Where should I start to approach the rebreather world

[Wibble]

Depends upon the sort of diving you do; how 'independent' minded you are.

You've mentioned about being GUE certified; is that Tec1 level, or was your normoxic done through another agency?

If you're GUE then it's a no-brainer: go down the JJ-GUE route. A nice box and you'd get excellent training with it through GUE and lots of instabuddies to play with.

If you're not completely aligned to GUE, there's lots of other "more standard" CCR units available: normal JJ (an excellent unit), Revo, Inspiration 2020, Megaladon...

The one thing there seems to be a consensus on is that your first rebreather is something that's pretty standard unless you really have a good reason (e.g. the sidemount rebreathers).

There is a reason why the JJs are popular. They're very good units with a great reputation.

 

[Wibble]

Maintenance costs...

Non-capital costs; kind of running costs...
Replaced all 5 cells this year, circa €400. Couple of O-rings. A mushroom valve and seat. Not much really.

Spent more fixing my drysuit - £500/€600/$700. Oh, and a light-for-me cable issue which will no doubt take a year to resolve again...

 

[Nico-ITA]

Depends upon the sort of diving you do; how 'independent' minded you are.

You've mentioned about being GUE certified; is that Tec1 level, or was your normoxic done through another agency?

If you're GUE then it's a no-brainer: go down the JJ-GUE route. A nice box and you'd get excellent training with it through GUE and lots of instabuddies to play with.

If you're not completely aligned to GUE, there's lots of other "more standard" CCR units available: normal JJ (an excellent unit), Revo, Inspiration 2020, Megaladon...

The one thing there seems to be a consensus on is that your first rebreather is something that's pretty standard unless you really have a good reason (e.g. the sidemount rebreathers).

There is a reason why the JJs are popular. They're very good units with a great reputation.

I have a couple of tech certifications, one is the GUE tech 1, the other is a normoxic with another agency, let's say a tech 60 in the GUE world.
The standard I use are the GUE ones anyway and most of my current OC buddies are GUE... despite this I am open minded and I don't want to focus on the agency at this stage.

I heard from everyone that the JJ is a very solid and reliable machine, but at the same heavy (especially if configured as GUE) and bulky when compared to other systems, so I would like to make a wider evaluation.

Now I need to start collecting info and talking to people who have or have used different rebs, to try to get feedback that goes beyond the diving agency

 

[johnkendall]

I have a couple of tech certifications, one is the GUE tech 1, the other is a normoxic with another agency, let's say a tech 60 in the GUE world.
The standard I use are the GUE ones anyway and most of my current OC buddies are GUE... despite this I am open minded and I don't want to focus on the agency at this stage.

I heard from everyone that the JJ is a very solid and reliable machine, but at the same heavy (especially if configured as GUE) and bulky when compared to other systems, so I would like to make a wider evaluation.

Now I need to start collecting info and talking to people who have or have used different rebs, to try to get feedback that goes beyond the diving agency

Feel free to shoot me a PM of you want to talk through the GUE pathway. Whereabouts in the world are you based? (You've mentioned Italy and Croatia)

Thanks
John (GUE CCR instructor )

 

[Nico-ITA]

Feel free to shoot me a PM of you want to talk through the GUE pathway. Whereabouts in the world are you based? (You've mentioned Italy and Croatia)

Thanks
John (GUE CCR instructor )

Hi John, very gladly! I know you by reputation and will definitely contact you
Oh by the way, I'm based in Italy

 

[tbone1004]

@Wibble Revo over here is $9k new and you can often get instructors to include Mod1 if you take the course. I consider a new CCR $10k all in with training and that holds pretty true with most of them.

 

[tbone1004]

@Nico-ITA the Revo has higher annual maintenance costs to any other rebreather due to the quantity of cells that are in it. The Revo has 5, Liberty and O2ptima have 4, Poseidon has 2, but everything else has 3. If you subscribe to annual replacement, that is not an insignificant amount of money for no real benefit. Budget $500/yr of maintenance costs and you'll come out ahead every year..

The JJ in GUE configuration is very heavy when compared to say a Revo micro titanium, and is similar to a set of twin 17L's in the 50kg ish range *LP104's in the US for reference*, BUT for boat diving there truly is no better configuration IMO and my Megalodon is rack mounted as well for that reason.

If you're already a GUE diver and your buddies are using the rack mounted JJ then I would just go ahead and commit to that one, it will be the overall best choice for you.

 

[Nico-ITA]

@Nico-ITA the Revo has higher annual maintenance costs to any other rebreather due to the quantity of cells that are in it. The Revo has 5, Liberty and O2ptima have 4, Poseidon has 2, but everything else has 3. If you subscribe to annual replacement, that is not an insignificant amount of money for no real benefit. Budget $500/yr of maintenance costs and you'll come out ahead every year..

The JJ in GUE configuration is very heavy when compared to say a Revo micro titanium, and is similar to a set of twin 17L's in the 50kg ish range *LP104's in the US for reference*, BUT for boat diving there truly is no better configuration IMO and my Megalodon is rack mounted as well for that reason.

If you're already a GUE diver and your buddies are using the rack mounted JJ then I would just go ahead and commit to that one, it will be the overall best choice for you.

Thanks a lot for you comment! Now I will start deepening the JJ, then the rEvo

 

[barth]

I did buy a JJ and did gue ccr1 training. This were my motivations :

- possible to join gue project
- easy to find a good instructor
- easy to dive as a mixed team. (longhose, bungeed backup, procedures)
- allowed to do dives in tech 1 range after 25 dives with max depth of 30 meter

 

[rsingler]

To put it very simply, most of the people I know have the JJ (GUE).
Since I am also GUE certified, this would be the most obvious choice in order to give continuity to a path, but I don't want to limit myself to evaluating the path, I want to try to understand the pros and cons of all the main Rebs, so as to also have other elements to base the decision.

Best reason to get a GUE JJ is that when you finally choose to rig your toy the way you really want it, you won't have to spend very much.