Doing Tech+Cave on a RB?

[caveseeker7]

From the pdfs Lamont posted, last page...

While the author does have quite a bit of knowledge and did much research, take into consideration that he's also the designer of a supposedly failsafe RB design that he wants and/or is selling.

OC has some distinct benefits on maintaining ppO2s in a safe range or at least having a less than infinite capability to vary for a given depth.

No doubt about that, and the same is true to a slightly lesser extend with the RB80.
One of the unit's strong points.

RBs appear to us (Limeyx and myself, RB noobs that we are) to have extra failure points / potential for an accident chain to start with the primary safeguard being only the operator, not the machine itself.

Again true, though I'm sure things will improve. They have since the first eCCRs were introduced, in many ways. In the end, though, I doubt that there will be a solution to diver mistakes, or failsafe dive gear.

Think of cars, how much they progressed between say 1920 and 1950. Yet how recent air bags or stability control have been introduced. And how, no matter what you bolt into cars, there are still fatalities. How they still break down.

No matter how many airbags you install, the best way to prevent an accident is being a skilled driver avoiding using them in the first place. The same is likely going to be the case with RB divers.

 

[rjack321]

I figured the author had some agenda...

So relative to cars where are SCR, mCCR, and eCCR units today?

I figure the SCRs are like 1970s VW bugs, simple go anywhere but not necessarily very powerful. Not very fuel efficient either.

mCCRs are more like typical 1990 cars. When the auto windows and locks break you can still drive.

eCCRs being like today's hybrid. Way too many electronics and gizmos to start if it doesn't want to. But has truly amazing fuel economy.

Depending on the failure, some are safer than others. If you need to outrun a cheetah, the VW won't do it. Compare that with runnning day in and day out in the AU Outback which might not be the best place to take a hybrid.

 

[limeyx]

Yes, I'm one of those. To be honest, practice, skills, proficiency are part of it and of course make a perfect excuse. But I started diving because I enjoy it. I started diving rebreathers because I enjoy it more. It did have the nice side effect that I appreciate OC (lil' 72 shorty on an alu bp) a bit more for its simplicity and streamlining ... still have more fun on a RB, though.

And if joy and fun qualifies as a reason to dive in the first place, IMHO it also qualifies as a reason to dive CC.
It does for me, anyway. But I certainly understand and respect people that think differently.

Well, I'm certainly in no position (and have no desire) to tell someone else how/what to dive.

I do admit to being somewhat lacking information on RB's even though I have browsed some of the forums.

It seems to me that you would want good OC proficiency before considering a rebreather of any kind since one bailout method is to go to open circuit. That does not necessarily imply you need OC "doubles" experience if you can carry enough bailout gas as a slung stage etc, although it seems like some kind of training would be helpful.

Obviously if you do deeper/longer dives with an RB then more advanced training would seem to make sense.

So far I've been (mostly) scared by the people I see locally rebreathers, but I am not trying to say that that is representative of the population in general.

Around here, I tend to see someone who is relatively well off financially, somewhat out of shape, overweight, likes to "tinker" with stuff and show off about how they can do long dives just with a couple of 6cf tanks, and likes do dive alone with little or no bailout gas.

Obviously in terms of "the problem" the actual rebreather would be pretty far down that list (after attitude, planning, attention to detail, fitness, diving with a buddy, etc.) and I wouldn't try to pretend otherwise.

I think at least one local incident could have been less serious had a buddy been present (possibly two -- in the third, the diver did have a buddy who i think had just not yet entered the water yet).

In one case, I *think* -- but details are scarce -- that the diver had a problem at depth and had to surface rapidly, which caused an initial problem. Then he was too far from the boat and it was too late by the time they got there. Maybe a buddy could have helped, maybe not. The sad thing was that this gentleman was diving on the same boat as his family.

 

[webhead]

Well, I'm certainly in no position (and have no desire) to tell someone else how/what to dive.

I do admit to being somewhat lacking information on RB's even though I have browsed some of the forums.

It seems to me that you would want good OC proficiency before considering a rebreather of any kind since one bailout method is to go to open circuit. That does not necessarily imply you need OC "doubles" experience if you can carry enough bailout gas as a slung stage etc, although it seems like some kind of training would be helpful.

