What do you love and what do you hate about your unit?

[alex_nr]

I am looking into getting certified on a unit this year and also might be designing one as part of a mechanical engineering degree. I want to get some input from the experienced crowd in regards to what is good, bad and what would be the most usefull improvements.

For my own certification I'm looking at meg2.7 as the top option for now, but am considering both triton and jj.

Thanks!

 

[kensuf]

Something to consider with the Meg 2.7 is that when the electronics eventually crap out, you'll be SOL. I'm not sure if there's a conversion to the Tiburon, you may be required to buy a whole new head.

Having said that, you can't go wrong with either a Meg or a JJ if you're looking for an eCCR. I'd personally probably go the JJ route because of the counterlungs, but both are solid units. I have zero time on a Triton so no comment there.

 

[tbone1004]

Things I love and hate about my meg 2.7

Love

• Work of breathing with OTS lungs
• Right to left flow
• Build quality
• Standard O2 sensors

Hate

• 2-point calibration
• dealing with the future of the boards-as @kensuf said when they fail you'll have to get a new head or convert to mCCR
• Turn on/off required with the head off
• Non standard loop hoses
• Lid latches
• OTS lungs for chest clutter
• O2 sensor carriage. Would have much preferred a "master plug" type system to remove the cells from the unit. Dive Rite and several others have this one figured out
• HUD is useless when it's bright out. Perfectly fine in a cave, but basically useless in bright OW
• Controller is basically useless once you're diving and is a nuissance. Make sure yours has a Shearwater on it. Most Meg divers I now stow the controller once the thing is turned on and calibrated and only pull it out to change setpoints

Lots of hates, but it's all nitpicky stuff that pretty much every Meg diver will whine about. That list imbalance is about the same for pretty much every rebreather diver out there and if it's not, they're usually lying to you or haven't dove enough to have an unbiased opinion.

I don't have enough hours on my Kisskat to give a full list on that, but it's also not a commercially available unit so won't do much good for you anyway.

 

[rjack321]

Something to consider with the Meg 2.7 is that when the electronics eventually crap out, you'll be SOL. I'm not sure if there's a conversion to the Tiburon, you may be required to buy a whole new head.

Having said that, you can't go wrong with either a Meg or a JJ if you're looking for an eCCR. I'd personally probably go the JJ route because of the counterlungs, but both are solid units. I have zero time on a Triton so no comment there.

There's already a 2.7 to Tiburon conversion available for those that want or need it.

 

[rjack321]

Meg 2.7
Pluses
WOB on TOS lungs
solid setpoint holding
long battery life
great flood tolerance, fabulous water/condensation removal
on/off in the head, can't turn on/off by accident

Minus
crappy sensor carriage, lots of orings and air leak points
cell orings seal between inhale and exhale sides of the loop
2 point calibration
terrible TERRIBLE screen on the handset
heavy with large dead air volume requiring lots of weight to sink
propriety batteries

Kiss Sidewinder
Pluses
WOB in most positions
fabulous trim
light weight
love my narced 3 LED HUD I had installed
love that I saved a ton of money by using a used predator as a primary
simple batteries

minuses
ZERO flood tolerance
poor CMF from stock
tiny CL with poor mixing on O2 injection
terrible WOB when vertical
impossible to do a proper prebreath until I'm in the water because dil and wing gas are offboard
big challenge to put on SM cylinders and plug everything in while sitting on a bench do not recommend for boat diving with dry gloves etc
swampy humid loop with condensation on inhale flappers like crazy in cold water - to the point of wondering if you have a leak

 

[tbone1004]

@rjack321 did you see my post in the workbench thread about converting mine to running dual 9v batteries instead of the funny battery packs?

Also why do you need dil to prebreathe?

 

[rjack321]

@rjack321 did you see my post in the workbench thread about converting mine to running dual 9v batteries instead of the funny battery packs?

I didn't. I have little 9V adapters but I have a stash of the stock 5xAA batteries I'm using up. Once they are gone I will probably go back to using 2x lithium Cs

Also why do you need dil to prebreathe?

Is it on and plugged into the QC6? Can't check
MAV check?
ADV check?
BOV check? (I don't use one on the kiss but some people do)​

Also can't hook up your wing in the sidewinder without at least one SM bottle being worn

May or may not have suit gas available without your dil/BO bottles on.

