Why no love?

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Posidon are rare in the UK. Seen a couple in the quarries and a pair on one boat three years ago. Compared with dozens of Inspirations, JJs, Revos, X-boxes and a few Megs and Kisses. Oh and a handful of Red Bare units.

Revos are best though :wink:
 
I have good friends here on this board who have 4 Poseidons and 2 Meg 15’s. They have 4 Poseidons between them because one or more are always back to Sweden (or wherever they come from) for repair. They bought the first 2 full price, but they bought the “spares” for a song, as they aren’t worth much to folks who don’t have a lot of them….
 
I see your in NW Ohio, I am in Central Ohio. I fly a Hollis Prism 2, and did my certification thru Divers Incorporated out of Ann Arbor at White Star and Gilboa quarries. Like Tracy mentioned each unit is different, but I have been happy with mine thus far. I would recommend reaching out to Rich at Divers Inc., being localish to you its nice to have local support. Being in Ohio it is hard to recommend a place in TSUN, but I am.

another unit you will not find any love for in any real level of technical or cave diving unless the instructors are sponsored by Hollis
 
I dive a AP2020. One thing not mentioned and it’s one of the big benefits for me is that AP will deal directly to you. Any parts, spares, upgrades and even a new rebreather without going through a shop or instructor (I am not a fan of the middle man) this might drive people away from recommending the unit or may not due to income stream fading. I am also out of the EU/GB so I don’t pay VAT. These points are big advantage for me. Don’t need to have done some regulator course to buy rebuild kits and cheaper

In regards to the unit itself, it’s display is great. Hall sensor buttons instead of piezo and high resolution, Bluetooth etc. I have had a Blinky pp02 hud and much prefer the green good red bad but that’s subjective. Then you have the temp stick and c02 sensor. I have dived bmcl and personally don’t get the free chest benefit (may be if your old and inflexible/fat ‍♀️) so I’m sticking with fmcl for WOB. The stock harness is comfortable holds the unit close to your back and lungs close to your chest (WOB) but it looks like poo. I personally like the plastic case as it’s sacrificial protection (says so in the manual) doesn’t corrode and flake like a alloy frame will. AP are still doing r&d, still releasing new upgrades and making new distribution centre in Europe. Positive sign the company is doing ok.

xccr, meg, liberty are also great fmcl units. Xccr had a optional Delrin canister so no corrosion or anodise stripping.
 
Am assuming @Aaron Harmon is a rebreather novice. Would strongly advise against a second hand older rebreather unless you’ve got an "expert" with you and there’s a guarantee with the unit.

A close diving friend bought an Inspiration Vision which has cost him a small fortune to fix up: lungs fell to pieces, $1300 for a head service (electronics replaced), endless hose issues, cells, cylinder testing and cleaning, and a replacement case. He admits that it would have been better to have bought new…. It was out of the water for months.

It’s one thing if it’s your second or subsequent rebreather where you roughly know what you’re looking for.

On the other hand I bought a second hand Revo that was like new with only 5 dives registered and struck lucky. Had to replace both HP hoses and some cells, but saved a load of money over a new one.

Obligatory car analogy: mine was a low mileage 1 year old Volvo, his was 10 year old Ford with 150k on the clock. Could you tell the difference?


Novice is an understatement. I take the TDI course next week. Just about finished with the book work now.
 
To the OP: One thiing to add that hasn't been said, is don't let your location dictate which unit you buy due to easy access to an instructor. I live outside of Tampa and have quite a few friends from Ohio here that drive back to Ohio frequently. It's not a bad trip according to them. There are a ton of excellent instructors in Florida from the panhandle, cave country, and south florida. So spend your time reading about units, asking questions, then when you've narrowed it down to a couple of units that fit your needs, find an instructor and ask a million more questions. I know you didn't say it, but I want to put it out there that if you're thinking of an AP just because there's an instructor who comes up to your area, that's not a good enough reason to get one. The people I know that dive them for work, will not dive them for fun. That's a huge red flag. Secondly, I've only seen a handful of people diving APs in my dive travels around the US. And even in Europe didn't see a ton of them compared to other units. Another huge red flag. And this one will probably annoy some people, but the few times I have been around people diving APs, they are far from the quality of diver I would ever want to be. Obviously that's a statement based on my own experience and who I've encountered. But honestly sometimes seeing only crappy divers diving a unit is a turn off even if it's only a small sample size. I'm sure Revos are ok units for example, but every cave diver I"ve encountered on a Revo left alot to be desired and really put a stigma in my head about Revos.
 