I agree that you need to be good at handling hang bottles and switching regs, etc. But trust me, you learn that in a RB course. When I did my crossover from the Inspo to the Meg, my instructor, needing more skills to teach since we needed a certain numbers of hours underwater, decided to have one person haul all but one of the hang bottles from all divers. Wish I had a picture of each person swimming w/ three 40's clipped under each arm. And the video of the swimming hand offs.

Obviously if you do deeper/longer dives with an RB then more advanced training would seem to make sense.

So far I've been (mostly) scared by the people I see locally rebreathers, but I am not trying to say that that is representative of the population in general.

Around here, I tend to see someone who is relatively well off financially, somewhat out of shape, overweight, likes to "tinker" with stuff and show off about how they can do long dives just with a couple of 6cf tanks, and likes do dive alone with little or no bailout gas.

I might resemble that statement - well off, need to lose some weight and a "hobbiest". But the majority of RB divers I know don't have the spare funds that I do. I do like the fact that I can do over 4 hours of diving w/ the gas in my twin 20's but I always have OC bailout to get to the surface and a dive buddy nearby. And I talk about the smaller tanks mainly to show OC trimix divers that there is a more efficent way to dive.

Obviously in terms of "the problem" the actual rebreather would be pretty far down that list (after attitude, planning, attention to detail, fitness, diving with a buddy, etc.) and I wouldn't try to pretend otherwise.

I think at least one local incident could have been less serious had a buddy been present (possibly two -- in the third, the diver did have a buddy who i think had just not yet entered the water yet).

In one case, I *think* -- but details are scarce -- that the diver had a problem at depth and had to surface rapidly, which caused an initial problem. Then he was too far from the boat and it was too late by the time they got there. Maybe a buddy could have helped, maybe not. The sad thing was that this gentleman was diving on the same boat as his family.

Attitude goes a long way. Start by being scared, then curious, then understanding and finally respectful. You do that and you've got the lesson plan for many "sports" in this world. Someday, I expect we'll have diving down to more of a science like flying is today - risky but manageable and always developing. Right now, I think we're still in the 1920's or 30's. But that is changing quickly. Just look at the last 10 years alone in RB diving. 5 years ago, you could even find someone w/ enough knowledge to have a debate!

 

[CCRDolphinDiver]

Reading the rest of the posts here just convinces me more that folks on SB spend more time writing than reading. Several posters have written things as facts but are completly incorrect. Dragers and RB 80's having solenoids, CCR divers that are against constant PO2 diving, (thats just plain silly) then later you write "I really dont know much about CCR's just what I have read" guessing that you have read this on the internet, something written by someone as ignorant about CCR's as yourself. (ignorant, of course, is not an insult, just a description of a person who has no knowledge of a subject) So, my suggestion is, if you dont know about a subject, then you should be ASKING questions, instead of answering them. For you lurkers on this board, if you want to know more about CCR's and dont want to leave SB to get that info, then the folks you want to listen to here are, wedivebc, webhead, caveseeker, jkatterenchuk, and myself. These four guys I know personally and they all dive CCR's. We dont all agree on specific brands, but we all have experience diving rebreathers. Of course the last guy you want to listen to on rebreathers would be peronne ford ,this guy doesnt have a clue about CCRs, but likes to think he does.

So, here is a question for all internet divers (myself included). How do you seperate the wheat from the chaff, meaning, how do you really know when a poster is just regurgitating what he (this is not normally a female trait) has heard, in an attempt to make oneself look experienced, well connected, or important. The other half of this is, is the information just as valid, if the poster has never had the experience themselves and is just a barf-back? Persons who are not seeking glory might say, "I heard on an internet board a while back that all CCR's are just death traps" Someone just making crap up might say "well when I was at 300fsw diving my draeger with the 100% oxygen orifice in it, I heard the solenoid fire and i knew it stayed open cause the little blue light on my HUD was still illuminated and then I felt hypoxic and then did a cesa to the surface, but because I was using heliox, I was not in danger of getting bent."
Both statements are absolute bunk, but if you really dont know about CCR's how would you know where the crap is and where the good stuff is.

