What is a rebreather

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Thanks cave diver, I know now I will never use a rebreather.

LOL. This is diving. You should learn to never say never. :wink:
 
Im sorry Im new to diving , what is a rebreather.

It is a device that takes the gas that you exhale and adds oxygen back in to it by passing it through your wallet.

:eyebrow:
 
Passing it through your wallet - too true.

I absolutely love my rebreather, it has allowed me to do some absolutely phenomenal dives that would be impossible on open circuit. But it is definitely a financial leap.
 
Have to agree with JDostal, what I tell people moving to a rebreather has re-invigorated my diving.
Sure they aren't cheap but in my mind well worth the expense.

Al
 
Here's one simple explanation:

When you breathe in you inhale 21% oxygen and 79% inert gas (that's from your basic OW scuba classes). As you know, what your body needs to live on (the fuel) is the oxygen. But of that 21% you inhale your body only needs about 3% to sustain life. So, when you exhale, you are actually thowing away about 18% of the oxygen you could have used (metabolized) as fuel. Let me rephrase that: It means when you are under water on open-circuit scuba, every time you exhale you are thowing away about 18% of the oxygen you could have used to dive with.

A rebreather lets you keep that 18%, and keep breathing it (why it's called a rebreather) until all of the oxygen is used up. Basic division says if what you inhale contains 21% oxygen and you only use about 3% of it, then you should be able to get about 7 breaths on a rebreather (21 divided by 3 = 7) for every breath on open-circuit scuba. See an advantage - staying down 7 times as long as you can with the same amount of air.

Naturally you have to add oxygen as you begin to burn it down.

One last thing: The byproduct of buring/metabolizing oxygen is carbon dioxide, which is not something you want to be breathing. A rebreather uses a filter to absorb that carbon dioxide. Most rebreathers are limited as to how long they can stay down by how much carbon dioxide their scrubbers can absorb.

From there it's all a matter of which rebreather you select. They all work basically the same way, but are configured differently and may operate in different ways, as has already been discussed in earlier posts.

Hope that is helpful.
 
Thanks cave diver, I know now I will never use a rebreather.

Never say never.

When I was a new diver i ran into a cave diver on a boat who had a $600 primary light. I thought he was nuts. Who spends that kind of money on a light. I now own one of those expensive primary lights.

Then I couldn't imagine cave diving...wet rocks who would want to go in there. And now I am full cave certified.

I looked at tech divers covered in so my gear you could barely find a diver in the picture and thought i'd never do that, it doesn't even look fun. Now i dive a rebreather and have completed dives looking much like those tech divers. Somewhere under the rebreather, 2 al80's, 1 al40, multiple lights, and a drysuit was little old me.

So you never know where diving will take you, it is deceptively seductive.
 

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