DUI Zip Seals with Diving Concepts rings?

[bertschb]

I have a DUI suit with Diving Concepts dry gloves. The wrist seals on my suit need to be replaced and I was considering retrofitting my DUI suit with DUI wrist Zip Seals. But, I need to know if Diving Concepts dry gloves will work with the Zip Seals. I don't want to spend $300 switching to Zip Seals only to find out I can't use my dry gloves.

Has anybody tried this yet?

 

[Mverick]

Regurlar drysuit seals cost around $30. $300 for zip seals??? Man, I won't be putting those on my suit. I think the replacement seals are around $140 also.

One thing. I would use Gates or Viking latex wrist seals over DUI's. They cover a longer area on your wrists.... I have the HD seals on my CF200. Not impressed.

The next seals I will put on it are Gates HD. Those are on my 3 other suits. They've also lasted 4-5 years.

 

[bertschb]

It costs $278 to retrofit the suit. The replacement DUI wrist seals are $118.

My suit is only 7 months old but I got a tiny whole in the wrist seal where the DC rings attach to the suit. The wrist seals on the suit don't look very good. I was told the DC rings are hard on the seals as they are stretched quite a bit. I was very surprised that my seals only lasted 7 months. Keep in mind, these aren't the seals that make contact with my wrists. The DC rings have their own inner seal. Other than the fact that the DUI wrist seals are stretched to accomodate the DC rings the DUI wrist seals are never touched. The DC ring seals are what I stretch and tug on each time I dive. Those seals appear to be OK.

Are the DC rings really that hard on seals?

The reason I'm asking about using Zip Seals with the DC gloves is I don't want to have to replace the seals on my suit every 6 months - unless it's easy (like with Zip Seals).

 

[Bob3]

I have a DUI suit with Diving Concepts dry gloves. The wrist seals on my suit need to be replaced and I was considering retrofitting my DUI suit with DUI wrist Zip Seals. But, I need to know if Diving Concepts dry gloves will work with the Zip Seals. I don't want to spend $300 switching to Zip Seals only to find out I can't use my dry gloves.

Has anybody tried this yet?

You will need to shell out another $208 for a pair of their gloves, they have the other half of the"zip" glued onto their gloves, no provision for customer installation.
http://www.dui-online.com/newsite/zip_seals.htm
Heck, if you were the kind of person to buy the zip kit you wouldn't want to mess with getting your hands dirty anyway, right?.

 

[bertschb]

I don't want to use the DUI gloves that's why I want to know if the Zip Seals will work with my DC gloves.

 

[Bob3]

You'd have to get the "zip part" (assuming they sell just the unmounted zip parts) & then glue it onto your DC gloves after you cut them down. That's the only way the DC gloves would work on the zip-sleeved suit.
The zip stuff is basically designed for folks that don't want to mess with glue & scissors though, that's pretty much the whole point of the system.
DC gloves are only $20 if ya buy them at the right place. (check the ScubaBoard Classified section)

 

[paulwlee]

Bertschb, yes, you can use the DC ring system with the Zip seals. I haven't done it personally, but I saw someone using them. It's basically the same thing, but might actually make the ring installation easier, if you have a narrow-sleeved trilam and want to do an intact-seal installation. You install the rings on the seals before zipping them to your suit.

 

[Bob3]

... you can use the DC ring system with the Zip seals....

Putting a ring system onto a zip cuff? Sorta defeats the whole intended purpose of the zip seal idea, don't ya think?
Plus, who wants to spend $160 every 6 months to replace the zip cuffs?
Best bet is to swap out those thin DUI cuffs in favor of something that's at least 3 times as thick, a Viking, SiTech or Gates cuff.
Heck, it only cost about $100 to have the rings permanently attached to the sleeves, eliminating the entire problem.

 

[bertschb]

Sorta defeats the whole intended purpose of the zip seal idea, don't ya think?

How so? The Zip seal is a just a quick replace seal.

The point is that when a wrist seal fails I can swap Zip seals in 10 minutes vs. sending the suit in for new seals. I don't care much about cost. I care about turnaround time.

The reason I don't want to use the DUI gloves is because they don't have an inner seal like the DC gloves. I don't want my suit flooded in the event of a glove failure.

If I use any seals other than Zip seals I have to send the suit in for replacement seals. That's what I'm trying to avoid.

 

[Bob3]

You may just want to get a ring system installed on your suit then, it would eliminate having to buy new zip cuffs every few months. The initial installation is cheaper even.

If DUI was using a more sturdy cuff it wouldn't be much of an issue, but the thickness & durability of the cuffs & seals they've been using lately has taken a nosedive.