Neutrally Buoyant gear?

[swimmer_spe]

The goal of every diver is to be neutrally buoyant.

Our tanks are negatively buoyant.

Our immersion suits are positively buoyant. So is most of our other gear.

Although I have not tried, I think I would need about 5lbs or less to become neutrally buoyant. Yet the weight I must dive with is around 40lbs in a dry suit in the cold waters off the west coast of Canada.

Diving on the weekend got me thinking: Why does someone not make dive gear that is neutrally buoyant?

They make metal thread. You can add metal to a plastic mold. There is really no need to have to add weight if it were neutrally buoyant.

Thoughts?

 

[Agility]

You would have to use a different suit as soon as you want to take a light with you.
I think it is impractical. If you gain or lose body weight you can just add or reduce your lead, the key word is modularity

 

[swimmer_spe]

You would have to use a different suit as soon as you want to take a light with you.
I think it is impractical. If you gain or lose body weight you can just add or reduce your lead, the key word is modularity

But, if the suit itself was neutrally buoyant, and the light was neutrally buoyant, if everything on it's own is neutrally buoyant, than all you would need to concern yourself with would be your body.

 

[gcarter]

The biggest swings are on exposure protection. Do you have a new material in mind that provided the thermal properties required without bouyancy swings?

 

[Agility]

You would still need a freshwater suit, a seawater suit one for Al tanks and one for steel tanks.
a neutrally

buoyant steel tank or light would be unnecessaryly bulky adding drag in the water. and aluminium tanks are heavy enough as they are without adding additional weight to them

​

 

[Lorenzoid]

It's impossible to remain perfectly neutrally buoyant throughout a dive because your buoyancy changes as you consume gas during the dive.

 

[TSandM]

I use 24 pounds of ballast to sink my exposure protection, plus my 5 pound negative backplate. Personally, I would not want to walk around in an undergarment that weighed 24 pounds on land. All effective insulation will be positive, because it works by air-trapping -- so to make it neutral, it would have to weigh a LOT.

 

[nimoh]

I think the main reason is that it is unnecessary. My dry suit is nicely balanced out by my steel tanks and steel backplate such that I don't wear any additional weight. So, even though my individual gear pieces are not neutral, they are as a whole.

Also, I think it would make equipment unmanageable on the surface since you can't really make some things lighter (knife, light batteries, tanks). The only way to make them neutral (by themselves) would be to add some lighter than water material to balance them out. This would make them more bulky, and neutral in the water, but the same weight on the surface. Other things such as dry suit, are naturally positive and would need to be weighed down to make them neutral by adding heavier than water material until it is neutral. At this point you have about doubled (or more) the weight of your gear on the surface. I can't imagine trying to suit up and walk over to the water on a shore dive.

 

[Glenn08]

My twin 50's and Selpak manifold were more negative than I liked, so I added a piece of 4 inch PVC pipe with closed ends to act as a buoyancy tank. It means that I had to wear more lead, but now my rig and I are each closer to neutral.
I like my Viking dry suit because it has no inherent buoyancy. Once I have compensated for squeeze, it is neutral. But I do have to adjust my weight belt to the underwear for warmer or colder water.

---------- Post added September 24th, 2013 at 11:36 AM ----------

A student in a certification class had a novel idea. Instead of wearing lead on a weight belt, wear sponges. When the sponges get wet they are heavier, but when you get out of the water, the water drains out and they are not heavy anymore. Apparently, he was not acquainted with Archimedes.

 

[redacted]

Unnecessary weight in luggage is a bad thing. Much easier to add a little lead, as needed, at the dive destination.