Power inflator stuck on

[drbill]

I started using SCUBA in 1961. First time I ever used a BCD was in 1989 while diving off Santa Cruz Island with a Cousteau team. It was required equipment. Mine auto-inflated every time I tried to descend. The DM asked me what we should do... I said I'll disconnect it and dive like I always have.

In the years since I've owned a number of BCD's. I've never had one inflator do that, or jam open despite a history of poor (or no) maintenance on them. I do try to avoid beach dives with all that nasty sand.

 

[charlesml3]

What do you want, Charles? A reproducible study with a control group? In planning for how to best prevent SCUBA problems, we may sometimes have to envision scenarios or hyopotheticals. Some people might call it contingency planning. Oh, and in a real emergency that may have actually occurred, there may not be anyone living who can tell us about what happened.

I want some evidence. I want instructors, divemasters and LDS owners to quit telling new divers that octo-inflators are "dangerous" when there is no data to support the claim.

Don't like them? OK, fine. It's personal preference at that point. You're afraid of them? OK, that's fine too but just say that. Leave off the irrational fear part.

I don't need a study with a control group. I want to hear from some credible source about an incident that they were involved in or witnessed where the use of an octo-inflator either caused the problem or exascerbated the situation.

I'm sure there are emergences where nobody lived to tell us about it. In those cases, "Attack by Giant Squid" is just as likely as "Failed octo inflator."

-Charles

 

[ArcticDiver]

Not an authority like has been mentioned. Just an analytical person. But, maybe my last experience with the Air2 type thing will help folks understand why they are not very safe.

I was buddied up with a person with an Air2. He claimed to be an instructor from the mid-west. I wear a long hose to my primary reg and a short hose to my bungied secondary reg. Both regs are identical.

While discussing possible OOA I told him to just take my primary from my mouth if he needed it. Please warn me if he could, but that really wasn't necessary. In turn that is what I would do with him. If I needed air I'd take his primary and leave him with the Air2. He shook his head NO. He was not going to give me his primary. That was His.

He very emphatically told me I was to take the Air2. Why? I asked. He told me: "You take it because it breathes like crap and I want to be able to keep the good reg". Needless to say we didn't buddy.

Can't say I wouldn't dive with someone who had an octoinflator because I have. But, it depends on the person and how we brief the dive.

 

[BKP]

Not an authority like has been mentioned. Just an analytical person. But, maybe my last experience with the Air2 type thing will help folks understand why they are not very safe.

I was buddied up with a person with an Air2. He claimed to be an instructor from the mid-west. I wear a long hose to my primary reg and a short hose to my bungied secondary reg. Both regs are identical.

While discussing possible OOA I told him to just take my primary from my mouth if he needed it. Please warn me if he could, but that really wasn't necessary. In turn that is what I would do with him. If I needed air I'd take his primary and leave him with the Air2. He shook his head NO. He was not going to give me his primary. That was His.

He very emphatically told me I was to take the Air2. Why? I asked. He told me: "You take it because it breathes like crap and I want to be able to keep the good reg". Needless to say we didn't buddy.

Can't say I wouldn't dive with someone who had an octoinflator because I have. But, it depends on the person and how we brief the dive.

I believe your experience has less to do with the safety of an integrated octo, as much as with the stupidity of that one unfortunate "instructor."

The very nature of an Air2 (or SS1, etc.), creates the *requirement* to pass your primary in an OOA (which is relatively standard procedure with a long hose config as well). This should be understood by ANYONE deciding to use an integrated.

That being said, I don't believe an integrated to be any less safe than any other reg (assuming the user is properly skilled in its deployment).

 

[dewayne405]

The wife and I are both really new divers under 25 dives each, and after some checking on here finally purchased our new gear...

We were trained with AIR2s, and have no issue at all with them... That being said, when I bought our regs, the good LDS owner set ours up, nearly identical to his... AIR2s, with MK17/G250v, and S600 as backup octo...

Maybe its overkill, but I have no issue with my choice of three air sources... As for the wife, I had not choice to buy her the AIR2 after she tried to "test breathe" her rental BCs inflator... After the swelling and pain went away I swore to never laugh like that again, and to immediately buy her what she wanted...

 

[CoralSeaMan]

Not an authority like has been mentioned. Just an analytical person. But, maybe my last experience with the Air2 type thing will help folks understand why they are not very safe.

I was buddied up with a person with an Air2. He claimed to be an instructor from the mid-west. I wear a long hose to my primary reg and a short hose to my bungied secondary reg. Both regs are identical.

While discussing possible OOA I told him to just take my primary from my mouth if he needed it. Please warn me if he could, but that really wasn't necessary. In turn that is what I would do with him. If I needed air I'd take his primary and leave him with the Air2. He shook his head NO. He was not going to give me his primary. That was His.

He very emphatically told me I was to take the Air2. Why? I asked. He told me: "You take it because it breathes like crap and I want to be able to keep the good reg". Needless to say we didn't buddy.

Can't say I wouldn't dive with someone who had an octoinflator because I have. But, it depends on the person and how we brief the dive.

I use an Air 2 and I wouldn't dive with that person either.

 

[WartedEmperor]

I went diving with someone thats uses the Air2 the other day and if he told me that I would run.

 

[charlesml3]

But, maybe my last experience with the Air2 type thing will help folks understand why they are not very safe.

That's pretty funny, ArcticDiver. You relay a story from a diver who's being a jerk, and then come to the conclusion that the fault lies with the octo-inflator.

You really aren't seriously trying to sell this point, are you?

-Charles

 

[ArcticDiver]

That's pretty funny, ArcticDiver. You relay a story from a diver who's being a jerk, and then come to the conclusion that the fault lies with the octo-inflator.

You really aren't seriously trying to sell this point, are you?

-Charles

Only relating my experience.

In the case I experienced the octoinflator obviously breathed poorly and to that experienced diver was unsuitable. But the "rules" say you must have a second regulator. So, to comply with the "rules' he used the octoinflator while knowing full well it was inferior.

You on the other hand seem to be trying to sell a piece of equipment no serious diver I know would touch.

At this point I'm invoking the GDI Rule.

 

[Isaac-1]

Only relating my experience.

In the case I experienced the octoinflator obviously breathed poorly and to that experienced diver was unsuitable. But the "rules" say you must have a second regulator. So, to comply with the "rules' he used the octoinflator while knowing full well it was inferior.

You on the other hand seem to be trying to sell a piece of equipment no serious diver I know would touch.

At this point I'm invoking the GDI Rule.

So designed and tuned to prevent freeflow is now inferior? How many secondary regulators out there are tuned to perform like the primary? Sure there are many adjustable models, but relatively few divers have them for both the primary and secondary, also the arguement could be made that adjustable regulators are more prone to failure as they have more o-rings, moving parts, etc. so should not be used as seldom used and more abused secondaries.

Ike