Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
MikeFerrara:That picture is a mess. Aside from the third second stage which you already pointed out the hose lengths and routing is going to be messy. Rout all the hoses in and down with nothing out to the side.
The yolk connections are, IMO, a bad idea also.
And my pet peave...No one needs dust caps under water. They'll do nothing other than get in the way. Besides you want them dry right?
MikeFerrara:Keep in mind that an h-valve is not what you would consider completely redundant. There are still failure modes possible that could result in a total gas loss.
Also an h-valve or manifolded doubles isn't going to help unless you are practices at manipulating the valves. If you either can't reach or don't know what to reach when all it does is give you more places to spring a leak.
I don't want to make it appear as though I'm trying to teach solo diving here because although I've done it as a rule I don't. However as diver in a team I generally have a single with an h-valve or manifolded doubles. That's when I have one or more buddies who also carry extra gas that I can use should I suffer a total loss. If I was going to dive solo I would at a minimum do something to replace my buddies reserve gas.
That means a "buddy bottle" or independants.
Sidemount would be particularly attractive for me here because there's nothing on your back to get snagged, either tank is easily removable, valves are protected in your arm pits, you can visually inspect them and you can always reach them even if your pinned down pretty good.
Severe gas losses may not be common but they can happen. If I have a leak behind me in my manifolded doubles I'll have my buddy inspect things to make sure I've solved the problem. You can only feel and hear so much. A solo diver doesn't have that luxury.
I keep reading all the posts on this forum from divers who are diving solo in plain old recreational equipment claiming that the surface is their redundant supply and yet claim to understand the risks. In theory, all recreational divers have the surface as an option but they also have a buddy. IMO, if you're going to do without a buddy you need more than the surface.
I don't buy it but...different strokes for different folks I guess.
I have do completely disagree Mike. There is a big, big difference between a CESA and a bouyant emergency ascent. As I pointed out, I limit my solo diving to 30' max and the surface is a safe option from that distance. From 100' the surface is NOT a safe option.MikeFerrara:In theory, all recreational divers have the surface as an option but they also have a buddy. IMO, if you're going to do without a buddy you need more than the surface.