SPGs on CCRs

[kensuf]

I'm not beating up the fathom, never dove it, know virtually nothing about it. But what happens to support if the one man show loses passion or focus, gets sick or dies.

There's no guarantee that someone can pick up the yoke and muscle on, leaving owners in the same lurch as Titan or Explorer owners.

The nice thing about the Fathom is it's nuts simple. Similar to my old KISS Classic, almost every single piece can be easily replaced with a stock / generic component. I'm less worried about the long term maintenance of my Fathom than I would be if I had a substantially more complex unit built by a company that may decide to get gun shy about CCR's in our litigious society.

 

[JohnnyC]

Both of my rebreathers are pretty dead nuts simple. The Pelagian "electronics" are really just the one monitor and a fischer cable. If it goes bad I can put in another fischer by myself and have two EXT computers and be no different than with the factory one. The Fathom is similar in that regard. My SF2 is based off of the DIR PSCR's, just with some Shearwater electronics and a solenoid, easy enough to ditch if the electronics took a digger and Shearwater couldn't or wouldn't help, and I could pretty easily turn it into a mCCR instead of the "hCCR" configuration that I currently have. That being said, Jason Black now being essentially the US part of Scubaforce makes me feel much better about it. Now there's Germany and the US with enough parts and smart guys doing smart things that I'm comfortable that any issues would be sorted quickly and easily.

I would be much more gunshy about it if I still had my Meg, especially considering that they no longer make the electronics for it and if it really died I would have had to pay a good chunk of money to turn it into a Meg15 or now a Tiburon. Not that any device is going to be supported forever, but it's much more complicated a unit than either of the two I have now.

 

[Reku]

I dive a kiss sidekick.

I don't run SPGs on my o2. If my dil is also my suit gas or wing inflation I'll run an SPG on that - otherwise no spg on that either. I check the pressures right before the dive.

as far as simplicity goes mine is slightly more complex than your average sidekick in that it has 4 cells and 2 fischer cables with isolation boards. currently running 1,2,3 on fischer 1 and 2,3,4 on fischer 2.

I have a dil mav installed that injects onto the cell faces - I only use the ADV on the initial descent.

I press buttons - things happen, I don't press buttons - things don't happen. Simple and reliable.

Sidenote: I saw another sidekick diver at a quarry near me - he got into the water and descended and then came back up - he had holes in his loop and didn't do a prebreathe... should of caught that. He came back with the hoses duct taped...problem mostly solved. Quite entertaining to watch.

 

[doctormike]

Sidenote: I saw another sidekick diver at a quarry near me - he got into the water and descended and then came back up - he had holes in his loop and didn't do a prebreathe... should of caught that. He came back with the hoses duct taped...problem mostly solved. Quite entertaining to watch.

Amen to that! Here's to the checklist...

Although minor quibble - prebreathe might have missed that, but positive/negative would have picked it up.

 

[stuartv]

Since this popped up in my Watch list, I figured I'd add that I put a NERD2 (Fischer) and 2 AI transmitters on my rEvo about 6 or 7 weeks ago. There was no room for the transmitters to mount directly on the 1st stages, so I got some new HP hoses of just "the right" length (which I don't remember exactly what they are, off the top of my head) and and routed them so that they cross each other at the top of the scrubber, just under the shelf at the top of the unit. Each transmitter ends just about flush with the sides of that top shelf. The transmitters are too fat to fit between the scrubber and the top shelf. They can only come out by removing the scrubber lid and then pulling them out so the HP hose comes out through the gap between the top shelf and the outer scrubber wall. I.e. with the unit assembled (scrubber lid on), they cannot go anywhere, but with the lid off, it's easy to access them.

No SPGs on the unit at all now.

I've got something like 12 or so hours on it since that mod. So far, it seems to work fine. Some dives, I leave the NERD set to display the tank pressures on the bottom row for the whole dive. Sometimes not.

I have 5 sensors in my rEvo. 1 is shared between the Predator controller and the NERD2 monitor. The others are all independent, so the Predator and the NERD each display 3 sensors. I find that I am monitoring the NERD pretty much continuously through my dives and checking the controller occasionally, to verify it is still saying the same thing as the NERD.

Overall, I like this setup MUCH better than when I had 2 physical SPGs routed over my shoulders and a blinky light HUD.

 

[doctormike]

Overall, I like this setup MUCH better than when I had 2 physical SPGs routed over my shoulders and a blinky light HUD.

Do you like it better because the SPGs are no longer physically present, or because you are now able to watch your tank pressures during the dive? Do you watch both dil and O2 on your NERD display?

 

[stuartv]

Do you like it better because the SPGs are no longer physically present, or because you are now able to watch your tank pressures during the dive? Do you watch both dil and O2 on your NERD display?

Both. I like having less bulk in the stuff that comes over my shoulders and is on my top chest area. My SPG hoses were short enough that it made it a bit awkward for me to check them with the unit donned. But, if they had been longer, the right side SPG would have been right there in the way of me operating the MAV and the left side would have been in the way of me operating the power inflator.

