reubencahn
Contributor
I would get the eclipse. The separate shell and bladder is significantly tougher and will stand up to the abuse gear often takes on boats and at resorts.
Halcyon Eclipse, Pioneer or Evolve??
- Thread starter robbcayman
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Scubaroo
Contributor
27lb is heaps of lift for some drysuit divers - I sell quite a few 18lb wings to guys who use their drysuit as buoyancy control. Their choice to dive that way.
OP
robbcayman
Contributor
What's the difference between the wing weight sizes? Why would someone one a lighter or heavier wing?
The weight indicates the wing's lift. The Eclipse 30 has 30lbs of lift, for instance. More lift is required for divers wearing thick wetsuits or carrying lots of gas.
The Eclipse 30 or Pioneer 27 is in reality enough for most divers, even cold water divers. The Eclipse is more expensive, tougher due to its inner-bladder-protected-by-an-outer-bag design, and slightly bulkier. The Pioneer is thinner, a little bit lighter, but weaker.
I recommend the Eclipse if you're going Halcyon. The Eclipse 30 is a nice wing and it meets your needs well. The Pioneer 27 is also a very nice wing that suits your needs.
The Eclipse 30 or Pioneer 27 is in reality enough for most divers, even cold water divers. The Eclipse is more expensive, tougher due to its inner-bladder-protected-by-an-outer-bag design, and slightly bulkier. The Pioneer is thinner, a little bit lighter, but weaker.
I recommend the Eclipse if you're going Halcyon. The Eclipse 30 is a nice wing and it meets your needs well. The Pioneer 27 is also a very nice wing that suits your needs.
PerroneFord
Contributor
No, I purchased a Pioneer 27.
hoosier:
PerroneFord
Contributor
This is a very good explanation, though I might disagree about the "thick wetsuit" part, but no matter. Think of it this way, underwater you have gear that is giving you either positive or negative buoyancy.
Aluminum 80 tank full = 4 pounds
Steel Backplate = 6 pounds
Valves, regulator, fins, etc = 2 pounds
Weight belt = 4-10 pounds.
When you add up all that stuff, you want a wing that is capable of lifting it all. Looking at the heaviest configuration of what I just posted, you'd be 22 pounds at the beginnnig of the dive. So a 27 pound wing would have 5 pounds to spare. If you add such things as a canister light, cave reels, photography or video gear, etc., you start to get to a point where the lift required by the wing is no longer enough to overcome how negative you might be. You can either reconfigure yourself (aluminum backplate is 4 pounds lighter, take weight off the weight belt, etc.) or you could use a wing with more lift.
In my case, the Pioneer 27 or the Eclipse 30 were going to be more than enough for my use. There was a difference in price of about $100 between the models. In my own case, I knew that I would be doing nothing more than open water diving with my single tank wing, so I opted for the more basic (and less protected) Pioneer wing. Were I in an area where the wing might see harder use, I would have gotten an eclipse wing. I am able to drive to all my dive spots and walk in. Not everyone has this luxury.
Hopefully this provides some help.
Aluminum 80 tank full = 4 pounds
Steel Backplate = 6 pounds
Valves, regulator, fins, etc = 2 pounds
Weight belt = 4-10 pounds.
When you add up all that stuff, you want a wing that is capable of lifting it all. Looking at the heaviest configuration of what I just posted, you'd be 22 pounds at the beginnnig of the dive. So a 27 pound wing would have 5 pounds to spare. If you add such things as a canister light, cave reels, photography or video gear, etc., you start to get to a point where the lift required by the wing is no longer enough to overcome how negative you might be. You can either reconfigure yourself (aluminum backplate is 4 pounds lighter, take weight off the weight belt, etc.) or you could use a wing with more lift.
In my case, the Pioneer 27 or the Eclipse 30 were going to be more than enough for my use. There was a difference in price of about $100 between the models. In my own case, I knew that I would be doing nothing more than open water diving with my single tank wing, so I opted for the more basic (and less protected) Pioneer wing. Were I in an area where the wing might see harder use, I would have gotten an eclipse wing. I am able to drive to all my dive spots and walk in. Not everyone has this luxury.
Hopefully this provides some help.
pants!:
Why? A 2-piece 7mm wetsuit in a size Large can lose as much as 15 pounds of buoyancy between 0 and 100 feet. Add 10 pounds of gas that you find in a full E8-130, plus an extra pound or two overweighting that most people seem to like, and you're at the absolute maximum capacity of a Pioneer 27 at depth.PerroneFord:
I'm sorry, this doesn't make any sense at all. This diver, if wearing the proper amount of weight, would be negative by only the weight of the gas in his tank at the surface. In the case of an Al80, this would be 6 pounds. If he is wearing a wetsuit, which will compress at depth, he will become progressively more negative as he descends.PerroneFord:
Weighting is one of the biggest misunderstandings I see among divers.
If I'm diving, no matter what I'm wearing, I should be negative by exactly the weight of the gas in my tanks at the surface. Adding and removing reels, can lights, backplates, tanks, etc, only changes where the ballast is, it should not change the *amount* of ballast.
If he is more negative than the weight of the gas in his tank, he is overweighted.
