OP
Xdeep or dive rite for sidemount
- Thread starter formernuke
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Why is the Hollis out?
What Dive Rite harness are you referencing?
Do you ever intend to dive sidemount AL80s?
108s and 133s are both 17L cylinders…
XDeep Rec or Tec or Dive Rite LS and be done with it. The XDeep is more finicky to set up, but I’d like to think whoever is training you knows what they’re doing.
attack33
Contributor
Apologies, I made the mistake of trying to reply from a mobile phone and it didn't give me a keyboard so I clicked "Post reply" and well... you know the rest.
OP
I have zero plans of AL 80's for anything except bailout or deco.
I'm not going to say why hollis is out, just that it is.
InWay2Deep
Contributor
Thats to bad, b/c the Katana2 is a pretty awesome SM harness, king of cave diving uses it almost daily.
Edd does some cool things, but calling him king of cave diving is a bit acolyte-ish, and he was selling XDeep Tec by the truckload and raving about it being the best harness two years ago, even though he was modifying the poo out of them in house. Even now, he offers modifications to the K2.
I've built a couple of XDeeps for students and just received a demo Nomad LS used in the new Ron Howard movie about the Thai cave rescue that's coming out from Dive Rite to replace my Nomad LT that bit the dust.
The XDeep is fully customizable and for me best comes in pieces to truly set it up for the diver. Last one I did came partially assembled and it was actually harder to fiddle with the details. I ended up taking it apart anyway because of the diver who was going to be using it.
Took twice as long as it would have had it been just the pieces in the box.
However, once set up and fitted on land, it took very little extra effort to tweak it to where it needed to be in the pool.
I haven't had the Nomad in the water yet. My schedule hasn't given me the chance to get it in the pool.
Before I do though, I'll be removing some of the stock hardware and replacing it with custom items from Piranha Dive Mfg. Just because I like to dive my rigs a certain way with specific hardware. And I've used enough of them to know that while I can make pretty much any rig work, they won't be ideal.
I've used and own/owned HOG, Dive Rite, Manta, and two I built from scratch based on a 20lb deco SM bladder and an XDeep classic wing with my own custom harnesses. I've tried Hollis (SMS100, Katana, and SMS75 the latter was ok but not for me), XDeep, ScubaPro (pure junk), and found all of them lacking the way they are out of the box.
Sidemount is purely personal when it comes to fit and figuring out where you want things. Many SM divers have only tried one or two rigs and so they have a very narrow range of experience to draw on.
As long as your instructor is open minded and doesn't have a vested interest in you buying one specific brand try as many as you can. Make sure the instructor takes the time to fit it and move any hardware that needs moved to suit you.
If they won't, or can't, find one who will.
The XDeep is fully customizable and for me best comes in pieces to truly set it up for the diver. Last one I did came partially assembled and it was actually harder to fiddle with the details. I ended up taking it apart anyway because of the diver who was going to be using it.
Took twice as long as it would have had it been just the pieces in the box.
However, once set up and fitted on land, it took very little extra effort to tweak it to where it needed to be in the pool.
I haven't had the Nomad in the water yet. My schedule hasn't given me the chance to get it in the pool.
Before I do though, I'll be removing some of the stock hardware and replacing it with custom items from Piranha Dive Mfg. Just because I like to dive my rigs a certain way with specific hardware. And I've used enough of them to know that while I can make pretty much any rig work, they won't be ideal.
I've used and own/owned HOG, Dive Rite, Manta, and two I built from scratch based on a 20lb deco SM bladder and an XDeep classic wing with my own custom harnesses. I've tried Hollis (SMS100, Katana, and SMS75 the latter was ok but not for me), XDeep, ScubaPro (pure junk), and found all of them lacking the way they are out of the box.
Sidemount is purely personal when it comes to fit and figuring out where you want things. Many SM divers have only tried one or two rigs and so they have a very narrow range of experience to draw on.
As long as your instructor is open minded and doesn't have a vested interest in you buying one specific brand try as many as you can. Make sure the instructor takes the time to fit it and move any hardware that needs moved to suit you.
If they won't, or can't, find one who will.
I vote for the hybrid solution. What I use is an XDeep Stealth harness with DiveRite ring bungees. I use either an XDeep Tech wing with heavy steels and/or stages with a wetsuit or a smaller DECO Dive wing with small tanks and/or a drysuit. Both simply bungee around the toso, so it's easy to switch back and forth.
I like the low profile of the XD harness and the ability to switch wings easily; I love the way the DR ring bungee system supports the tanks both in and out of the water. With this hybrid system, it is simple to sidemount from a boat, the shore, a dock, a pier, or pretty much any situation that can be done in backmount. I can simply don the system, clip my tanks on at my truck, a table, right off the ground, at the tank rack on the boat, etc. and just walk to the water, don fins and mask and off I go.
But there is still the option to do it the hard way (donning tanks in water) if that is called for. I do sometimes take off the tanks in water when shore diving if I will use the same tanks for the next dive. Then I don't have to carry them out and back in again. But otherwise, I just walk or climb right out and take the tanks off wherever I put them on. Easy peasy.
The Katana 2 was basically Edds rig, and even then he started to modify it with baffles.
But the king of cave diving hardly, he is hardly alone at the top end as you have the WKPP and the KUR making massive strides in exploration.
Anyways @formernuke Dive-Rite is local here, but even the most strident DR guys who get the stuff for free many will use XDeep as their SM rig. Now DR has a new rig coming out, my instructor was testing it the last time I dove with him, looks like an updated LS but didn't seem to beach ball like the LS does. Hopefully DR combined with Hollis will give XDeep enough of a push to make a 3.0 version.
MrBlenny
Contributor
). I did my AN/DP class in cold water with the Stealth as well; Faber HP133's bottom gas and AL40's for deco gases worked great.Similar threads
