Dive Xtras Blacktip Tech Safety Notice

[stuartv]

What is the rating now? I still see on websites listed as 100m.

60m rating would suck

The Tech is rated for 400' (~120m).

 

[stuartv]

The Travel is still 330' (100m).

 

[stuartv]

Nah a joke would be a scooter with a 120m rating having a rapid unscheduled disassembly or OceanGate event at 70m.

Pure speculation: They will de-rate the scooter to 60m which means it wont affect the majority of their userbase. It just sucks for those of us who actually wanted and were sold a 100m-rated scooter. The original Blacktip before the Travel / Tech tube designation had a 100m rating initially.

I'm not sure if de-rating it now has any real bearing on what you own that you bought previously.

I mean, my Tech tube was/is rated for 400'. If it imploded at 390' after they change the published depth rating, I would expect Dive-X to handle it the same as if it happened before their spec change.

Which is how? It's well out of warranty...

 

[macado]

I'm not sure if de-rating it now has any real bearing on what you own that you bought previously.

I mean, my Tech tube was/is rated for 400'. If it imploded at 390' after they change the published depth rating, I would expect Dive-X to handle it the same as if it happened before their spec change.

Which is how? It's well out of warranty...

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but one of the reasons I bought the original Blacktip (before it was called travel) was because it is rated to 300ft/100m. I've dove that tube to 250-300ft a decent number of times.

I then bought the "upgraded" Tech tube because it would trim out and it supposedly carried an additional depth rating of 400ft/~121m. I figured this was a much greater safety margin for the 300ft dives I was doing at the time. I then bought a 2nd and 3rd Blacktip Tech because I was comfortable with that depth rating.

Frankly, I would not have bought these scooters if I did not think it could handle the advertised depth rating. Yes I realize this is all a moot point as nothing Dive Xtras I own is currently under any sort of warranty. I'm just pointing out that one of the reasons I bought them was because I was comfortable and happy with their advertised depth rating. I would not have bought these scooters if they were only rated to 60m or 70m.

Perhaps this is all fine and it only affects a small number of Tech tube batches. They seem to indicate it only affects Tech tubes from Jan 2023 through Jan 2024. Mine are firmly outside this date range but the question still remains. Is one of my scooters going to implode at 300ft?

 

[stuartv]

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but one of the reasons I bought the original Blacktip (before it was called travel) was because it is rated to 300ft/100m. I've dove that tube to 250-300ft a decent number of times.

I then bought the "upgraded" Tech tube because it would trim out and it supposedly carried an additional depth rating of 400ft/~121m. I figured this was a much greater safety margin for the 300ft dives I was doing at the time. I then bought a 2nd and 3rd Blacktip Tech because I was comfortable with that depth rating.

Frankly, I would not have bought these scooters if I did not think it could handle the advertised depth rating. Yes I realize this is all a moot point as nothing Dive Xtras I own is currently under any sort of warranty. I'm just pointing out that one of the reasons I bought them was because I was comfortable and happy with their advertised depth rating. I would not have bought these scooters if they were only rated to 60m or 70m.

Perhaps this is all fine and it only affects a small number of Tech tube batches. They seem to indicate it only affects Tech tubes from Jan 2023 through Jan 2024. Mine are firmly outside this date range but the question still remains. Is one of my scooters going to implode at 300ft?

All I was trying to say if, if they de-rate what you already have, would that change anything about how you use it? For me it won't.

If there is a thought that "if they de-rate it to 60m and mine implodes at 75m, they won't do anything about it because they changed the rating", well, that's an issue that wouldn't change my behavior.

Mine was rated to 100m (or 120) when I bought it. If they want to change the ratings on new scooters, fine. If they want to change the rating on mine to shallower than 100m and then use the new rating as any basis for how they handle a failure, then they need to offer a buyback or some compensation for accepting the new lower performance limits.

It's no different than if you buy a car that says it is 300 HP and then later they say "oh, no, your car is only 200 HP." IIRC, Mazda got sued for that very type of thing in the RX-8, and lost.

 

[attack33]

A DPV implosion at depth could cause you to go negative and plummet to the bottom unless you can cut/unclip yourself fast enough. This has killed folks before.

In the car example, your car just goes slower. In this example, it could quickly lead to a fatality. The only moral and acceptable action in my mind here is full recall and replace or some recertification of what is already out there.

If not, then they risk potential legal action in the future that could cost them enough to close up shop given how niche this industry is. Dead people don't sue, but their families do.

 

[Boarderguy]

A DPV implosion at depth could cause you to go negative and plummet to the bottom unless you can cut/unclip yourself fast enough.

Let's think about the potential for this to happen. Where are people diving at or below 90m that don't have a hard bottom beneath them? Nobody is taking a blacktip and cruising black water at 90m. Most are open water drops down a shot line or a cave, both of which have bottoms. The other portion would be shore diving with serious drops likes the Puget Sound that can hit 100m and then some because of the glacier that cut it out... I don't see the small possibility of an imploded scoot dragging the even smaller subset of divers without a hard bottom being a reality. Most will hit the bottom, get freaking mad, and cut away or unclip the pos. That is of course if they're not injured by the tube going everywhere due to the implosion.

 

[attack33]

I can't disagree with you. It is definitely a small subset, but it only takes one incident in our unfortunately litigious society to have a business ending problem. This is the incident I was referring to for reference https://scubaboard.com/community/threads/diver-dead-in-font-estramar-france.546203/ If they know for a fact only the certain tubes are affected and they put out a notice then that might be sufficient. Hopefully.

 

[lostsheep]

If DiveX doesn’t know the cause and they can’t reproduce it, how would they know the range of scooters affected?

2 from the same manufacturing batch is not statistically significant enough to say much of anything.

I got banned from their FB groups so I can’t see what they are saying.

 

[rjack321]

Let's think about the potential for this to happen. Where are people diving at or below 90m that don't have a hard bottom beneath them? Nobody is taking a blacktip and cruising black water at 90m. Most are open water drops down a shot line or a cave, both of which have bottoms. The other portion would be shore diving with serious drops likes the Puget Sound that can hit 100m and then some because of the glacier that cut it out... I don't see the small possibility of an imploded scoot dragging the even smaller subset of divers without a hard bottom being a reality. Most will hit the bottom, get freaking mad, and cut away or unclip the pos. That is of course if they're not injured by the tube going everywhere due to the implosion.

I just got dumber reading this.
You've never been on a wall which goes below your MOD eh?