redundancy or failure point?????

[randy88k5]

I guess it depends on which configuration you prefer. I would dive with three second stages is using a long-hose primary. I would keep the octo bungied on my neck, and the pony regulator strapped to the side of the pony bottle. This way you can switch from single to twin backmounted tanks with little configuration change. You can donate your primary at a moments notice. With the proper hose routing, the third second stage provides little to no more entanglement hazard than with only two second stages. YMMV. I would make a few dives and see which configuration you like better.

 

[NAM001]

YOUR FIRST If youare sharing air you are deeling with emergencies as a buddy and not a solo diver.
YOUR SECOND Why whould you not have an octo. One should not have to reconfig your regs to switch from buddy to solo. I think both sides of the argument have merit.
YOUR THIRD There are regs that continously have 1st stage leeking. I would guesss that as long as you dont use one of them on the pony is should be ok

nothing on other non contributing comments

Not the wrong perspective, simply the totally wrong assumptions.

First, anytime there are other divers in the water you may need to share air - solo diving or not - possibly with someone not your buddy even when you have one. If you are not prepaired for that you should be on the surface snorkeling.

Second, once you are dealing with an OOA emergency having a 3rd second stage is what is moot. You simply don't need it. What don't you understand about that?

Third, I was taught to do a bubble check at about 5 feet before descending. If you are diving a reg (or any other part of your kit - hoses, SPG, BC, inflator) that has a leak (slow or not) you are a fool. Get it serviced. My kit does NOT leak - not one bubble - else I would abort the dive and take care of it.

The only air loss is from turning the valve on and off and purging it once it's turned off (a tiny bit of air) and breathing the reg to test it before entering the water (two or three breaths) - simply not going to make a difference. If it does then your dives are vastly underplanned. A free flow will be observed, stopped, pressure checked, and the dive continued or aborted depending.



In my opinion you are doing the "thinking" without any real grasp of the parameters and issues. My advice is to find someone who is a solo diver with a lot of experience and talk to them and get their expertise rather than blindly thrashing around assumptions which are at best incomplete and misunderstood. You are obviously most certainly not going to figure it out on your own. Get some help from someone face to face that you trust and that you will listen to. You seem to keep restating the same erroneous "thoughts" so it seems clear you're not confident in what is being said here.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I do have a button gauge to verify that it is full before every dive.No need to hand it off on a solo dive.As for valve on or off I always have it on.I KNOW thats not the case for deco.My pony is used as backup.When im diving solo I do roll over frequently to see if im streaming air from my back,also I heard of someone here carrying a mirror when solo diving I thought that was a good idea.And to clarify I have a 19 cf pony which I have tested from 70 feet deep making a SLOW ascent and sitting through a 5 min safety stop with plenty of air left.Now granted that test wasnt conducted in full panic mode.I am really enjoying the feed back here EVERYONE has made some very valid points in this discussion.The reason I dont sling my pony is because during spear fishing my shock cord always seems to snag on something on the sides of my BC never in the front or back although thats probably just coincidence.Keep em coming please people.

I spearfish in Florida solo as well. Most spearfisherman that carry a pony, do it back mounted (I think for the reasons you describe). Mounted on your back tank in an inaccesible location has some drawbacks, but it IS less cluttered in the front.

However, I STRONGLY encourage you to relocate the pony reg to a necklace configuration. It is a pain in the azz for the first 100 dives or so when you take your tank off on the boat and nearly strangle yourself, but you eventually get used to it.

solo spearfsihing, you want that reg in the best place. At your neck is best. On a clip on the shoulder is NOT, especailly if you are wrapped up in line and a jewfish has your fish in his mouth and he is dragging you around. the last thing you want to screw with is a clip on your shoulder!

Also, this is important as well... if you are using a back mounted pony with a button guage, you never know if you have air in the pony. You only HOPE it is there and that you would hear it leak out if there was a problem. In a high current descent, say down an anchor line that is brushing up against you, the shoulder mounted reg can freeflow without you knowing it. However, on a necklace around your neck, it will be almost impossible for it to freeflow without your knowledge regardless of your orientation.

Ditch the octopus and use a necklace and route the pony reg down under your arm pit. BTW...You are spearfishing, not swimming around with a mirror checking for boogers in your mask or bubbles fizzing from the pony bottle!

Edit: and hopefully somebody told you this already.. but make sure you can disconnect the shooting line with a clip between the bungi and the shooting line. It makes getting untangled feasible.

I may not be a good example, but this video (skip to 1:05 and 2:20) shows under the arm hose routing pretty well. I'm also wearing a deco bottle under my arm too... you can disregard that.


[video=youtube;1g4Cf-7-rHQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g4Cf-7-rHQ&feature=share&list=UU1utDku8vJRJYgBZImLyLJQ[/video]

 

[Stealth Mode]

Thank you to all,very informative.SB addict my pony reg IS on a necklace.I robbed that idea from the tekkies.Im still torn on the issue,I see validity in all of these responses.Thank you again to EVERYONE.SB Addict your video was awesome,my routing is the same as yours.Good advice as always here!!!!