I firmly believe in on line forums, but they really need some sort of check valve, or diverter valve (one direction of which heads right for the PGP desktop shredder) that will provide a filter for those shovelling BS. So is this tendency (to post incorrect data) just utter pompusness, stupidity, ego driven, or malicious. because it HAS to be one of these four, there are no other reasons, maybe boredom, but mixed with one of the previous four. Sure maybe you just made a mistake, or mis remembered something (works for Bill Clinton), but if you are not diving this stuff on a regular basis, you have no business stating anything about it as fact. Its good that at least two of the three of you who have posted nonsence eventually owned up to the fact that you dont own a unit, and have never been trained, but why wait until your errors are pointed out to you to admit the fact?
then when confronted with your ignorance,

"I would recommend NOT doing cave training on a rebreather. You'll probably be task-loaded enough as it is, the last thing you need is something else to worry about." .

who, according to your profile, have only adv eanx and less than 100 dives, get snotty toward a guy who ACTUALLY owns 2 rebreathers and has some decent experience (I have been on a dive with the guy to 270fsw on a CCR using trimix and have the pics to prove it)
So how would you know how task loading diving a CCR is or isnt?
snotty comment below:

Oh man...I shouldn't have wandered into the scary tech rebreather forums...let me go back to all the other Quarry Commandos™! :shakehead
Geez, you let someone recirculate their breathing media and they jump on a high horse like nobody's business.

what the hell are you doing commenting on this post anyway? Who are you trying to impress?

What I have found, in my limited experience, (yes my experience is limited, everyones is to some extent,) is that the pathway to enlightenment in any situation is this:

Learn, learn, learn, gain experience, then teach. respect will come to the patient.
as opposed to:

Read a lot on the internet, attempt to teach, then expect respect.
Not only do you have the cart and the horse mixed up, your horse is missing a couple legs and the wheels of your cart are broken.

So... this post is either going to make you laugh out loud and say "right ON dude!", or its going to piss you off. If it pisses you off, then I propose that you need your posts diverted to the PGP desktop shredder.
I have now activated the "right ON dude" detector and its hooked to my diverter valve and I have set the shredder to accept input.

Cheers fellow divers!

 

[patti meg diver]

Right on dude!!

 

[rjack321]

This conversation was going along just fine before you showed up. Yes some of us used the wrong terms. So slap my wrist for inadventently calling an injector a solenoid.

But chill out dude, some of us were just describing our concerns based - yes - on misinformation. My third post (after the GUE references which I do know something about)

http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=2401346&postcount=22

Note that I expressly said I am a less versatile diver cause I don't know RBs. But we (limeyx and myself) have no way of knowing what's BS, which we can't recall hearing where, unless we regurgitate it and ask questions about it.

So rather than attacking our already professed ignorance, take some of these bogus concerns and dispell them with facts. This is your opportunity. I am a reasonably educated OC tech diver. But...

I'm not interested in RBs, partly because of misinformation. But I have no way of knowing what's BS unless I put it back out here to the ether and allow someone to show me the inaccuracies. Most of my mistakes probably have a grain of truth to them, but I don't know what those kernels might be in all the chaff. So buck up and make the most of this opportunity.

Heck show me a link to the 10 most common RB fallacies. That I would love to see.

 

[CCRDolphinDiver]

sorry if I came across as a hard *****, not intentional, the following is just stating facts and giving you a bad time, dont take it personal, really! Place a big grin on my face to get the real intent here.

This conversation was going along just fine before you showed up. Yes some of us used the wrong terms. So slap my wrist for inadventently calling an injector a solenoid..

So passing bad information from one ignorant to another is your definition of "just fine"? :blinking:
The correct info, would be this:
The gas delivery system on a dreager SCR is actually called a dosage device and it is an orifice and constant intermediate pressure based continous flow device, neither an injector nor solenoid. The orifice is very quiet, where the solenoid is loud to the point your buddies can hear it cycle, (sounds like a metallic click) a prudent E-ccr diver will be listening and learn the frequency and duration of their units solenoid cycle and notice if it seems out of normal parameters. The device used to inject oxygen into an E-ccr is called a solenoid injector, the solenoid part is a coil of wire that when energised, pulls back a plunger that opens a small valve allowing oxygen to flow into the loop. This works very similar to the fuel injection system on your automobile that sprays atomized gasoline into the cylinder, the only difference is the auto system is based on timing of engine rotation and the CCR version is based on real time monitoring of the oxygen content of the loop.

