Zeagle Express tech 44lb wing for first BC

[onthebeach]

Hello everyone. I am looking to purchase my first BC and have a budget of $300. I read thru a lot of the forums and I am really liking the Zeagle Express tech. I found on with a 44 lb wing. Question is that too big of a wing. I live and dive in Maine so a 7mm suit and I am currently renting my tanks. The other option is a 25 lb wing which I believe is too small. Would I really regret going with a 44 lb wing with all the drag? In my uneducated opinion more lift available would not necessarily be a bad thing? I will hopefully be diving in warm waters in the next couple of months but as for now I want something I can dive with in the cold waters of Maine and use on trips. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[WarrenZ]

I have done a lot of single tank dives with a apeks doubles 45lb wing that was before they came out with a singles specific 45 lbs wing. I found that with a heavy backplate and single tank adapter and integrated weights my 35 lb wing wasnt enough to float all the weight I would use if I had to take the rig off on the surface. One thing I am not sure about with the express tech is does it use a standard style wing? I have found that I ended up with multiple wings several back plates and even a couple of sidemount rigs. I now have a specific rig for whatever I am doing at the time I have yet to find one do all rig.

 

[Scared Silly]

Before I switched to a BP I dove a couple of different Zeagle BCDs. All had around a 40lbs wing. A bit bulky but they worked fine for a single tank. You can always get a smaller wing for warm water. Which is what many divers do.

 

[t-mac]

Can't speak for the bigger wing, but I dive an Express Tech with a 24 and I really like it. As indicated, you can get the smaller wing and swap out for tropical dives if you want.

 

[enduser]

The 44lb (Ranger) wing will fit on an express tech just fine. For that matter all Zeagle wings will fit. They have an in between size at 35 lb (Escape) or they now offer a 35lb donught wing as well.

I have a express tech that I have enjoyed and it is one size fits all. My 9 year old son will be using it this week in a scuba ranger program.

 

[cool_hardware52]

Hello everyone. I am looking to purchase my first BC and have a budget of $300. I read thru a lot of the forums and I am really liking the Zeagle Express tech. I found on with a 44 lb wing. Question is that too big of a wing. I live and dive in Maine so a 7mm suit and I am currently renting my tanks. The other option is a 25 lb wing which I believe is too small. Would I really regret going with a 44 lb wing with all the drag? In my uneducated opinion more lift available would not necessarily be a bad thing? I will hopefully be diving in warm waters in the next couple of months but as for now I want something I can dive with in the cold waters of Maine and use on trips. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The largest singles wing we offer is a 40 (lbs lift) We sell very few, mostly to PSDs that get in the water intentionally over weighted.

Even in cold water if you locate some of your ballast on your person (weight belt or weight harness) It is unusual for your "rig" to be any where near 40 lbs negative with a full cylinder.

For example let's assume you have 7mm 2 piece farmer john style suit and HP 100's.

Suits vary widely in terms of buoyancy but vanishingly few wet suits on people of normal stature are more than 30 lbs buoyant. I'll assume your suit is +30 lbs.

If we look at a typical BP&W, a stainless plate and harness will be about -6 lbs, your reg will be about -2 and a full steel tank will usually be -10-12 lbs If you add weight plates or a weighted STA you will have another 6-8 lbs of ballast attached to your plate. 6 + 2 + 12 + 8 = 28 lbs, meaning your rig could be expected to be -26 ~-28 lbs with a full cylinder, and it would provide about ~18-22 lbs of ballast with an empty cylinder (depending on the tank used and how much ballast you attach to your rig and not your person)

If your rig is providing ~20 lbs of ballast you will typically need another 4-8 lbs of ballast in order to hold a shallow stop with a near empty cylinder. 4-8 lbs in weight belt is easily tolerated by most divers.

In this example your rig is at most -28, and your suit is +30. My recommendations for wing capacity remain the same, 1) Be able to float your rig with a full tank if you ditch it, and be able to compensate for the maximum possible change in buoyancy of your exposure suit. 30 (your suit) > 28 (your rig) That makes a wing in the 35 lbs range a reasonable choice.

If your suit is less buoyant (good chance that it is, you should test *YOUR* suit) then it is possible you could use a smaller wing.

