Question Nomad JT for tiny steel bottles

[Alekseolsen]

Hi!

I'm playing with the thought of putting together a mini sidemount kit. I already got a pair of 4L 200 bar bottles, got a reg set ready, but not sure about SM setup.


Goal of the rig is a single cave dive - roughly 10 minutes in 4 meter depth, so bottle size is selected based on that.


I'm looking at a used Nomad JT, I find quite a bit of old recommendations, but nothing recent.

Any thoughts on the combination? How it behaves with larger bottles/from a boat etc. I don't care about.

 

[grantmac]

Look for an xdeep classic or build one yourself using the Deco adapted MSR bladder plus SumpUK bits.

The Nomad is a bulky set-up designed around heavy steel tanks.

 

[grantctobin]

Look for an xdeep classic or build one yourself using the Deco adapted MSR bladder plus SumpUK bits.

The Nomad is a bulky set-up designed around heavy steel tanks.

This. In a real pinch, you could likely get away with a simple weight belt with two d rings and then a pair of bungee loops on the armpits.

 

[grantmac]

I've got a harness built with the aliexpress sidemount plates and they work fine although you need to round the edges to avoid them cutting into the webbing at the waist or rig as an H harness instead of Y with some T pieces. A person could go even simpler using weight keepers.
Look at the UK Sump divers:

Sidemount Harness Options for Homemade Systems

There are sidemount harness options for building your own sidemount system. It's easy to add your choice of wing & bungees onto them.

scubatechphilippines.com

sump4.com/sidemount

 

[Alekseolsen]

This looks brilliant thanks!

 

[TheCatFish]

Hi!

I'm playing with the thought of putting together a mini sidemount kit. I already got a pair of 4L 200 bar bottles, got a reg set ready, but not sure about SM setup.


Goal of the rig is a single cave dive - roughly 10 minutes in 4 meter depth, so bottle size is selected based on that.


I'm looking at a used Nomad JT, I find quite a bit of old recommendations, but nothing recent.

Any thoughts on the combination? How it behaves with larger bottles/from a boat etc. I don't care about.

Well. Sheck Exley's book is pretty adamant about not bringing less than 140cuft of gas on a cave dive. I tend to agree. Seems like you'll have a total of 60cuft. Slim.

 

[grantctobin]

Well. Sheck Exley's book is pretty adamant about not bringing less than 140cuft of gas on a cave dive. I tend to agree. Seems like you'll have a total of 60cuft. Slim.

The lack of nuance in this post reflects a lack of awareness of OPs intent.

 

[TheCatFish]

The lack of nuance in this post reflects a lack of awareness of OPs intent.

Can critique me for lack of nuance if you like. I'm not looking to get into the nitty gritty of OP's dive plan. Just something to keep in mind. Going into overhead with such a small amount of gas isn't something I'd be terribly comfortable with even at 15ft. Tossing on a couple of 63's is also very small and easy to work with and you wind up with twice as much gas, and puts you much closer to that 140cuft recommendation. Diving with a couple of 4L tanks as my back gas just isn't my jam.

 

[inquis]

Diving 6ths at 20 L/min (0.7 cf/min) surface consumption sounds pretty conservative to me. It would be 8ths for many people.