Steel or Alum BACK PLATE
- Thread starter Captain Mikey Likey
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This is what I have for warm water diving. I started with a regular steel backplate for So Cal and Hawaii winter diving, found it a little too heave in really warm tropical water even diving with an Al80, so a couple of years picked up a Stainless Steel XT Lite Backplate | Dive Rite for a trip to Palau. It's about 3 lbs lighter than a regular steel backplate, but looks oh so cool compared to a sratched up aluminum backplate that weighs the same amount. Since steel is denser than aluminum, it's actually a little bit more negatively buoyant than the same weight aluminum backplate, if that makes you feel any better
Octopusprime
Contributor
Steel for me because it is 6lbs less I need. But I dive cold water and heavy exposure protection.
cool_hardware52
Contributor
Forgive me if some of this repetitious.
The choice between a Stainless Steel Plate and lightweight plate (aluminum or Kydex) is a function of required ballast.
Required ballast is a function of the diver's exposure protection, the buoyancy characteristics of the cylinder used and the "personal" buoyancy of the diver.
Clearly knowing the buoyancy of your suit and the numbers on the cylinder to be used is a huge help in making this choice.
In most cases a diver who plans to dive across a range of conditions, i.e. warm water with thin suits and buoyant tanks and cold water with pretty much any tank and wants to stick with a single back plate, a Stainless Plate is typically the better choice, as long as the Stainless Plate does not overweight the diver when using their least buoyant suit / most negative tank.
Having said that some application require a lite weight plate, i.e. no exposure suit or a dive skin and buoyant al 80's
or
Thin exposure suits and negative steel cylinders, i.e. a 3mm and HP100 etc.
Become familiar with the actual buoyancy of the suits and tanks you plan to use and proper plate selection becomes readily apparent.
Tobin
The choice between a Stainless Steel Plate and lightweight plate (aluminum or Kydex) is a function of required ballast.
Required ballast is a function of the diver's exposure protection, the buoyancy characteristics of the cylinder used and the "personal" buoyancy of the diver.
Clearly knowing the buoyancy of your suit and the numbers on the cylinder to be used is a huge help in making this choice.
In most cases a diver who plans to dive across a range of conditions, i.e. warm water with thin suits and buoyant tanks and cold water with pretty much any tank and wants to stick with a single back plate, a Stainless Plate is typically the better choice, as long as the Stainless Plate does not overweight the diver when using their least buoyant suit / most negative tank.
Having said that some application require a lite weight plate, i.e. no exposure suit or a dive skin and buoyant al 80's
or
Thin exposure suits and negative steel cylinders, i.e. a 3mm and HP100 etc.
Become familiar with the actual buoyancy of the suits and tanks you plan to use and proper plate selection becomes readily apparent.
Tobin
KevinG58
Contributor
SS backplate in my home cold water. I dive dry and use my own steel tanks and am still rather floaty so I add lead.
When I travel to warm water locales I take my own Freedom plate, a 4 lb SS backplate that mimics a kydex plate in shape. I use the ubiquitous AL80s in those situations. And add lead. I wear a 3mm wetsuit in all but the warmest waters.
When I travel to warm water locales I take my own Freedom plate, a 4 lb SS backplate that mimics a kydex plate in shape. I use the ubiquitous AL80s in those situations. And add lead. I wear a 3mm wetsuit in all but the warmest waters.
mattia_v
Contributor
AL here, because it keeps the dive suitcase under 23 kg with 2 full sets of gear and 3.5mm wetsuits (with regs in hand luggage), and I currently only need 4 lbs of additional weight when diving a single Al80, which fits neatly on the tank strap in 2 compact pockets. May even be able to ditch a little more, but already trimmed the fat from 12 lbs earlier this year (some of it is probably body composition/weight loss)
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