Stab jacket inflation cylinders; diver's lifejacket inflation cylinders

[Anthony Appleyard]

How common nowadays is a small inflation cylinder on a stab-jacket, and on divers' lifejackets, rather than relying only on air through a hose from the backpack cylinder? Are there any images of them? Those that I have seen have an A-clamp connection, attached either directly or by a hose (i.e. like an old-type cylinder-to-regulator A-clamp connection but the opposite gender), so it can easily be refilled from a scuba cylinder. How long and wide do these cylinders tend to be?

 

[DevonDiver]

A.P.Valves still has inflation bottles as standard on many of its BCDs. I'm not aware of any other brands that still do.


BUDDY Commando SCUBA BCD by A.P.Valves

 

[fjpatrum]

On the old jackets and horse collars I've bought that had them the cylinders tend to be the small cylinders, 2 or 3 inches long and maybe 3/8 or 1/2 inch diameter? On the most recent Seatec jacket I bought I could have possibly even replaced the cylinder and reused the mechanism if I could have gotten the mechanism apart to clean. It still functioned but was fairly corroded. The horse collars have all been so badly corroded I just cut them out completely and I ended up doing that with the Seatec jacket also. You can definitely find old jackets online that have them, if you're interested in using one.