Signal tube deployment : going up with the device! scary...

[rivers]

A previous comment was made to fill the SMB with air from your BC at your safety stop. If you are properly weighted you will have no air in your BC at your safety stop. At this point, all my BC air is in my drysuit. Sometimes I have a few rocks in my waistband, if I have underestimated weight. Just an example of how all factors are interrelated. Especially the rocks.
I just bought a 10 ft SMB and tried it at my safety stop. I tried to use the BC inflator but the hose would not go on the fitting so I used my alternate. My wreck reel had too much drag and I was pulled toward the surface, remembering to exhale. My momentum carried me to about 5 ft. I later found the BC connector locking ring must be pulled back to get the BC hose on the fitting. On the next dive I used a jump reel with less friction and the BC connector and reel worked fine.
The 10 ft SMB was inflated about halfway on the surface from 15 ft. This is OK and will reduce the chance of a boat running you over if they are looking where they are going. You can surface and finish filling the SMB to show your boat where you are. It is not necessary to fill it completely at depth. I have been told that bigger is better even if you can't use it all at once.

If you're being pulled to the surface by your SMB, drop it. I'd rather lose a piece up equipment than end up bent, or worse.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

If you deploy the SMB deeper, you need less air. At 66' you need to only fill it 1/4 full, which is easier (will pull you up less). Also, a sudden ascent of 10-15' at 66' is not nearly the relative pressure change that you would have at shallow depths.

Lastly, I am a proponent of a finger spool for an SMB if you are only going to deploy on ascent. Not a big loss if you get separated from it and SMBs tend to get handed up to boat crews, banged around and sometimes neglected if you don't use them all the time.

 

[bj139]

If you're being pulled to the surface by your SMB, drop it. I'd rather lose a piece up equipment than end up bent, or worse.

I was correctly weighted for this dive so with all the air out of my BC and drysuit, I was nearly neutral. I had completed my safety stop at 15 ft and could ascend at any time. The initial pull started me moving up. My momentum carried me to 5 ft. Dropping the SMB at 10 ft would have not changed anything. If I was at 50 ft and tangled I would have dropped it.
I ran a wreck reel once and marked the spot I left the reel with a 3ft SMB. I added too much air and the reel ascended from 70ft. I let it go. It was still clipped to a truck 100 ft away. Later I swam toward the truck, found the line, made myself negative and pulled it back down then deflated the SMB and retrieved my reel. I was doing some underwater distance determination.

 

[Tortuga68]

At the risk of appearing a nitpicker, I have a few comments...

here's a trick - use your bc to fill the bag. put your hose under the opening, and let what air is in your bc into your smb. the net buoyancy change will be zip. if you need more air in the bag, use your reg purge with your arms out front of you. when it goes, be ready to add air to your bc, because you'll be negative while it goes up

If you brake the reel/spool, you won't need to add any air to your BC

How you fill a bag depends on the design of the bag... Some have a duck-bill valve in the bottom. These are filled from a purged reg, but they will hold gas if they fall over. They can't be filled any other way, though...

You can fill a duckbill valve SMB with your reg exhaust, no problem

Use a finger spool, it will hang right in front of you as your bag goes up... inflate it and watch(don't hold) spool as it unwinds.

Depends how the line is wound and what the current is like. If you don't hold it (loosely) it can get away from you

Never get in the water with a reel or spool unless you have at least two cutting devices

Overkill. Just learn to do it properly

If you deploy the SMB deeper, you need less air. At 66' you need to only fill it 1/4

66' = 20m = 3 ATA = 1/3 fill required

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

66' = 20m = 3 ATA = 1/3 fill required

I should never do math before my coffee.

 

[DevonDiver]

Golden Rule: The SMB/reel is never clipped off to the diver upon deployment.

Deployment: Finger spool is my preference - easy and cheap - less likely to jam. If you have to drop it, chances are it'll unravel down back to you anyway. Plenty of good illustrations on this skill on Youtube (search for the 5thD-X series).