I also like being able to check my cylinder pressures during a dive. I know some people have posted that they never even need to check their pressures during a CCR dives. They would never get anywhere near running out of dil or O2. But, I will admit that I have been to the local lake (which has a max depth of 65' and most of the time I'm around 30 or less) and done multiple dives in one day where I finished the last dive almost completely out of dil. Being able to watch that gives me comfort. I would prefer not to be surprised by trying to add a squirt to my wing and getting nothing. I would also prefer to not have to skip the last dive just because my dil is getting low. Not when it's just a shallow water dive to work on my buoyancy within 10 swim strokes of the dock.

And yes, I have both. I have the NERD set so that when I scroll the bottom row to show tank pressures, both pressures are displayed. The center row shows all 3 O2 sensors. I think the compass and the cylinder pressures are the only 2 bottom row screens where the NERD will stay on that display indefinitely. All the other bottom row screens will display for a few seconds and then go back to the default. So, when I want to, I can tap twice to scroll to cylinder pressures and then just leave it there for the whole dive, if I feel like it.

 

[doctormike]

Both. I like having less bulk in the stuff that comes over my shoulders and is on my top chest area. My SPG hoses were short enough that it made it a bit awkward for me to check them with the unit donned. But, if they had been longer, the right side SPG would have been right there in the way of me operating the MAV and the left side would have been in the way of me operating the power inflator.

That's why I really like the JJ design. They are there if you need them, but invisible if you don't. Tucked cleanly away behind the backplate, but you can easily check and stow them if necessary.

I also like being able to check my cylinder pressures during a dive. I know some people have posted that they never even need to check their pressures during a CCR dives. They would never get anywhere near running out of dil or O2. But, I will admit that I have been to the local lake (which has a max depth of 65' and most of the time I'm around 30 or less) and done multiple dives in one day where I finished the last dive almost completely out of dil. Being able to watch that gives me comfort. I would prefer not to be surprised by trying to add a squirt to my wing and getting nothing. I would also prefer to not have to skip the last dive just because my dil is getting low. Not when it's just a shallow water dive to work on my buoyancy within 10 swim strokes of the dock.

I find that I use very little dil for most dives. Hard to imagine starting a dive so low on dil that it would become an issue, unless I was doing multiple days of diving in a location where fills were unavailable. Yes, I understand that for very deep dives you will use a lot with a dil flush, but for the kind of diving you are describing, even in that rare situation where you needed to add gas to your wing during your dive, couldn't you just use your bailout if you were out of offboard dil?

O2 is a different story, since you absolutely need that for ascent. I'm more concerned about that, and I won't start a dive with a low O2 tank. Although by carrying sufficient bailout (and preferably offboard O2 as well), you should be covered even if you somehow run out of O2 during a dive.

And yes, I have both. I have the NERD set so that when I scroll the bottom row to show tank pressures, both pressures are displayed. The center row shows all 3 O2 sensors. I think the compass and the cylinder pressures are the only 2 bottom row screens where the NERD will stay on that display indefinitely. All the other bottom row screens will display for a few seconds and then go back to the default. So, when I want to, I can tap twice to scroll to cylinder pressures and then just leave it there for the whole dive, if I feel like it.

Yeah, I understand where you are coming from, and of course you should dive however you feel comfortable. I'm not implying that what you are doing is unsafe. But for me, given the overall complexity of CCR diving, I like to minimize the data volume handled by my own limited neural bandwidth. Monitoring dil and O2 tank pressures during a dive just seems an unnecessary distraction.

 

[stuartv]

I find that I use very little dil for most dives.

I'm still new. I use a lot of dil. Plus, when I go dive the local lake, the entire point is to practice my buoyancy, so I do a lot of going up and down at relatively shallow depths, so use more dil. I have gone through almost a whole 3L steel of dil in one day. I only did 2 dives yesterday and I think I used a bit over 2000 psi of dil (out of 3500).

Having the option to easily see my cylinder pressures is only an "additional distraction" if I choose to let it be. I absolutely do not have to set my NERD to display them...

What I have found is that I don't typically leave the NERD set to display them all the time. Once or twice during my dive, I will scroll over to check them and then go back to the main display or the compass. (and, by the way, swimming a heading using a NERD is The Bomb!).

 

[doctormike]

I'm still new. I use a lot of dil. Plus, when I go dive the local lake, the entire point is to practice my buoyancy, so I do a lot of going up and down at relatively shallow depths, so use more dil. I have gone through almost a whole 3L steel of dil in one day. I only did 2 dives yesterday and I think I used a bit over 2000 psi of dil (out of 3500).

Wow, that IS a lot of dil! OK, I guess that makes more sense...

Having the option to easily see my cylinder pressures is only an "additional distraction" if I choose to let it be. I absolutely do not have to set my NERD to display them...

Right, I understand, I was just talking about why I wouldn't want that display there in the first place. But if you are using dil at that rate, I can see why you might want to be able to check it..

swimming a heading using a NERD is The Bomb!

OMG yes! It's one of the best things about the NERD. And there are a lot of good things about the NERD....