Novice is an understatement. I take the TDI course next week. Just about finished with the book work now.
Do you know which unit you’ll be training on?

Your first rebreather is the one you’ll train on and learn how to dive CCR. 80% or more of those skills are transferable to another unit later once you’ve got the hours and ascents behind you.

Your MOD1 is tied to the unit you trained on. Other units need a cross-over course.

Something like 1/3 or more of the units I see on boats are AP. The JJ is next most popular, followed by Revos, X-box, Megs and Kisses (which are manual).

If there’s a choice, the JJ is an excellent unit.
 
Do you know which unit you’ll be training on?

Your first rebreather is the one you’ll train on and learn how to dive CCR. 80% or more of those skills are transferable to another unit later once you’ve got the hours and ascents behind you.

Your MOD1 is tied to the unit you trained on. Other units need a cross-over course.

Something like 1/3 or more of the units I see on boats are AP. The JJ is next most popular, followed by Revos, X-box, Megs and Kisses (which are manual).

If there’s a choice, the JJ is an excellent unit.

Training is on the AP unit. My LDS is going to start/has started selling them. One of the instructors that I frequently travel with is trained on AP and he is going through train the trainer next week with Mark Nevin. Mark will train us both next week. Its sort of a two for one deal. We are splitting the cost of his travel and is saves me a trip to Florida (or elsewhere). My vacation time is spoken for this year and this also happens to coincide with a one week break from Grad School. I have another year left and I also work full time so this presented itself as an opportunity.

If I were to train on this as a matter of convenience, how long to the cross over courses tend to take? Is it something I could do on a 3 day weekend trip to Florida? Or would I need to take a week vacation (sometime next year)?

If a manufacturer wanted to disrupt this market one way to to it would be to pay for the cost of training and provide free rental units for anyone who purchases a new CCR.

Another way would be to offer interest free financing. I could pay for the unit outright, but as a grad student (doing clinical rotations), if I were to lose my current job (not likely but always a possibility), taking that much money out of savings would be reckless. I need to have enough to put food on the table and pay my mortgage in case I spend any significant part of next year unemployed. My wife had a stroke last June and hasn't worked since. We would be very uncomfortable living on her income alone.
 
@Aaron Harmon crossovers are typically 2-3 days depending on proficiency on rebreathers in general and how quickly you adapt to the new unit, but 2-3 days is reasonable.

In cave country, training is often included if you purchase a new rebreather.
 
Training is on the AP unit. My LDS is going to start/has started selling them. One of the instructors that I frequently travel with is trained on AP and he is going through train the trainer next week with Mark Nevin. Mark will train us both next week. Its sort of a two for one deal. We are splitting the cost of his travel and is saves me a trip to Florida (or elsewhere). My vacation time is spoken for this year and this also happens to coincide with a one week break from Grad School. I have another year left and I also work full time so this presented itself as an opportunity.

If I were to train on this as a matter of convenience, how long to the cross over courses tend to take? Is it something I could do on a 3 day weekend trip to Florida? Or would I need to take a week vacation (sometime next year)?

If a manufacturer wanted to disrupt this market one way to to it would be to pay for the cost of training and provide free rental units for anyone who purchases a new CCR.

Another way would be to offer interest free financing. I could pay for the unit outright, but as a grad student (doing clinical rotations), if I were to lose my current job (not likely but always a possibility), taking that much money out of savings would be reckless. I need to have enough to put food on the table and pay my mortgage in case I spend any significant part of next year unemployed. My wife had a stroke last June and hasn't worked since. We would be very uncomfortable living on her income alone.

Excellent. There's plenty of Inspirations around at reasonable prices. Certainly in the UK it's the cheaper way of getting in to diving CCR and there's a ready market to sell your old one once you've finished with it -- or sell quickly if needs must.

Inspos have been around for a long time and have sold more than most of the others put together. As a result they've been places where most of the others haven't.

For some reason I seem to dive with a lot of medical people. Maybe CCR attracts those kinds. And engineers.


Enjoy your course. It's fun, albeit hard work. Quite different from OC, but the core skills are pretty similar and bailout's as easy as anything.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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