DSMB: I favor an small capacity oral-inflate DSMB. The logic behind this is that you are transferring buoyancy from your lungs to the DSMB upon inflation. A slick drill means you get the DSMB deployed and ascending, before you next inhale. There's no issue with being 'pulled'. The 3' oral-inflate DSMBs are fine for most purposes, unless you plan to dive offshore, in extreme current or high seas.

Cutting Devices: It is possible to get tangled in the line on deployment. Practice makes perfect, but human error is always a gremlin on our shoulders. Given the timescales involved to cut free - the only practicable method I've seen to effect a cut quickly enough is an Eezy-Cut stored on my wrist.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

A previous comment was made to fill the SMB with air from your BC at your safety stop. If you are properly weighted you will have no air in your BC at your safety stop. At this point, all my BC air is in my drysuit. Sometimes I have a few rocks in my waistband, if I have underestimated weight. Just an example of how all factors are interrelated. Especially the rocks.
I just bought a 10 ft SMB and tried it at my safety stop. I tried to use the BC inflator but the hose would not go on the fitting so I used my alternate. My wreck reel had too much drag and I was pulled toward the surface, remembering to exhale. My momentum carried me to about 5 ft. I later found the BC connector locking ring must be pulled back to get the BC hose on the fitting. On the next dive I used a jump reel with less friction and the BC connector and reel worked fine.
The 10 ft SMB was inflated about halfway on the surface from 15 ft. This is OK and will reduce the chance of a boat running you over if they are looking where they are going. You can surface and finish filling the SMB to show your boat where you are. It is not necessary to fill it completely at depth. I have been told that bigger is better even if you can't use it all at once.

It may sound counter intuitive, but it is probably safer to deploy the larger SMBs from a deeper depth. If you deploy for 40-50 feet, it will take much less air to provide enough expansion on the ascent. Trying to hold down 20 lbs worth of air in an SMB at 20 feet is not going to work unless you have way too much lead on. Winding yourself up from 50 feet is not normally that much of a hinderance and probably helps to keep your ascent rate moderated.


I have never used a spool and always use a reel for deep deployment of SMB .. often from over 150 feet deep. You don't need to add a whole lot of air and it is not expanding that fast at that depth, so if you did get tangled, you would have more time to cut yourself out before attaining a really fast ascent rate.

If you are going to deploy from 15-20 feet, I just wrap the line around the smb and have a weight or clip at the bottom of the line to make sre it is not a tangle hazard. Seems unnecessary to use a spool if you are going to deploy from 20 feet.

this is what i do.. skip to 8:30

Helldiver SB2C Plane Wreck Off Jupiter Florida - YouTube

Holding a camera and filming yourself deploying an SMB is a challenge in itself.

 

[bj139]

I took my reel apart and applied silicone grease. There is very little drag now.
I thought using one reel for multiple uses would minimize the amount of gear I am carrying.

I can only deploy near shore from 20-30 ft or I will have to swim towing the SMB for the last part of the shore dive.

Hearing about a method some people use gave me an idea. How about attaching a reel to your SMB, pulling off 15 ft of line, locking the reel and letting it fall. Then inflate your SMB making sure the reel does not knock the regulator out of your mouth on the way up. Murphy is a close associate of mine. No extra line wrapped around an SMB to fall off and get tangled and no positive buoyancy issues pulling you up.

 

[DiveTheGalapagos]

Unless you need to deploy from depth, I quite like the ease of the flag on a fold up pole. (Sorry LDS) Photo of one brand here: Buy 9" X 11.5" Dive Flag with 5 FT Fold-Up Pole, (Fits into BCD Pocket) from Leisure Pro

 

[InTheDrink]

If you want just let your spool go as the bag shoots up, no need to keep hold of it. It doesn't drop discernibly. Once your bag has hit the surface take hold of your spool.