Please suggest BC for new diver.

[Still Kicking]

I recommend not buying him any gear beyond personal gear until he gets certified. You dont know how he will like the sport yet so dont get too far invested.

Unless you buy gear from the shop he is training at they probably wont let him use it in class for liability reasons unless they do a safety check (more $$$).

The course will give him a better understanding of gear choices and pros/cons.

When you do come to invest in his gear, buy a quality brand that you can easily get serviced locally or anywhere in the world if you eventually travel. Backplate and wing makes the most sense for a growing diver and provides great weight distribution and stability when they have mastered buoyancy control.

 

[tbone1004]

Find out what he is using in class, if he is comfortable in it, and if it fits him properly. Then go and look for a used one or ask the shop to sell you one of their rentals. You will probably find someone that did a dozen dives on one, and decided to give it up.

I do not believe that a newly certified diver is the proper test platform for new gear.

conversely he may be more apt to dive if he has his own gear and isn't restricted by having to rent, especially for local diving....

 

[VikingDives]

conversely he may be more apt to dive if he has his own gear and isn't restricted by having to rent, especially for local diving....

On the other hand, I think the average rec instructor would find it challenging to teach a student in a bp/w since they won't have any experience with the system.

When I didn't work for myself, I always dreaded the student who showed up with gear that someone else had bought for them as it was inevitably wrong in some way.

Then again, I never had one show up in a bp/w...

 

[Still Kicking]

Students tend not to know how to moderate inflation on the surface and typically max out the BC.

With a jacket, this lets them ride higher and feel more secure. With a back inflate it leads to instability and pitching forward.

It's easily addressed by an instructor who knows the issue but what if he/she is dealing with another student and the back inflate student has to manage the issue on their own? Nuances of inflation and buoyancy control are easily forgotten when you feel insecure. Releasing air when you feel like you are drowning is counterintuitive and a student can easily dump too much air.

 

[Diesel_Diver]

My advice is simple , let him get certified first , get some dives under his belt and see what he likes or wants. Nothing wrong with buying used gear for a teen as long as it’s properly serviced before use. Everyone has different wants and needs, some like a jacket some like back inflate , some like bp/w set ups. Not everyone likes the same thing.

 

[drrich2]

Welcome to the diversity of opinion (and experience) that is ScubaBoard! A few follow up points:

1.) See the recent thread BCD for Daughter for more discussion on this issue. If you take an interest in a Zeagle BCD, pay particular attention to the discussion on the ripcord system for integrated weight release. Some people like it, some don't, but you ought to know about it.

2.) SwimLikeTheFish crafted a Beginners Guide To BP/W that may be quite helpful.

3.) A number of forum members helped me choose a rig in Mulling Over BP/W Options. Some tips from that:

-----You probably don't want to paint/powder coat a backplate, so that bare metal stainless steel BP is going to have that silvery bare metal look. An aluminum BP can be anodized black, so if you prefer that, okay.
-----Another member commented elsewhere the difference in weight between a stainless steel and AL BP is around 4-lbs; from what I read, that's roughly accurate. If you travel, good to know.
-----Having no experience threading harness webbing through a setup, and watching how long it took the dive shop guy to do it, I prefer having someone else do it for me. Some online providers offer that service (for an upcharge).
-----I don't know to what extent the fabric density measuring in denier translates to more real world toughness vs. abrasion and perforation, but I shied away from wings with lower denier counts.
-----Get 2 camband's.
-----The crotch strap is your friend. I didn't think mine was doing much till I took it off and dove without it. Then I put it back on.

---

Don't stress too much about this. If in 6 or 7 years he switches to something else, yes that's a waste, but not the end of the world. For mainstream recreational diving he can become competent and capable in either a jacket, back-inflate or BP/W setup, and rack up hundreds of fun dives.

One warning: I was interested in the ScubaPro Hydros Pro, but there are too many reports on this forum of things coming apart. Of all the costly risks you face buying a BCD setup, the one I feel the need to warn you to 'buyer beware' is the ScubaPro Hydros Pro. I haven't owned or dove one, and this is based on 2nd hand anecdotal info. (but do a forum search for plenty of 1st hand accounts!).

For quite a while, our dive style will be local Chesapeake Bay and Virginia Beach with yearly trips to Florida for vacation style recreational reef diving.

Have you been diving in Chesapeake Bay? I was curious about it, and found this old 2013 thread Diving in the Chesapeake Bay? Sounds low viz.

 

[VikingDives]

Students tend not to know how to moderate inflation on the surface and typically max out the BC.

With a jacket, this lets them ride higher and feel more secure. With a back inflate it leads to instability and pitching forward.

It's easily addressed by an instructor who knows the issue but what if he/she is dealing with another student and the back inflate student has to manage the issue on their own? Nuances of inflation and buoyancy control are easily forgotten when you feel insecure. Releasing air when you feel like you are drowning is counterintuitive and a student can easily dump too much air.

A properly weighted diver does not pitch forward and is not instable. I'm not sure where this came from but it's just not true. Even over-weighted it's a non-issue.

I've never met someone who liked the hug of a jacket bc who tried a back inflate and didn't like it.

 

[Still Kicking]

A properly weighted diver does not pitch forward and is not instable. I'm not sure where this came from but it's just not true. Even over-weighted it's a non-issue.

I've never met someone who liked the hug of a jacket bc who tried a back inflate and didn't like it.

An overinflated diver will be unstable and pitch forward. All the buoyancy is in the back and most weight in front - it's physics. It's not an issue to a well trained, experienced diver who knows not to overinflate but students can have trouble.

 

[SaltyCracker]

Thank you everybody. Every single one of you have offered valuable advice even though some of it may sound contradictory. That as it may be, all of the points mentioned are exactly the decisions I'm trying to make. So please don't feel like I'm pitting one against another when I ask for clarification between different opinions okay? Nothing I'll ask will be challenges to advice, just honest inquiry.
First off, when I mentioned "back inflation style" it was actually BP/W that I was thinking of and just used the wrong description. I started out with a standard recreational jacket style (Zeagle for myself I think and the Zeagle Zena for my wife) and I enjoyed it just fine but it didn't take long for gear envy and progressively more technical diving (NC wrecks) to prompt me to get a double bladder OMS Delux Harness system. I loved everything about it. Especially the modular aspect. This was also before we had kids so every dollar was discretionary and money wasn't an issue. Now with two teen boys in the house, everything is balanced against collage funding.
Please describe the functional difference between Back Inflation and standard jacket style BCDS. What about the "Hybrid" description that I keep seeing? How does that fit in?
In any case, as much as a good BP/W system can be argued for, I think a more traditional recreational system will be better for him for just the several reasons mentioned here. I know for damn sure my extended deep wreck dive days are over and my boy's first several years of diving will be along side me at 60' or less. He'll be going to school for marine biology so plans on spending his career in the ocean so he can make his own gear choices later on. If he decides in a few years to change gear, he can sell or trade it. If he gets 100 dives out of it, we'll call it a cost of $4-$6 per dive. Not much of a waste.

You may want a back inflate model, to aid with more naturally achieved horizontal trim at depth.

Back inflation is slightly better, but not appreciably so.

@tbone1004 Do you feel it is "slightly better" only because of the better achievable horizontal trim at depth that @drrich2 mentions?

 

[SaltyCracker]

Is a "back inflation" style just another version of a jacket BC or is it entirely different?
Or is "back inflation" just another term for the back plate and wing gear like I thought?