Thinking about coming over to the DARK SIDE! Re-breather help.

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Folks:

I made an earlier post about expenses related to tech diving and it turned out that the training and gear costs for tech diving would turn out to be the same as acquiring a re-breather. Then someone from here also suggested looking into rebreathers. For someone who known virtually nothing about rebreathers, can anyone please tell me:

1. How much does a re-breather cost? I am looking to dive to 300 feet eventually in extremely cold waters. Are rebreathers depth rated? Any issues in handling extremely cold ice conditions?

2. Any heavy costs involved in owning them like annual service, filter parts changes etc that I need to know?

3. Are rebreathers travel friendly? Can I take one in the plane to bikini atoll? Or would it involve the same hassle that taking tanks involves? Valve removal etc.

4. Is there a steep learning curve when you switch from open circuit to rebreather?

5. I am interested in going to places where compressor / gas fills for tanks may not be available. Would I be able to do repeated dives without needing a compressor?

6. Is the cost per dive siginicantly higher with rebreathers in comparison with tanks?

If there is anything else that is important but is not up there please let me know. I thank everyone in advance for the help.

Cheers -

Sinbad

 

[mathauck0814]

Boy - you're all over the place. Technical rebreather diving is more expensive than OC tech diving.

1. How much does a re-breather cost? I am looking to dive to 300 feet eventually in extremely cold waters. Are rebreathers depth rated? Any issues in handling extremely cold ice conditions?

There are a lot of rebreathers available. You'll need to decide what you want before anyone can give you a price. But let's say that you could buy a used semi-closed unit for as little as $2500 up to a technical-depth suitable unit (100m+) for up to $20k with a median of probably $12k for most units (not the base unit, the actual machine once it's in a state where you'll dive it). Training on CCR is separated into three levels (100 feet, 200 feet and 300 feet) each costs ~$1,500 (plus books, plus gas, plus boat costs for you and your instructor).

2. Any heavy costs involved in owning them like annual service, filter parts changes etc that I need to know?

You have to buy filter material. Depending on the unit, some filter material is more expensive than others. For benchmarking, I dive every weekend and go through about $140 in sorb/month. You also have consumables in the form of oxygen cells. My unit has 5 (at ~$120/per) which I replace in a round-robin fashion one every three months (~$600/year) unless you screw something up, flood your unit or get one wet or one randomly fails (as happens) then you have to replace all 5. So let's say that you don't ever flood your machine and you dive every weekend you've got about ~$2000/year in consumable costs. There are also battery costs and gas costs.

3. Are rebreathers travel friendly? Can I take one in the plane to bikini atoll? Or would it involve the same hassle that taking tanks involves? Valve removal etc.

A tank is a tank is a tank. I have carried my rebreather on and I have paid to check my rebreather. There are whole threads on the risk/benefit of this. More and more destinations are rebreather friendly and can rent you tanks and provide sorb and pure oxygen, but it is a far cry from all destinations. For much of far flung diving you're going to be arranging gas for yourself (the same can be said of open circuit diving, for the record).

4. Is there a steep learning curve when you switch from open circuit to rebreather?

To dive a recreational rebreather at recreational depths? Probably not. If you're talking about going to 300 feet, my opinion is that it's better to learn on OC first and then move to CCR as there are a lot of similar skills and when you make the switch all you'll be learning is the rebreather - remember, if your rebreather fails at 300 feet you're suddenly doing an open circuit tech dive at 300 feet and you need all of the equipment, gas and skill to perform that dive. So you're going to learn both either way.

5. I am interested in going to places where compressor / gas fills for tanks may not be available. Would I be able to do repeated dives without needing a compressor?

Most likely. Depending on the profile.

6. Is the cost per dive siginicantly higher with rebreathers in comparison with tanks?

Cost/Dive can be significantly cheaper if you're doing anything with Helium. In recreational depths, no. The cost/dive is higher. It all depends.

If there is anything else that is important but is not up there please let me know. I thank everyone in advance for the help.

What is the availability of pure oxygen fills where you are? What is the rebreather community like? Do you have people to dive with? Consider that you will need almost all of the equipment that is required for open circuit technical diving in order to do technical rebreather diving (see above on what happens when your rebreather fails) and take inventory of what you have and don't have.

Honestly, so long as "cost" is a metric you remain concerned about, just keep doing what you're doing and stay away from this stuff. OC/CC or otherwise.