 

[NAM001]

Kharon,

I just got done re reading the SDI solo book. Specifically
Chpt-6 where it talks about configurations. It says acceptable configs are:
1. doubles with isolator closed.
2. Single tank with H or Y valve tHAT MAKES a 1ST AND SECOND ON EACH POST.

#1 requires no additional tanks. #2 requires a pony/ stage bottle for the purpose of a separate air source. #2 will have a reg to it and may be either on a necklace or wrapped around the pony tank for easy deployment if needed. I may be mistaked but stage bottles i thought were staged with valves shut.

I dive lp steel tanks.... they have H valves on them...... They are rigged with a standard doubles configured reg's (2 of them), One a long hose... My pony is slung on the left like a deco bottle with the reg rigged like a deco bottle and air valve shut.

Pls advise is you think there is something I NEED to change, and a reference. I am always open for improvement. I will not be so arrogant to think that i have the most recent sdi manual on solo, so if you have one that says different pls let me know the printing date of it so i can update my library.

At this point i think we may have to agree to disagree. I assume that the difference's are partly due to the solo'ers and instructors we have been exposed to. It certainly isnt because of the opini0ons of the DIR enthusiests as solo is taboo for them.

Regards

 

[Nemrod]

I have a 19 pony with a quality reg set up,my question is for my primary rig should I eliminate my octo and just go with my primary reg (second stage) and my pony reg (second stage) or should I keep all 3 regs.I am speaking for solo.I feel like on one hand 3 regs can be considered redundancy and yes extra task loading to deal with,while also presenting another failure point as in freeflow.I am interested in hearing some more opinions about this setup.

I have several regulators so I keep a couple set up for solo. I do not have an octo/second on my solo dive regulators, pony or not.

I do not always carry a pony either, especially on dives planned to be no more than 60 feet. Since I can still free dive, fairly easily, more than 60 feet, a 60 foot free dive plus bottom time, is more than a one way 60 foot swim back to the surface. I do not do deco/overhead solo dives. I can go straight to the surface and as I did for years and years and everybody else also, that is a direct ascent to the surface at 60 fpm, no safety stop.

Deeper than 60 feet I may carry a pony or switch to independent doubles or some other type of doubles rig. In all cases, I rig for maximum simplicity and minimum gear. I did not take a solo course, I have been diving solo for some 40 plus years, maybe they should take my course, the school of hard knocks where I have learned over and over, the less gear I have, the less problems I have. Solid, reliable, well maintained, proven equipment, fitness and planning make up for all the rest and then some.

N

 

[redacted]

I just got done re reading the SDI solo book. Specifically
Chpt-6 where it talks about configurations. It says acceptable configs are:
1. doubles with isolator closed.
2. Single tank with H or Y valve with a reg and secondary on each.

#1 requires no additional tanks. #2 requires a pony/ stage bottle for the purpose of a separate air source. #2 will have a reg to it and may be either on a necklace or wrapped around the pony tank for easy deployment if needed. s

It has been quite a few yers since I took the SDI solo course but I clearly remember that SDI considered an H or Y valve to be sufficient redundancy without a pony. I remember because I did not care for that configuration then and still don't.

 

[Stealth Mode]

Thanks Nemrod makes sense!!!!!!!

 

[NAM001]

It may very well have been at one time, but when i checked the h and y was good for everything except the 2nd air supply in event of a burst disk blowing making the pri and sec useless. I didnt take the course cause he wanted 450 for the 4 hr course and another 400+ for equipment. I have the training book but it may not be the newest edition. All i can quiote is what is in that book. There is not a lot of material in the book for anyone that has had any prior tech exposure. My book is ISBN 1-931451-50-8 Item#:210008

It has been quite a few yers since I took the SDI solo course but I clearly remember that SDI considered an H or Y valve to be sufficient redundancy without a pony. I remember because I did not care for that configuration then and still don't.

---------- Post added January 5th, 2013 at 12:20 AM ----------

Well N

I think you are probably like many of us. Your history is all to familiar. Tell me.... I am moving to a small set of doubles. double 50's to be exact. How would you use your doubles. Would you treat one as diveing gas and teh other for emergency or partially breath one down to a reserve level and switch to the other tank sort of like sidemount diving.

I have several regulators so I keep a couple set up for solo. I do not have an octo/second on my solo dive regulators, pony or not.

I do not always carry a pony either, especially on dives planned to be no more than 60 feet. Since I can still free dive, fairly easily, more than 60 feet, a 60 foot free dive plus bottom time, is more than a one way 60 foot swim back to the surface. I do not do deco/overhead solo dives. I can go straight to the surface and as I did for years and years and everybody else also, that is a direct ascent to the surface at 60 fpm, no safety stop.

Deeper than 60 feet I may carry a pony or switch to independent doubles or some other type of doubles rig. In all cases, I rig for maximum simplicity and minimum gear. I did not take a solo course, I have been diving solo for some 40 plus years, maybe they should take my course, the school of hard knocks where I have learned over and over, the less gear I have, the less problems I have. Solid, reliable, well maintained, proven equipment, fitness and planning make up for all the rest and then some.

N

 

[Searcaigh]

.... I am moving to a small set of doubles. double 50's to be exact.

Sorry to side track, I have been looking for compatible bands to set up doubles using 50s, what make of commercial bands have you found or are you having them custom made?