But chill out dude, some of us were just describing our concerns based - yes - on misinformation. But we have no way of knowing what's BS, which we can't recall hearing where, unless we regurgitate it and ask questions about it...

my point exactly, but dont post it like you know what you are talking about, post it like a question. I might suggest finding a local instructor and taking a discover CCR course, you should learn a great deal. I would be happy to do such a class if you are anywhere local, Im in portland Or. Im not really a butt crack in person

So rather than attacking our already professed ignorance, take some of these bogus concerns and dispell them with facts. This is your opportunity. I am a reasonably educated OC tech diver. But......

If you thought I was attacking, then you mistakenly painted a bullseye on your face, I did post on topic for the OP who asked whether jumping over doubles was appropriate if he was heading for cave diving, with an enthusiastic YES! Doubles and open circuit sucks, worse than the aforementioned semi closed rebreather. I can say this with stark honesty cause I dived double 112 cylinders, with and without stages for 2 years to depths of 300fsw and have the backaches to prove it I then moved on to a SCR draeger dolphin, put my time in, became an instructor on the unit, and on the way learned how badly SCR's suck. I replumbed the thing into a real K-CCR (kiss style Closed Circuit Rebreather) and worked my way back up to 300 fsw trimix dives on it. Now I own a Megalodon CCR and have also worked up to deep f'n dives on it. See the december release of diveportaldvd, the new diving video magazine put out by John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, (deep sea detectives/shadow divers) order your copy of it at www.diveportaldvd.com John, Richie, their cameraman Evan, my buddy Paul and i did a dive together and its described on the dvd. Just a bit of history so you know where Im coming from...not trying to blow up my own tires...

I'm not interested in RBs, partly because of misinformation. But I have no way of knowing what's BS unless I put it back out here to the ether and allow someone to show me the inaccuracies. Most of my mistakes probably have a grain of truth to them, but I don't know what those kernels might be in all the chaff. So buck up and make the most of this opportunity..

Why would you not be interested in something purely because you have been given mis-information? If this were the case you would have never discovered girls how many completly bogus things did your elementary school buddies tell you about women that was really true?
I had no clue, bet you didnt either hehehe

Heck show me a link to the 10 most common RB fallacies. That I would love to see.

How about I just give you accuracies?:
CCR is no more dangerous than OC, people die on both, due to being in an environment that will kill you if your equipment fails without a backup.

CCR's can be over 100 times more efficient than Open circuit
CCR's are really expensive and require more care than OC
CCR's require more training
they breathe warmer and at 100% humidity, makes for a non-dehydrating dive
they are great for photography, bubbles are LOUD!
Ok better yet, read this,
http://www.rebreatherworld.com/showthread.php?t=1925&referrerid=26

anyway, it just gets frustrating so see folks post w/o a clue, yes I can smell the BS just like the other CCR divers here, but my buddies spend a bit of time here and they want to be nice, so they email me and say"can you belive that bonehead said that?" and then they sic me on the bonehead cause Im not a regular poster here and really dont care if I get flamed for being the bad guy. I do try to mix a bit of humor in with the chastisement, it may be a bit dry though...

I be chillin out, cause it nasty cold and blowing rain sideways outside, yikes!

 

[JeffG]

John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, (deep sea detectives/shadow divers) order your copy of it at www.diveportaldvd.com John, Richie, their cameraman Evan, my buddy Paul and i did a dive together and its described on the dvd. Just a bit of history so you know where Im coming from...not trying to blow up my own tires...

Ooooh....I can hear the chest thumping from here. (or..I'll drop some names, and maybe somebody will be impressed)

so they email me and say"can you belive that bonehead said that?" and then they sic me on the bonehead cause Im not a regular poster here and really dont care if I get flamed for being the bad guy. I do try to mix a bit of humor in with the chastisement, it may be a bit dry though...

You're the man.

 

[rjack321]

Why would you not be interested in something purely because you have been given mis-information?

"Your gonna die on that contraption from X, or Y, or Z." Ok under which shell is the BS? Oh and that applies to one design but not that other one. How are we supposed to sort all that poo out?

I've read many of the unit descriptions on RBworld. And without having the pieces in front of me they are sometimes a bit hard to follow.

I have never seen a discover SCR or CCR course advertised. Yes maybe I need to ask around more. But the big problem I see with this is not getting sufficient overview of all the different options, some which the instructor may have never dived or know much about? How is that supposed to teach us about the universe of units and their suitability for various objectives?