reefrat
Contributor
When my shiny new Hollis Explorer 2 turned into a pumpkin overnight I lost a swag of hard earned money and spat the dummy at both Huish outdoors and RB’s in general. Still won’t knowingly buy any Huish related product!
So when I recently stumbled across something on the soon to be released Mares Horizon SCR my reaction was fairly contemptuous- “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!”.
However, after reading the general description of it I have to admit it is a little intriguing. The points that caught my eye were as follows:
• The rEvo influence is all over it- including the dual sorb canisters that are generally well regarded in the RB community (although in this case made of plastic), they are 1kg sorb capacity each.
• The counter lungs are lateral and appear to have water dump capability.
• It has redundant batteries and control systems.
• The supply gas is slung rather than onboard- which is more versatile and practical I would think.
• It can be used for deco dives (max depth 40 meters) up to 25 minutes deco.
• It’s a hybrid, using a combination of leaky valve with an additional solenoid.
• It can use (now get this!) Nitrox from 30% to 99%, really, 99% nitrox is pure oxygen! And how does the constant O2 injection work with this range? Apparently it is adjustable during the dive so that suggests to me that it is an electronically controlled valve rater than a fixed orifice. In any case, if it works and can use high O2 fills that would make for a very efficient (and low bubble emitting) SCR in my mind.
So it seems it may not be just another explorer and has some limited technical capabilities. In fact I believe that there is no such thing a a true Rec rebreather, all RB’s regardless of relative simplicity of design, set-up, checking and operation are technical in nature.
Link attached:
Mares Horizon SCR
So when I recently stumbled across something on the soon to be released Mares Horizon SCR my reaction was fairly contemptuous- “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!”.
However, after reading the general description of it I have to admit it is a little intriguing. The points that caught my eye were as follows:
• The rEvo influence is all over it- including the dual sorb canisters that are generally well regarded in the RB community (although in this case made of plastic), they are 1kg sorb capacity each.
• The counter lungs are lateral and appear to have water dump capability.
• It has redundant batteries and control systems.
• The supply gas is slung rather than onboard- which is more versatile and practical I would think.
• It can be used for deco dives (max depth 40 meters) up to 25 minutes deco.
• It’s a hybrid, using a combination of leaky valve with an additional solenoid.
• It can use (now get this!) Nitrox from 30% to 99%, really, 99% nitrox is pure oxygen! And how does the constant O2 injection work with this range? Apparently it is adjustable during the dive so that suggests to me that it is an electronically controlled valve rater than a fixed orifice. In any case, if it works and can use high O2 fills that would make for a very efficient (and low bubble emitting) SCR in my mind.
So it seems it may not be just another explorer and has some limited technical capabilities. In fact I believe that there is no such thing a a true Rec rebreather, all RB’s regardless of relative simplicity of design, set-up, checking and operation are technical in nature.
Link attached:
Mares Horizon SCR