All of that is part of my prebreathe. There is definitely a risk to splashing with most of this stuff unverified and trying to put on SM bottles of dil/BO in the water. Net, I basically only use this unit when I can walk into the water via a beach with a hard bottom. And I still don't like doing prebreathes even in 3-4ft of water, if I pass out face first I'm still going to drown.

So unless you are using tiny dil/BO bottles and have help to put them on while on the bench or boat so you can actually verify everything is connected and working, I consider the sidewinder an "unsafe" unit to dive from boats. Splashing with no dil and no wing is definitely not safe.

I dive my Meg for boat dives as it is completely self contained and I have wing, suit, dil, o2 all turned on and verified functioning before getting wet.
​

 

[rddvet]

I'll add my 2 cents, but as tbone suggested above take it with a grain of salt. I officially am now certified on 2 units. So my opinion is heavily skewed to my first unit.

First Unit: Fathom
Pros: Pretty much love everything about it
-Fabulous WOB
-Excellent flood tolerance
-very similar to diving a set of doubles
-simple as it gets
-needle valve makes matching oxygen requirements a breeze
-great support/customer service
-very few proprietary parts
-Lots of other stuff, but as above it's my first unit so I could give you 1000 reasons I love it

Cons:
One major one-it's a backmount unit and I've been diving sidemount for years. It's really not a con because it's so much more comfortable to dive than doubles
One other thing that annoys me from time to time is that the loop connections to the head can be finicky. It's easy to crossthread if you're not careful. My wife's is much easier, so there may be a thread issue on mine I can't locate

Second Unit: Sidewinder
Pros:
Pretty much only two:
It's a sidemount unit that actually allows you to easily carry 2 bailout cylinders without requiring a stage (as something like a liberty would)
It trims out beautifully

Cons:
I found many in the 3 days I spent with the unit. I disliked it so much that I had had plans to be going home with one, and chose not to buy one. Luckily Edd was nice and just charge me unit rental fees.

-WOB is trash compared to what I'm used to (everybody diving one at the site that asked how I liked how it breathed were shocked when I said poorly)
-Horrible flood tolerance- I'd been told it had bad flood tolerance. Once spending time with the unit it was much worse than I expected
-Annoying to build
-Not impressed with the quality
-Gearing up was much more annoying than the usual sidemount process (though I'm sure it's something I would get used to_
-I found the oxygen and dil mav's "sticky". On my fathom I can really control the amount of flow based on how hard I press the button. I found the mavs on the sidwinder all or nothing. Maybe they need to be broken in.
-I don't trust the scrubbers (I won't go into that here unless someone wants to PM me because I know it will lead to negative responses).
-ADV is a POS that fires for pretty much no reason and needs to be shut off all the time

I really went into the class fully planning to love the sidewinder and wanting every accessory (like needle valve). From day 1 I did not like the unit, but thought it was a new unit and just needed time. Every day of the class I liked the unit less and less.

 

[jason black]

i have owned 2.1.....2.6....copis....and 2.7 with shearwater....Meg 2.7 is solid .... have a lot of time on one..... hud is fine controllers are no issue.... 2 point cal is a pain.... can use c cells or 9v for the power.... i added back mount lungs to mine but isc is currently working on BMCL ....there is a tiburon upgrade (conversion) but the new tib head is superior... the 2.7 is still well supported..... isc has amazing support..... Tib has air calibration, work of breathing is one of the best in the industry..... and unlike most other units the cells are dry always! tib is amazing highly recommend

 

[grantctobin]

Above are some of the preeminent CCR divers active on the board. I’ll add a few 0.02, with caveat that the three units you’ve listed are kind of different animals. Finding a used unit and diving the hell out of it is one path. The other is acknowledging what those around you are diving. I’m keen on a Fathom but I don’t know that there’s anyone in the Midwest with one. Meanwhile there’s a huge KISS community scattered within a two hour drive.

Sidewinder:
I fit four regs, full rebreather, electronics, and can light/heat battery in my carry-on Pelican + backpack. Checked bag is exposure suit, fins, harness, reels. In a bind, I can clip it onto a set of rented doubles/plate/wing. Downsides, it’s not a great cold water rig (in most applications and without modification). RJack hit nail on the head as always.

I don’t have any time on chest mount units but the Triton does share the portability. If you’re in the states and hellbent on a chest unit, the ChO2ptima is probably easier to get trained on but is pretty long with the way the lungs are positioned+O2 bottle horizontal below the unit. Seems to be more of a problem if you’re sub 5’8.