Why are they so expensive?

[Whale Whisperer]

Don’t discount the Liability Insurance issue just yet. I had the opportunity to sell ultra light aircraft and our insurance agent said if we sold even one, the insurance premium would come close to the retail price for each unit sold. This effectively doubled the retail cost without adding to the gross profit. We passed.

Regulators and most other gear is sold in the 100’s of thousands units and with a miniscule fatality rate. I’m not sure that’s true with re-breathers yet.

Dave

Aviation insurance is so high! I'm working on my private helicopter ticket, and the price of fuel and insurance are the main culprits to the high prices for training!

 

[The Kraken]

Let my ticket (rotor wing) lapse because it's become soooooo expensive.

the K

 

[Divin' Dave]

My dad returned from Japan in the early 60's with a $40 AM transistor radio. Today, even new, it would be a piece of junk but then it was a wonderment. If there's enough interest and the market grows then the cost of the rebreathers will come down. We need to encourage all our rich friends to buy lots of them and give us their old ones until the price is affordable. Have any rich friends?

 

[vladimir]

lol I'm no expert when it comes to economics as you can see. My idea of supply and demand is if a companys put similar products out on the market, and the demand for it is low, then the retail cost could be higher to mantain manufacturing costs and such. If the demand were to grow then wouldn't the prices go down, due to competition, lower cost of supplies and mass production?

You've lumped a few different concepts together. Simply stated, as supply increases, the equilibrium price goes down, as demand increases, it goes up. If manufacturers can respond to higher prices by increasing supply, perhaps availing themselves of economies of scale, then prices go down.

 

[almitywife]

.....What's the deal here? One person I asked said the reason why their so much is because "they can charge anything they want" and I believe him lol.

i would guess they charge what they want to stay in business, to continue to manufacture more units and to spend some dosh on R&D

im estimatinig a LDS i frequent sold about 100 sets of gear in the past few months.... and not one rebreather

so their OC stuff is quite affordable (well as any scuba equipment is affordable that is) while we had to go to another hemisphere to buy hubbys rebreather and the other side of the country just to be trained on it - for now, its still specialized equipment and the price tag reflects this.

cheers

 

[Whale Whisperer]

Let my ticket (rotor wing) lapse because it's become soooooo expensive.

the K

It's not easy to keep current with a private rotary wing ticket unless you fly professionaly or own your own bird :shakehead

 

[Whale Whisperer]

My dad returned from Japan in the early 60's with a $40 AM transistor radio. Today, even new, it would be a piece of junk but then it was a wonderment. If there's enough interest and the market grows then the cost of the rebreathers will come down. We need to encourage all our rich friends to buy lots of them and give us their old ones until the price is affordable. Have any rich friends?

I have a few rich friends but none of them would even go near the ocean!

 

[Wayward Son]

Catch-22. They don't sell as many so they're expensive, but since they don't sell as many they are expensive.

Maybe if it didn't cost $8K to buy one & another $8K or so plus a week's vacation to get trained on it, more people might be interested in them.

 

[diver 85]

Well, hell !!!
There jist ain't enough folks a'buyin them thangs to be able to sellum fer $200 a pop.

the K-eynesian Economist

"Ive just got to gripe, this is the least coherent post Ive ever seen, and I travel the forums a lot.".........lol........(of course I'm j/k'ing Kraken)...........

 

[Padipro]

Yes, they are very expensive and the training isn't cheap either. As others have said it has a lot to do with liability and R&D. A rebreather can kill you much easier then open circuit scuba can, Hypoxia (low oxygen) Hyperoxia (high oxygen) and hypercapnia (high CO2) all can render a diver unconscious and an unconscious diver usually drowns. A rebreather is essentially a portable nitrox mixing station, get the mix wrong, or forget the monitor your PO2 display and it's no different then diving to deep for a certain nitrox mix. In this day and age a manufacture could loose everything because of one forgetful diver. When I bought my rebreather I had to sign a very lengthy waiver before I could even take delivery of it.

Even though it seems as though rebreathers are made up of a few inexpensive parts in reality there is a lot of engineering and testing involved in producing a reliable product. The concept is simple but the process is not. The CO2 scrubber alone must be tested not only for how the gas flows through the canister to make sure that it removes the CO2 effectively but also to determine how long it will last for the average diver. If the unit is an electronically controlled rebreather, an eCCR, the electronics that control and monitor the system can rival even the most complex dive computer.

My Megalodon has 2 on board computers which monitor 3 oxygen sensors and send that information in the form of PO2 to two seperate display units as well as a heads up display, a tri-colored LED mounted on the breathing hose in front of my mask that displays the PO2 with a series of flashing colors. The primary computer also controls the oxygen solenoid which is opened to allow replacement of the oxygen your body has used and maintain the PO2 in the breathing loop at the level selected by the diver, usually 1.2. This can be changed at any time during the dive if the diver chooses, if not changed by the diver the computer will maintain that "set point" regardless of the divers depth.

Rebreathers are pretty complicated machines and if you take a really good look at one you can see why they might be a bit expensive.