PerroneFord
Contributor
I happen to have a 2 piece 7mm suit. It takes 8 pounds currently to get just the top portion below the water. My BP/W setup with an AL80 attached is about 9-10 pounds negative at the start of a dive, decreasing to about 2 pounds at the end of a dive. This means that with no weightbelt at all my setup will take me below the surface, and at the bottom I will be about 10 pounds negative at the beginning of a dive.
I don't know why you are quoting figures for an E8-130, as if that was some standard config for an open water dive, but ok.
I also disagree that a properly weighted diver with an AL80 would be negative only by the amount of weight in his tanks. If he is diving wet, he must also counteract the buoyancy of the suit as it will not only be an issue at the beginning of the dive, but also at the end of a dive on the safety stop.
If we use your logic, if the suit requires 10 pounds to sink below the surface, and the tank requires 6 pounds, the diver should only wear 6 pounds of weight? Presumably he should simply swim down to a depth where the suit compresses enough to allow the negativity of the rig to overcome the positive buoyancy of the suit? And when the tank becomes positive at the end of the dive, and the diver is trying to hold at 15 feet, when the suit is giving him a positive lift of 10 pounds, and the tank is adding 3-4 pounds of lift and the diver has on 6 pounds of weight, what is he to do?
It was my understanding, and clearly I could be wrong, that the diver should weight himself so that at the END of the dive, in shallow water, he is wearing just enough weight to hold the final stop. In my case, since my suit is 8 pounds buoyant, I need 8 pounds of weight to counteract that, as my backplate is heavy enough to sink the AL80 on it's own when the tank is empty. Since my rig is about 2 pounds negative with an empty tank, I dive with 6 pounds on my belt, which is about the minimum I can get away with.
I agree that adding gear should not change the amount of ballast but it often does when you've lighted up your non-ditchable gear as much as you can.
-P
I don't know why you are quoting figures for an E8-130, as if that was some standard config for an open water dive, but ok.
I also disagree that a properly weighted diver with an AL80 would be negative only by the amount of weight in his tanks. If he is diving wet, he must also counteract the buoyancy of the suit as it will not only be an issue at the beginning of the dive, but also at the end of a dive on the safety stop.
If we use your logic, if the suit requires 10 pounds to sink below the surface, and the tank requires 6 pounds, the diver should only wear 6 pounds of weight? Presumably he should simply swim down to a depth where the suit compresses enough to allow the negativity of the rig to overcome the positive buoyancy of the suit? And when the tank becomes positive at the end of the dive, and the diver is trying to hold at 15 feet, when the suit is giving him a positive lift of 10 pounds, and the tank is adding 3-4 pounds of lift and the diver has on 6 pounds of weight, what is he to do?
It was my understanding, and clearly I could be wrong, that the diver should weight himself so that at the END of the dive, in shallow water, he is wearing just enough weight to hold the final stop. In my case, since my suit is 8 pounds buoyant, I need 8 pounds of weight to counteract that, as my backplate is heavy enough to sink the AL80 on it's own when the tank is empty. Since my rig is about 2 pounds negative with an empty tank, I dive with 6 pounds on my belt, which is about the minimum I can get away with.
I agree that adding gear should not change the amount of ballast but it often does when you've lighted up your non-ditchable gear as much as you can.
-P
pants!:
I don't know where you got that 10 pound figure, but I believe you're missing something important.PerroneFord:
I quoted the E8-130, because diving a thick wetsuit with a high volume tank is one of the few ways for a diver to exceed the lift capabilities of a Pioneer 27.PerroneFord:
I see what you're trying to say, but I also see your mistake. Applied ballast does not equate to buoyancy in the water.PerroneFord:
As an example, when I wear a 2-piece 7mm suit with an Al80, I need about 25 pounds of lead on a weight belt.
However, at the beginning of the dive, with an empty BC, I am 6 pounds negative in the water.
Think about this for a minute. If a diver were 22 pounds negative at the beginning of a dive, and over the course of the dive he consumed 4 pounds of air from his tank, how negative will be he at the end of the dive?
The answer is 18 pounds negative. At the surface, at the end of the dive.
NO!!!!!!!!!!PerroneFord:
I'm not talking about HOW MUCH WEIGHT a diver needs to wear, I'm talking about HOW MUCH NEGATIVE BUOYANCY THE DIVER HAS.
The amount of lead has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the wing chosen! The diver needs to wear the correct amount of lead to make the perfectly neutral in the water at the end of a dive with an empty tank.
Think about this. What is the only part of a diver that changes buoyancy from the beginning to end of a dive? The tank.
If a diver is neutral at the surface at the end of his dive, then how much negative buoyancy will he have at the beginning of the dive? An amount equal to the air in his tanks, period.
You're making this so much more complicated than it needs to be. You get in the water with your rig and an empty tank, and apply just enough lead to make you neutral. That's it.PerroneFord:
If you're neutral with an empty Al80, you will be 5-6 pounds negative with a full Al80. Period.
Like I said earlier, a very thick wetsuit with a high volume tank is one of the few ways to exceed the lift capacity of a Pioneer 27. At 100 feet, you will be negative by the weight of gas in your tank (10 pounds in a 130), plus the buoyancy your suit has lost due to compression (up to 15 pounds in a thick wetsuit). This adds up to 25 pounds, assuming the diver is perfectly weighted to be neutral at the end of his dive. This diver could conceivably be wearing a 32 pound weight belt, but he would only be 10 pounds negative at the surface at the beginning of the dive!
Get it?
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