Careful selection of your cold water wing pays benefits when you use it in warm water. Warm water often allows for very small wings, (17-20lbs ) as the suits are thin and rigs are light, think 3mm suits and AL80's
Would you rather have a 30 lbs wing in warm water or 44?

Remember these are only examples, you need to test your own gear and use the buoyancy numbers for the cylinders you actually use.

Good luck,

Tobin

 

[tbone1004]

I would recommend waiting a few more months and going with a SS backplate. If you're diving in Maine, you're going to have a huge advantage with the weighting characteristics and you can get a top of the line one for under $500.... Don't be penny wise and pound foolish here.

With the Express tech you are at about 6lbs just for the rig, but it floats a little bit so you have to add about 2lbs to get it to sink. 8lbs, just for the rig to be neutral. With a SS plate and harness, you are at about 8lbs total weight again, but it is 6lbs negative, meaning that your overall rig weight is 6lbs lighter with the harness. Very important considering the amount of lead you will be wearing in the great white north...

 

[Colliam7]

I am looking to purchase my first BC and have a budget of $300. I read thru a lot of the forums and I am really liking the Zeagle Express tech. I found on with a 44 lb wing. Question is that too big of a wing. I live and dive in Maine so a 7mm suit and I am currently renting my tanks. The other option is a 25 lb wing which I believe is too small. Would I really regret going with a 44 lb wing with all the drag? In my uneducated opinion more lift available would not necessarily be a bad thing?

I will probably echo a couple of sentiments already expressed. From my perspective, 44lbs is quite a lot for single cylinder diving. Having said that, I confess that my very first BCD was a Zeagle Ranger, with a 44lb wing.

There are really four issues for me in considering your post. 1) I doubt seriously that you will notice the 'drag'. The bladder may 'taco' up around your cylinder, and function as a bit of an underwater speed brake, but not enough for you, as a newer diver, to necessarily notice. In the grand scheme of things you probably won't feel that you are being held back by some invisible force. What you MAY well notice, with a BIG wing, and a horseshoe wing at that, is a moving bubble of air that causes you some problems with buoyancy and trim. That 44lb bladder is a big bag, and you may need to only partially fill it underwater, and you may find find it annoying to have that bubble of air shifting, and such a wing may not always be easy to purge without going into a full upright position, which you should not have to do if you have the right size bladder; 2) as several have said, 44 lbs is a lot of lift for single cylinder diving and it is hard to conceive of a set of circumstances where a properly weighted diver would need that; 3) you have already expressed interest in a backplate (the Express Tech is a soft backplate), so you can take advantage of the modularity that a BP offers. While the Zeagle HORSESHOE wings are set up for easy attachment to the Express Tech plate, you can attach virtually any other (donut) wing of whatever size (including Zeagle 30lb wings, for example) to the plate. So, don't limit yourself to either a 25lb wing or a 44lb wing; 4) since you are considering a plate, it might be useful to make sure that the buoyancy characteristics of the plate you select match the kind of diving you are likely to be doing, You mention living in Maine, which presumably means not only the a thick (7mm)exposure suit, it suggests the need for an amount of weight usually associated with such diving. You mention rental cylinders, which I will take the liberty of presuming to probably be aluminum. You don't mention anything about your own inherent buoyancy, but if you are like the average adult American, the probability that you are inherently neutral, much less negatively buoyant is small, and you therefore add a certain amount of weight to your rig to compensate for that inherent positive buoyancy. Given all those factors, have you considered something other than a 'soft' plate that would be, at best neutrally buoyant? For example would a 2lb steel plate, or a 6lb steel plate better serve your needs? Just a thought.

 

[onthebeach]

Thank you all for your responses. I will look more closely at a BP/W with a 35# wing. I Tbone said I don't want to save a dollar and regret it later. What I am probably going to do is to purchase the BP and harness now and save up for the wing that is right for me. I have been looking but cannot find a BP/W package with a 35# wing for under $500. Does anyone have a recommendation on where to find one? Again thank you all for your advice!

 

[enduser]

The DSS rigs are less than 500 right?

A large ss plate with a 35lb donught wing and a hog harness is $470

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