The Mares & Dacor HUB

[Spectre]

I checked one out on a boat a couple weeks ago. A guy that was trying to talk one of the tech instructors on the boat into giving him a Deco Procedures class.

A couple things I noticed. 2 hoses. one high pressure, one low pressure. With the low pressure hose splitting somewhere inside the system to your inflator, backup reg, and primary reg. It's all off of one hose; and that hose is inside the system. I also didn't see any way to manually inflate the BC.

 

[bcsean]

I'm a big fan of all my equipment being accessible for rinsing, maintenance, keeping an eye on it. Having connections buried inside teh bc just freaks me out. Just seems like a completely unecessary step to me.

 

[crpntr133]

I asked my LDS if they were set up with Mares. Told them that there was something I wanted to order. He replied " I won't order you a HUB!!" With a serious face I turned and said " I guess I will go someplace else." Turned, walked away like I was going to walk out and then stopped. I turned and then told him it was a wet suit. To which he replied " Man you got me!"

Personally I don't like the idea of having everything covered up. I have seen one and maintenance would be hell IMHO.

 

[LioKai]

Ther must be something positive about this thing. If nothing else, it can be used to show most of the many aspects of failure points.

I think some of the ideas started out good, such as nothing is dangling.

I guess that is about all of the good points.

Carry on.

 

[Paul Evans]

I checked one out on a boat a couple weeks ago. A guy that was trying to talk one of the tech instructors on the boat into giving him a Deco Procedures class.

A couple things I noticed. 2 hoses. one high pressure, one low pressure. With the low pressure hose splitting somewhere inside the system to your inflator, backup reg, and primary reg. It's all off of one hose; and that hose is inside the system. I also didn't see any way to manually inflate the BC.

This is without doubt the biggest problem, octo and primary are on the same hose!!! :11: Pockets are stuffed full for storage, obviously you need to deploy these to dive, then the hoses come out from the pockets making use of the pockets a bit more fiddly. And man is it heavy.
Airlock on the back needs the BC hose connected to it to work, then disconnected to connect to the BC.

To manually inflate it there is a inflation tube in the pocket same as all Airtrim BC's apart from the Morphus pro, they learned from the mistake and the hose is now outside the pocket. The system is very easy to use. I know things like this take a lot of stick but IMHO this is going to take over in recreational diving. Airtrim that is.......... Not the HUB

 

[RichLockyer]

Airtrim hopfully means the death of the corrugated hose, apart from this bin it!!!

I've witnessed several "Polaris" ascents from people who admitted that they got confused over the "inflate" and "deflate" buttons on that style of inflator on other Mares and Sherwood BCDs.

 

[teknitroxdiver]

I would never own a HUB. They look really bulky. Also, having your alternate in your pocket is really dumb. What if you hose gets tangled in there and you can't hardly get it out? And you need to be able to rinse every bit of your hoses and gear, which you cant really do when they run through the BC.

 

[RichLockyer]

I also didn't see any way to manually inflate the BC.

There's a wimpy plastic hose coiled in a pocket behind the AirTrim. It has a cap on the end and is not unlike blowing up and air mattress. No valve... you have to pinch the hose while you take a breath.

 

[MikeFerrara]

IMHO this is going to take over in recreational diving. Airtrim that is.......... Not the HUB

Why?, What does it add other than extra valves where you don't need them?

 

[jepuskar]

When I look at this product I think they are trying to cater to the diver that wants things to be fancy and 'integrated', a diver who obviously wants it all out of a BC, but is in fact getting much less. Do you see how bulky that thing is, how much extra weight do you need to add on to compensate for that?
Some of the other points some of you have mentioned I wasn't even aware of, purely going off of looks alone I wouldn't touch it, but it just gets worse.

I know why some instructors would wear it...students see their instructor in it and all of a sudden need to have it because its top of the line.
nice