I wasn't going to dare dredge this bad boy up unless one of ya'll did, I was just going to bubble off on my own and let ya'll debate till ya bent
No really, it's going great up until someone I know links me back to this post and starts laughing out loud, please mods remove this timestamp in history of my lastest tweak on the hobby world before I am found out and identified res publica.
Here are the updates:
-this has turned out great. I have gotten two old friends back into scuba who were, like me, out for ten years of the hobby and were also certified on the rare island vacation they used to take. You all know that for as many of you that take time to post here and really take the hobby with passion, there are 3x as many who are certified and haven't been in over ten years...those guys and gals seem to be my current dive buddies
and frankly I'm slightly cooler to them than you are so don't hate lol because everyone has seen your type of dive gear and only dive heads have seen mine. I have also met up with a dive buddy that I can use for full scale diving should I want to don all that and drive a long way, it's been really neat to reconnect with divers, ex and current, with public pool diving.
so, we've been meeting at the pools and diving again. one thing that wasn't mentioned earlier was that under responsible use in a pool, this helps to take someone who isn't willing to go through all the hassle to: A. find water B. rent gear C. plain procrastination and it simply gets them back into the water. They are more likely to dive again with my way, because it's easier and still safe, and if hooks them like it has me they'll eventually rent or buy full gear again. This scenario keeps repeating to my past diving contacts: An old friend calls up and says to them over the phone in a manic way "hey a-hole, go meet me at the Y you are getting your gills wet, punk." I have miniature dive gear and when you see it you will love it." After six follow up calls, a referral to youtube and then a few beers if needed, they finally show up and two hours later are water logged and thankful.
I think I have dove about 100 times with this device, time to get it inspected due to constant use. Still no probs, but that's a heck of a lot of bursts to contend with.
I bought another. I buddy dive with my friends, and double up myself in river dives which I've been taking. Mostly pool dives as earlier stated. I never go deep, 15ft is dang scary on micro air, so you all know how easy it is to surface from 15 feet in a pool if something goes wrong...
So, here's some more. I found out a great way to cool tanks in a hot trunk. I built a rack to hold my refill tanks, and regardless of how hot the direct sun is on my trunk, a wet towel laid across them keeps them cool. the towel doesn't even have to be cool, mere evaporative cooling in the trunk, even surrounded by 115 degree air, will not overheat the tanks due to the insulating effects of the metal between the compressed and atmospheric air. I didn't know it would work this well, I had found this by laying wet dive clothes and then coming back to the truck constantly for refills, the front tanks were cold and the back tanks kept warming up compared to the wet ones. I have perfected this phenomena by simply keeping a cooler of slush water, which will last 4 days in my trunk, and switching out two towels IF that kind of cooling is ever needed. Overheating of tanks is not a problem now, allowing for long trips and weekend storage when needed.
Another discovery:
The mate point on spare airs for the tank adapter is a brass-to-brass contact. As much as I'm using this, that much metal to metal was making fine brass dust that I could see in my cap. Kept wondering where the gold tint was coming from...it dawned on me to use silicone regularly to prevent this erosion, as the actual filling process could be importing microflecks into my air supply! These are the things I will have assessed as I get this serviced more often than needed, as my primary air source.
Keeping the nips clean and lubed has settled things down for me, personally.
I have found two diamond earrings from diving in a public pool. I suspect one is zirc but my gf swears the other is real because we etched my shaving mirror with it. I don't know how to tell but later on I'll drive it up to a store to see. either way, urban treasure diving he he. it is now time for someone to start up a flame war around the ethics of keeping/selling public swimming pool filter-grate fodder, I will not be able to keep up with both of these monster threads! Obviously I don't put my self in situations where I will get sucked into a pool grate...but I guess they have about 16 minutes to come get me if I do. it's not like it's a raging torrent down there peeps...
Here's one for contest, the constant refilling and the way I address it. The first few posts were really helpful on the air reduction charting, it really isn't all that fun on a normal 3000 psi tank but with multiple bottles it's fun. Better though: So far what's worked well is having access to steel tanks that are filled to 3500 or 3600 as posted earlier... I do not allow the tanks to equalize, obviously, I simply stop before or just when the pin comes out on the spare air and there is still sound of transfer I am stopping. The receiver tank cools and is further unstressed...This is getting me a lot of mileage on my air, it is the only safety aspect of this hobby i can see worth considering now other than safe dive locations.
We just got back from drift diving the comal river with these, it was terrible fun and there were no safety issues to be had that would be unrelated to snorkeling and basic water play.
Third bottle gets here on Thurs
to each his own,
B
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