Build a BPW vs Zeagle Express Tech

[Lemna]

Is it OK to purposely create a rig that eliminates your need for any additional weight? I'm asking from the perspective of -- if you get in a bad situation where someone might want to dump their weights, but you don't have any weights to dump is that a bad thing? (Maybe this belongs in it's own thread).

People have argued both ways. A very heavy weightbelt might make it more difficult to maintain trim, but I feel more comfortable to have some weight that can be dumped. That way, if you have a BCD failure at the start of your dive and you are wearing a wetsuit, you can still swim up. But really, go to the DSS subforum and ask Tobin.

 

[herman]

To some extent it depends on how much extra weight we are discussing and how you prefer to weight yourself. There are a couple of things to consider when looking at the negative bouyancy of a BC. First off, does it overweight you without extra weight. An aluminum BP is only a couple of pounds negative, a steel is in the 6 lb range. Depending on your body type and the least amount of exposure suit you wear, their negative bouyancy may or may not be an issue. For me, neither an AL or steel plate is acceptable when diving in warm water. In the warm water I use no weights in fresh water with a neutral BC and only 4 in salt. So even an AL plate would over weight me in fresh water and a SS would overweight me in warm saltwater, grossly overweighting me in fresh. If a plate will overweight you, the next thing to consider is how much overweighted will a given plate make you and what is the real impact. I have no problems swimming up 4 or 5 lbs of negative buoyancy so I see no need to worry about a few extra non ditchable weight from a safety standpoint, bad comes to worse I will swim up my gear and ditch it at the surface. That said, I dislike being overweighted, it requires me to keep air in my BC and creates drag so for me even a couple of pounds overweighted is unacceptable. For me, an AL plate is OK in warm salt water, I need to add an extra 2 lbs but a SS plate would overweight me by 2 lbs in salt. Not enought to be a safety problem but unacceptable to me from a proper weighting standpoint. In fact, I dive the ET with a home buit non ditchable weight intergration in warm salt water. I add 4 lbs of non ditchable weight to it to make me neutral in warm salt water. Since both AL and SS will overweight me in warm fresh water and if I were buying 1 plate then I would have to buy a neutral plate like the nylon ones (ET or similar) or a Kydex plate. Your needs may be different depending on your body type and the least amount of exposure suit you wear but one thing is for certain, you can always add more weight if you need to but there is only so much you can remove.
One somewhat related comment, as a new diver odds are you are actually carring some extra weight. If you do proper weight checks and as your skills improve, odds are you will find you need to drop a fair amount of weight. My suggestion would be for you to take that into consideration as you decide which gear to choose, like I said before, you can always add weight but there is just so much you can remove.