 

[down4fun]

First off i would take a look around over on Rebreather World - Rebreathers for Scuba Diving - the next step there are lots of threads on making the transition to ccr

I'm no expert but I'll offer what insight i can
1) you can get into a used rebreather for around $5K a fully loaded new ccr can run up to $12K

2) There are services that need to be done to the rebreather like any dive gear. The rebreather has two first stages that will need service. You also have what's called consumables these are things used in the rebreather that have to be replaced from time to time. For instance you have "cells" these are your O2 monitoring devices and should be changed out regularly. We change our every 12 months. YMMV. Sorb, as it's referred to is the absorbent that scrubs out the CO2 as you breath, this must be changed after a certain number of hours, depending on the unit and scrubber size. .

3) Again depending on the unit they can be very travel friendly. We (my BF and I) dive rEvo micro FT these particular units will fit in a carry on for travel. A lot of destinations can now provide tanks for you when you arrive. If you are traveling somewhere without any ccr support then yes, you would have to pull you valves off the ccr tanks for travel. Also know that with the ccr you will need bailout tanks too. I know some friends that are going to Bikini next year with there rEvo's. I believe it's a live aboard that will have tanks and bailouts available for the divers who are traveling. We have gone to Grand Cayman and Mexico to the caves and in both places were able to coordinate tanks and bailout at the destination.

4) is completely individual. Some say they felt there was a huge learning curve others found the transition to be relatively smooth.

5) I guess it depends on the depth and duration of the dive. I dive 3l steel tanks on my rebreather and can easily get 2 deco dives in the 150-250 range off one fill. Beyond that you would need a second set of tanks or a booster to do fills. In mexico we brought our own booster to do fills.

6) The initial cost of the the rebreather is substantial. After that the individual dives are actually a lot cheaper on ccr than open circuit. Here is a good article comparing costs
Which is Cheaper? - Add Helium


I'm sure i have missed some stuff but there's a start

 

[mathauck0814]

6) The initial cost of the the rebreather is substantial. After that the individual dives are actually a lot cheaper on ccr than open circuit. Here is a good article comparing costs
Which is Cheaper? - Add Helium

Keep in mind that article is written by a shop that deals primarily in rebreather sales and instruction and may be less than balanced ;-) Rest assured, there is no cost savings in a rebreather unless you do a lot of very deep diving with regular frequency.

 

[down4fun]

I'll admit it depends on the depth and frequency of those dives. Tony (the author of the article and my s/o) and I are doing dives almost every weekend in the 150-300 foot range so for us there is no comparison to oc. The gas cost alone for oc would be crazy. If you are only doing some light tech dives maybe once a month during the summer months then no a ccr probably isn't going to save you money

Living in south florida does give us some great opportunity for frequent deep dives

 

[mathauck0814]

I'll admit it depends on the depth and frequency of those dives. Tony (the author of the article and my s/o) and I are doing dives almost every weekend in the 150-300 foot range so for us there is no comparison to oc. The gas cost alone for oc would be crazy. If you are only doing some light tech dives maybe once a month during the summer months then no a ccr probably isn't going to save you money

Living in south florida does give us some great opportunity for frequent deep dives

Agreed As does living in Southern California.

OP - Your profile is 0-24 dives, why are you looking at tech diving at all? Or any of the other dozens of "what if" posts that you make on SB? Is it just for fun to spark up a thread? Are you diving a lot more than your profile suggests? I managed to dive 16 years (aggressively) and not need a rebreather or tech diving. Even now, I only "wanted" those things, there is still so much that I haven't seen in recreational depths. I could have easily spent the gear and training money on travel. What is your compelling event so early in your diving career to push into these areas?

 

[down4fun]

To the OP while learning all you can and planning your future are both good things. Experience comes with time. And tech diving takes experience. In the first 6 months I was certified i did 100 dives. I knew early on I wanted to dive wrecks, and probably deep wrecks. The next 4-5 years were spent acquiring gear, experience and training as I made my way into tech diving. There is no easy or cheap way to the deep wrecks you have spoke of. Keep diving and gaining experience and in your time out of the water continue to read, learn and ask questions. The journey to wrecks that lie in the deep is just that...a journey. Enjoy the journey.

 

[PfcAJ]

Fwiw, I'm just now considering moving to a rebreather (RB80). Imo, you need to be good at deep OC diving, because when the RB breaks, you're right back to open circuit. You still need substantial OC gear (think bailout, to include gas on the bottom and through the decompression).

Finding out you suck at bottle rotations and gas switching in the midst of a rb failure is not a good idea.

 

[Suzuki416]

Finding out you suck at bottle rotations and gas switching in the midst of a rb failure is not a good idea.

You can always take 2 RB's - who needs OC bailout

 

[mathauck0814]

You can always take 2 RB's - who needs OC bailout

I love it! Solving the cost conscious OP's problem with a redundant rebreather.