SiTech (Latex or Silicone) vs. Neoprene wrist seals

[Peter69_56]

Peter - thanks for the comments - I had just started a new thread asking about the Antares. I have a couple os drysuits with the oval ring system fitted already but no dry glove system - do you by chance know if I can just pop out the oval ring and fit the Antares without any other changes ?

Is the main problem you have had in getting them back off, once sealed or have there been other problems ? cheers Phil

You change the wrist ring and then you can use it with no gloves or with a dry glove that clicks in. I have no problem with using them to date. Seems fine to me.

 

[oldflounder]

I have a Viking with the hard cuff system I use for ice water diving in the winter. Over the past couple years I have had a very hard time finding a way to keep my arms dry; between seals tearing and leaks around the insert and cuff. I have torn out latex and silicone. I have finally got a system that works for me.

I don't like dry gloves because I do a lot of fussing with my gear after I get waist deep in the water and they are too thick for what I do.

I have settled on Lavacore gloves when I enter and then when I am done fussing with the gear I put a pair of oversize Waterproof 5mm over them [3mm are pretty warm too for 1/2 hour or more]. I wear a pair of those medical examination gloves under the Lavacore. They keep a lot of heat in.

As to the seals, I have a pair of $25 latex seals in between the cuff and insert. These are trimmed a little large so they slide on and off easy. On the outside of the cuff I have the $60 Waterproof silicone seals pulled over the top and held down with a couple 3 1/2" o-rings I bought in the automotive store as part of an assorted set. I tape the rings down with electrical tape because you can't tape silicone. I don't need to trim the silicone because they are so flexible.

When I go to remove the cuffs I put my finger under the latex so that if it does tear I only have to replace the cheaper seal. Between the thickness of the two together I think the chance of a tear is much lessened. Therefore I have loose latex seals that are themselves sealed by the overhanging silicone edge which is very flexible and slides off easy.

 

[geoff w]

I suppose that's the crux of it. Being that all of my dives have been here in southern california so far (non-technical i.e less than 130 ft.) I haven't found it necessary to wear anything above a 5mm glove. Would it still be worth while to go with a latex / silicone ring system just in case or just skip it altogether
and just go with straight neoprene?

My though process is that since latex and silicone can tear on any given notice then having the ability to change them on the fly is absolutely necessary. That's when you pretty much need a ring system of some sort. i.e SiTech or DUI's Zip Seals. Neoprene however, doesn't tear or breakdown nearly as easily so if dry gloves aren't a concern then neoprene would be the way to go since you wouldn't have to worry about changing them out due to a tear.

Earlier this year at DUI's demo day at Catalina, I tried dry gloves for the first time. DUI's dry gloves just pop on the zip seal ring to replace the wrist seal. I felt like a total spaz getting suited up (your hands go in the dry gloves before you're done getting suited up), but my hands were really a lot more toasty during the dive. When I was in Alaska this summer, I stopped in The Scuba Tank in Juneau to check out diving and gear. Their rigs were set up with Si Tech wrist rings on DUI TLS 350 or FLX Extreme or CLX 450. The nice thing about these is you can get suited up with full mobility in your hands, then snap on your dry gloves later

I've never had my zip seals leak. When DUI came out with silicone wrist zip seals, it was easy to swap out my old latex ones. My wife and I both prefer the silicone over the latex for comfort. When DUI gets their next-gen neck zip seals figured out in silicone, I'm going to have to send my suit in to get the latex neck seal replaced, but that should be the only time I have to get any service done on the neck seal. If/when it tears or wears out some time in the future, it will only be a 5 minute job to replace. Contrast that will replacing a neoprene seal - dry and clean everything, cut out the old seal, clean out the old material and glue, prep, glue, wait. If you're out diving when something tears, your day of diving is over

DUI's dry gloves seem pretty robust. They can certainly tear, but look like you'd have to be pretty careless. If you're doing wreck penetrations in contact with lots of rough, jagged edges, you could always put larger neoprene gloves over the dry gloves. My neighbor who has found a lot of the So Cal wrecks dives in a TLS 350 and it seems to hold up just fine; not sure what he uses for dry gloves, but I'd guess SiTech

 

[TravisD]

So, I'm coming to the end of my first year diving dry, and I just had my first seal "issue". Silicone seals on the round SiTech rings, total of about 10 dives on them I think.

Fortunately/Unfortunately (depending on your perspective) I wasn't the one diving the suit at the time. My wife decided that she wanted to give it a shot, and we were just in the pool, not in actual cold water when we discovered the leak. Her wrists are much smaller than mine, but I hadn't trimmed the seals at all. The neck seal (also silicone) seemed like it might be on the verge of being a little lose during the initial try-on, but generally seemed to fit ok, as did the wrists (no detectable gaps).

As soon as she got in the water, she felt wet on one arm. I re-checked the seal, and slid it up her arm a little to see if that would help. Since it was just pool time, she did the rest of the dive. Afterwards we dumped a lot of water out of the suit, so definitely a leak. So, her first time diving dry (well, 2nd if you count the brief DUI Demo that we did) wasn't so dry after all...

After we got home and hung stuff up, I took a look at the seals and found the source. There was a small hole (maybe 3/16") up near where the seal is held in by the ring. I've been diving the suit with the SiTech Glove Lock system in place most of the time, so this was sort of hidden up under the adaptor ring which I leave in place. Only when I started pulling and poking at the seal did I see the hole.

Hard to tell what root case was. It looked more like a tear and not just a thin area in the original casting. It's possible that it was pinched at some point when I was removing/installing it into the rings. Since I haven't dove it with wet hands since the first time or so, it may have been that way for some time.

With a little coaxing (as in doing the damn, that's a whole poke/prod/stretch) the tear did grow, but I was still able to don/doff the seal without it having a total blowout. That said, given the nature of silicone there's not much that would have worked to patch it up to save a dive really, but isn't that why we do the ring system anyway?

With a new set of seals on the way, I decided to turn it into a learning opportunity. With the stretchiness of Silicone, and reports that it will relax a little with use, I've never bothered to trim the seals at all. They've been comfortable enough as-is for the diving I do. No signs of blood flow issues to my hands or whatnot. With nothing to lose, I started cutting rings off the busted seal and trying it on. After just one ring I could feel an improvement in comfort. Took a second and it still felt good, but not as dramatic of an improvement in comfort. When I get the new seals, I just might be tempted to trim a bit, since comfortable or not, I suspect that having them fit better might lessen the chances of damaging them while going into or out of the seals. Then again, Wife may give it another shot and I don't want to take a chance on them being too big for her.

Side note: Anybody ordering these seals out of the UK for US delivery? Checking, it seems like they're a bunch cheaper over there, but with customs/shipping/transaction fees, it might equalize pretty quickly.