separate octopus vs. bcd inflator/second stage combo

[napDiver]

Bad idea! Out-of-air or even, low-on-air situations can get ugly. They are not about what works on a perfect day between two calm and composed divers or what works theoretically on paper between two calm and composed divers. You have to think about what would work if a totally irrational dude comes out of nowhere and pulls that yellow air2 to breath from it and ends up ripping your inflator hose! "Oops! It was yellow and I thought yellow goes into my mouth No???" Dang I am a fresh-open water diver which is why I ran out of air in the first place and they never taught me in my Open Water class that there is such a device called Air-2 in which they dangling yellow second stage goes into the donors mouth and not mine! Sowwy mate. If both of us survive this, ill buy you a milk shake!"

From my experience, its almost impossible to damage the corrugated hose connection via pulling. I doubt they can damage the LP inflator connection/hose as well. But if they can, well the air2 they are breathing from won't be working.

Has anyone experienced or heard of a corrugated hose or LP inflator hose damaged via pulling?

The biggest concern is them inflating/deflating my BCD instead of purging the AIR2.

 

[drk5036]

That was not my comment at all. I successfully dived an Air2 for many years and found it a perfectly good 2nd. It does not drag on the bottom, as you seem to say. It has nothing to do with "breathing off your wing". Have you ever dived an Air2 or equivalent? I have the feeling that you are parroting much of what you have heard on SB, is that true, or are you speaking from your own experience? Your post was an embarrassment.

You read his post wrong, at least part of it. One benefit he was saying of inexperienced divers using an Air2 is that it prevents the usually lazy action of letting your octo drag on the ocean floor.

 

[scubadada]

You read his post wrong, at least part of it. One benefit he was saying of inexperienced divers using an Air2 is that it prevents the usually lazy action of letting your octo drag on the ocean floor.

You're correct, I misread your post, very sorry

 

[Angelo Farina]

I am an instructor and I worked as divemaster (just for 5 years, indeed).
When working as such, I am responsible for the safety of the customers which are in my group.
So I always carried redundant equipment.
In practice: a tank larger than that of customers, with double valve, two independent first stages, and THREE second stages, all identical (MK5+109).
One standard-length black hose to the reg in my mouth coming from above my right shoulder, one longer yellow hose clipped on my right shoulder, and another even longer yellow hose connected with the left-post 1st stage and routed "the wrong way", clipped to my left shoulder.
This is the reg designated to be donated in case a customer goes OOA.
Which did happen quite often.
No room for fancy equipment like an Air2 when "on duty", also because of the strict regulations of the touristic operator I was working for.
Nowadays I am not working anymore, so my position is different. Currently my buddies are my wife or my sons, so we can arrange for not standard equipment, tailored on the requirements of the specific diving conditions.
And here I become much more open to using an Air-2 for simplifying the setup, for very shallow dives with no deco and simplified equipment, for example without suit and possibly even without BCD.
We love these naked-skin dives, super-streamlined, no weights, long free diving fins, speeding in a way impossible when carrying all that bulky equipment.
In those conditions, having the octopus is often just a nuisance, and we get rid of it too.
But when also the BCD is gone, there is no usage for an Air-2...

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

From my experience, its almost impossible to damage the corrugated hose connection via pulling. I doubt they can damage the LP inflator connection/hose as well. But if they can, well the air2 they are breathing from won't be working.

Has anyone experienced or heard of a corrugated hose or LP inflator hose damaged via pulling?

The biggest concern is them inflating/deflating my BCD instead of purging the AIR2.

ing

Been there, done that! My oxycheq wing came with an extremely short inflator hose. I was diving in Dry Tortugas venting and it popped and came in my hand during the safety stop. We were ganging at the rope so I gave my weight belt to my buddy who had enough lift to bring it back to the boat.

 

[James79]

So what happens if you have a stuck exhaust on the wing? In other words, you can't keep it inflated. I assume if it's the butt dump, you go head up to mitigate how fast the air can come out. When you get to the surface, do you just keep inflating it to counter act the leak to keep the kit from sinking until you can get out of the water? Hopefully, that isn't a stupid question. Do exhaust valves ever get stuck open? Or do they typically fail shut?

I am not an expert by any means, but I'm a tinker by nature..... So I dive a BPW that I made from scratch. Due to that experimentation, I have experienced a few failures.
First off, if you are appropriately weighted, you should be able to swim up your gear with an empty wing. I've had a flange separate where the elbow meets the wing... and I just signaled my buddy, we surfaced, and swam back to shore (swimming with fins while approximately 4 lbs negative was a non issue). With any failure (flange, over pressure valve, rip) the air will only escape if the opening is above the air bubble.
As you suggested, with a failed kidney dump you can just go vertical in the water column and it won't "leak" unless it is nearly full. On surfacing, the level of air it will hold before the air bubble goes all the way down to the kidney dump should be ample to keep you at the surface.... if not, drop the weight belt. Even with a rip, you could orient to keep the rip down and get most of the lift capacity out of the BC.
With my experimenting and tinkering, I always have a SMB with me as an alternate means of lift... but due to proper weighting on single tank dives I haven't needed to use it in that capacity even with a separated inflator hose.
Of course, my advice is worth what you paid for it! lol

Respectfully,

James

 

[napDiver]

ing

Been there, done that! My oxycheq wing came with an extremely short inflator hose. I was diving in Dry Tortugas venting and it popped and came in my hand during the safety stop. We were ganging at the rope so I gave my weight belt to my buddy who had enough lift to bring it back to the boat.

Did the inflator slid out or did the zip tie break free?

I'm happy that ended safely and you didnt have to leave the weights on the bottom of the ocean

 

[RobPNW]

With my experimenting and tinkering, I always have a SMB with me as an alternate means of lift... but due to proper weighting on single tank dives I haven't needed to use it in that capacity even with a separated inflator hose.
Of course, my advice is worth what you paid for it! lol

As you and others have mentioned, sounds like another good reason to carry an SMB.

 

[StefinSB]

It is EASY for a dump to fail. They have a spring in there that can corrode, weaken and fail. I have had it happen many times. If you check the BC before use, it will not hold pressure properly if the spring is weak or failed. There are springs on all pull dumps, regardless of location on the BC- as best I know.

I suggest adjusting your gear rinsing procedure if you had corroded exhaust valve springs “many times”.

 

[emoreira]

From my experience, its almost impossible to damage the corrugated hose connection via pulling. I doubt they can damage the LP inflator connection/hose as well. But if they can, well the air2 they are breathing from won't be working.

Has anyone experienced or heard of a corrugated hose or LP inflator hose damaged via pulling?

The biggest concern is them inflating/deflating my BCD instead of purging the AIR2.

The use of the dump valve in the elbow of the Inflator makes a major stress in the inflator flange connecting to the bladder. All the tension done to the inflator valve to open that remote exhaust valve will be supported by the flange in the end. This is a common problem in BCDs. Replacing that flange is always problematic, costly and hard to find, and sometimes the reason to discard a BCD.
I do not recommend the use of that exhaust valve in the OWD courses. There are several better ways to dump air from the bladder.

To the OP first comment, it was before this nightmare pandemic. Now with, and after, the pandemic, thing are changing.
To address the use of those devices like Air Source or Air 2 (I mean an octopus integrated with the inflator), it was supposed that the donnor diver will share his main second stage to his buddy in case of an OOA situation and use his integrated octopus. This is because this octopus has such a short hose that cannot be shared. As this is taught in OWD the student has in mind to share always the main second, no matter the configuration.
Now with pandemic, we can no longer teach to share the main second, buy ONLY the octopus, so the use of integrated devices is (or should be) not recommended.