Spare Air or Pony?

[solodiver]

I have to agree with Warren on this. doubles / twins is the way to go if your looking for redundancy. Redundancy well never and should never replace Training, Gas management and Dive Planning. and for goodness sakes get out and practice your skills.

 

[solodiver]

heres a new term for you... Isolation manifold.You are able to turn a tank off for what ever reason. and you still have access to all the air in your twins. this does require you to have 2 regs one for either tank. there is an isolator valve in the middle of the manifold so you can isolate your tanks if you need to. So you don't loose all your air in a free flow of some sort.but once you have the offending reg turned off you can then reopen the isolator and have access to all your remaining air..

 

[Scubaroo]

I thought isolation valves were only for a tank or tank valve failure, such as a tank neck o-ring, or a burst disk - is this wrong? Wouldn't you in the case of a free flow merely turn off the knob at the first stage, ie just turn off the single valve? You wouldn't have to touch the isolation valve in this case, which is normally open anyway. Still, as you said, you use it to isolate the gas supply in each tank. If you burst a disk or a neck o-ring, you lose that tank's gas regardless.

I don't dive doubles but plan to one day, I had a different understanding of the role of the isolation valve.

 

[Friggincold]

Spydertek,
I hope those boat captains can pilot their boats. Because their diving knowledge is flawed. Let me guess I bet one of the boats is the Seeker or Diversion......Friggincold

 

[solodiver]

Your taught that in the event of some kind of free flow or hose damage. to turn the isolator off fist. this prevents the lose of the air in your uneffected side. You then turn off the effected side, you continue breathing on the effected side till it is dead ( no air being deliverd ) you do this to make sure you managed to close the valve completely. you then swithch over to your back up. at this point you can reopen the isolator if it was a first stage or hose problem. if it was worse. at least you still have half your air. Oh by the way the dive is over. you don't continue a dive once you are on your back up..

 

[Scubaroo]

I see!

 

[Lost Yooper]

Originally posted by MikeFerrara
SpyderTek,

What charters require a pony but wouldn't accept doubles as meeting the requirement.

I don't think cost should be an issue. If you don't have the right equipment you shouldn't do the dive.

It's worse than that up here. Most charters up here won't even allow doubles on the boat. However, they won't think twice about routinely taking OW divers to a wreck that rests in 145' of water in Superior with single 80's and a 13cf pony strapped to their tanks . It's beyond crazy. Needless to say, there's way too many close calls up here (sometimes worse). Ponies, all too often, simply offer a false sense of security and encourage neglect of the most basic diving practices taught in PADI 101.


Solodiver,

What kind of free flow are you talking about? If a reg freezes up (or blown hose), you simply turn that reg's post off, and you still have access to both tanks. In fact, you might even be able to save the dive by giving the reg time to thaw out and then turn it back on. The only reason you would turn the isolator off is in the event of a burst disk blow out or something catastrophic along those lines.



Mike

 

[SpyderTek]

Originally posted by Friggincold
Spydertek,
I hope those boat captains can pilot their boats. Because their diving knowledge is flawed. Let me guess I bet one of the boats is the Seeker or Diversion......Friggincold

Lets just say I wont say "no".

 

[tchil01]

I have a question about gear rigging and octo's, spare air and pony bottles. I just bought a Poseidon Cyklon as my primary reg and had my Oceanic Alpha 7 set up for my 19 cuft Pony. Is that enough, or should I look into an Octo or spare air set up for my BCD. I was looking at the Oceanic Air XS but it doesn't apear to be much different in cost to a Cyklon Octo.

Thanks

Ty

 

[devjr]

The whole idea of the XS is streamlining. BTW, why do you need a pony bottle? Wrecks, deco, instructor?