability or vulnerable to damage inside a wreck or cave.


I had the chance to check out the KISS unit previously. The meg is one step better - it has nice handsets. Do these have built in deco computers?

Does anyone dive the Meg? Id like to know how it performs.

 

[rbdave]

The meg does look like a cool homebuilt. I'm also curious about the inbuilt computer. Wasn't Wil doing the work on this prior to his premature demise

Cheers

Dave

 

[madmole]

Lungs are indeed glued. Whats wrong with that? my handmade wetsuit from 1978 was glued only and I still use bits of it, the glue is stronger than the neoprene!!

Will let you know how well made they are as I have a set on order from Leon to put on the Molespiration

As for the Computers, rumopur has it the Meg will be going the HammerHead route

 

[caveseeker7]

idiot fish once bubbled...
I didn't see an ADV which although not essential does make a more pleasant dive and less task loading.

You should have. It's rather dominantly mounted on the left counterlung, in form of a modified Scubapro 2nd stage. Available seperately for home projects, too.

idiot fish once bubbled...
It can take a variety of tank sizes so that's a plus. Its black which suits the sad techies but I think is downright stupid on any dive gear let alone a rebreather ... (it makes it a lot easier for body recovery)

A big plus. You can also get different size scrubbers as needed. Nice if you have dive profiles covering recreational to extended range.
ADDited: Nobody says you gotta mount black tanks. Surf the web and you'll find plenty of pics of Tom Mount and his Meg with orange ones. OMS has 45s in yellow, and alu cylinders come in a broad range of colors, too. Anything larger than 2ltr will stick out on the top when mounted to protect the valves on the bottom, so you should be visible on the surface as well. Like Madmole, you can add refelctive tape for low viz/night dives.

idiot fish once bubbled...
The looping cables did look like they would be a entanglemt liability or vulnerable to damage inside a wreck or cave.

There have been plenty Meg of sightings in cave country. Doesn't mean cable mounting or routing can't be improved, but caving seems quite doable.

idiot fish once bubbled...
Does anyone dive the Meg? Id like to know how it performs.

As far as I know only one boarder, and I haven't seen much posted by him. He did respond to some PM inquiries, though.
Maybe he or someone else monitors and will respond. Sure hope so.

 

[saturated]

I have a couple friends diving them, I havent had the pleasure but they swear by them(both tunnel rats by the way). Sent a link to your post to them hopfully they'll come on and aswer your questions...

 

[idiot fish]

I like the idea of being able to change the scrubber size.
Any info on scrubber life? I dived recently with a few KISS divers and they talked about 5 hours on the scrubbers?!

I have no problem with the glued lungs - its just seeing the glue coming undone on the unit I saw that concerned me.
But they were nice and compact.


The backmounted lungs on the KISS inside a nice protetive casing look neat and also keep the chest area nice and free. Does anyone have any comments on the actual difference in WOB with backmounted lungs over chest/over shoulder mounted - any significant difference or just marginal?

 

[Glenn]

I've had my Meg for a year now and I have been happy with it. I will have to admit that it is not as clean a "package" as the inspiration, but it is very simple & practical in design. This is the only 'breather I've ever used so I can't make any compairisons. The good things about the Meg are its durable and simple construction. It comes with a full-fledged decompresion computer that can be customized to the gas(es) you are using. With the standard scrubber, you can get 4-5 hrs with 8-12 size material. The ADV is real nice if your hands are full on descent. I generally set my po2 @ 1.2 and try to manually maintain it @ 1.3-4 using minimun loop volume. I had the HUD installed on my unit and it should lower my task loading while diving as well as add quite a bit to the safety factor. (Most people seem to have problems when they get hypoxic, the flashing light should alret me to that problem before it happens w/o having to look at my console.) Most of my diving is done at 100-120 fsw in open water, but I know for a fact that there are several Megs in FL caves. My only complaint is that I don't get to use it as much as I would like.

 

[fishman]

idiot fish once bubbled...
Hi List,

Does anyone here dive the Meg? I saw one last week for the first time. I honestly have an open mind on preferences but I have to say I was very unimpressed with the build quality and some of the features.

The lungs were nice and compact but looked like they are made from Neoprene? They also appeared to be glued together (could not see any stitching) and the lungs glued also to the straps. The glue was coming apart on the new unit I saw (not yet dived)

I was wondering if there is a liner inside the lungs - it looked like they are just one layer (The Neoprene)

If this is the case I must admit the idea of trusting my life to a few glued together bits of neoprene gives me the willies especially as I mentioned the glue was coming unstuck. Or is there another liner inside?

Suggest you have a closer look next time you get a chance.

The neoprene lungs are glued together and to the mounting strap which runs the full length of the lung. Three circular neoprene patches are glued over the strap at the mounting points. The chances of these coming adrift are slim. There is no lining inside the lungs.

As for the build quality of the unit ... Did you get a chance to look inside the unit ? The quality of engineering design and fabrication is excellent. Check out the batteries properly mounted separately in waterproof units. Check out the electronics being properly potted and the sensors mounted in an optimal orientation. Simply no comparision with other inferior designs such as the Buddy.

 

[padiscubapro]

fishman once bubbled...


Suggest you have a closer look next time you get a chance.

The neoprene lungs are glued together and to the mounting strap which runs the full length of the lung. Three circular neoprene patches are glued over the strap at the mounting points. The chances of these coming adrift are slim. There is no lining inside the lungs.

As for the build quality of the unit ... Did you get a chance to look inside the unit ? The quality of engineering design and fabrication is excellent. Check out the batteries properly mounted separately in waterproof units. Check out the electronics being properly potted and the sensors mounted in an optimal orientation. Simply no comparision with other inferior designs such as the Buddy.

Potting can be a good idea, unfortunately many times its improperly executed.. I haven't seen 2 megs yet that are identical.. as for potting the last controllers I saw were defiately NOT the way to do it.. They were using some type of hard potting compound.. unless its a sphere, its not a good idea (or it has to be in an area where its free to expand and contract).. a flexible medium is a way to go..

Even the Inspiration pots it with a flexible compound (at least for the last 2 yor 3 years) unfortunately they have a different problem if gas flow into the controller is restricted..

The best thing to do is liquid fill with a non conductive compound, potting works well in an ambient enviroment not an enviroment subject to pressure.

I like alot of the ideas the meg has (most of the internal design is well thought out), but the lungs have to go.. just about evey person that has used one that I spoke to has had leaks.


I think the scrubber design of the Meg is of higher quality than the Inspiration but Insp's harness/counterlung design wins hands down on both design and quality..

I like the method of attachment "T" pieces and adv on the meg over the inspiration... using a drysuit mount is a better idea..

I personally don't like batteries in the breathing loop, but if they are there individual sealing is unnecessary since if there was enough water intrusion to get to one of the batteries, the sensors by this point are useless..

as for sensor arrangement, I'm not so sure.. I used think a perpendicular arrangement to the scrubber was best but now I don't know.. The dive position you are usually in makes it POSSIBLE to put water across the sensors, also oxygen injection point will effect whats best.. Perpendicular to gas flow may be better in some cases and worse in others..