Opinion on Mouth Inflation option on Power Inflator

[IDS_Bill]

The closest choice to my opinion is the "it's a dumb post and I won't answer." That's not meant as a slam, but there is nothing that covers my choice.

I'm in the "I often practice it when diving and have no issues with it" category.

Same here - when you are diving a Superwing with steel doubles, it takes a lot of backgas to inflate it. Why waste it when you can orally inflate?

 

[laguna230diver]

its completely necessary, and if nothing else it helps for cleaning and testing bcd bladders

 

[ligersandtions]

I had my first real gear failure underwater last night. My wing inflator was free flowing. As soon as it started, I started dumping at pretty much the same rate so I could disconnect the hose (it was stuck on there pretty good and I ended up having my buddy help me out with it....but it came off with no major issues).

Anyways, I was planning to compensate with my drysuit....but I was getting annoyed with having too much air in my feet, so I dumped some and inflated orally. It's really the first time I've done it underwater since my OW class. I had no issues doing it. So while I think it's a nice skill to have, I don't think it's one that needs practicing.

Those are my revised (after having the experience dealing with the issue) thoughts on it.

 

[Seaduced]

I had to disconnect the pressure hose when my inflator button stuck while beach diving. Finished the rest of the dives that day using oral inflation. Popped the covers off that evening and flushed out the sand I had picked up setting up for the dives. No problem.

 

[BishopSA]

Knowing how to manually inflate is critical. On ~100 ft dive recently the low pressure inflator valve on my BC got stuck open a little bit. All I had to do was take the hose off of the BC and then manually inflate if I needed more buoyancy. This thread shows I’m not the only one to have this problem in an open water environment.