TiZIP

[Incident]

Bruce,
Good info. Thanks for your insight. I have a BARE semidry with a TiZip and so far love it.

Quick question for you. In your list of do's and dont's from above, in number 1 you say to use a quality silicon grease. Can you recommend one?

Thanks!

 

[Superlyte27]

Alright, so these zippers have been out for a few years now and I'm curious what people's experiences with them have been? I'm looking at a new suit and debating whether to go TiZIP or metal zip and any input, comments, thoughts is much appreciated!

I take pretty good care of my gear. I can't get more than a year out of a TiZip. I just replaced my third zipper.... this time BRASS.
My two friends in TiZip are having the same issues... They don't last more than a year. YMMV, but each of us doing 200-300 dives per year, this has been our experience.

 

[Redshift]

Which model of TiZip have you been using?

 

[digdug87]

Have TiZip in my new dry suit while the wife's new suit has the brass zipper. I've got about 25 dives on mine so far, and I'm loving it. Wife is a bit jealous though...

 

[phishphood]

Superlyte

What's been the issues with the tizips?

 

[andrewy]

tizip is more sensitive to movements. i.e. you may zip it all the way, test it in the water, then wiggle into your harness and thats where it pulls open just 1mm will do.
i ended up attaching some cave line so i can tag on it when all done and ready to jump. it worked fine so far. in any case my other suit gets its 3rd zipper replaced by regular, metal reliable zipper. when tizip used in space suits, let me know. again i dont care for replacements as i do my own, and i order zippers directly from mfg, custom exact size cost me about $75 so i can replace them all i want

 

[Superlyte27]

Superlyte

What's been the issues with the tizips?

They leak at about the 1 year mark, no matter how well we maintain them

 

[TSandM]

I don't do quite as many dives as you do, but mine is going on 2 years old, and the only leak problems I've had have been a couple of docking issues. I haven't added up this year's dives yet, but I would guess I've got about 250 on the zipper.

 

[andrewy]

For me its not the number of dives you can squeeze, its just a 100% insurance zipper will not leak.. with DUI TLS 350 you always 50/50 on leaking dont want to make it 100%. i get may be 150 dives on brass zipper before it frays, my buddy has old cf300 (not cf200) thing has probably 1000 dives and original zipper., go figure.

 

[KevinNM]

Quick question for you. In your list of do's and dont's from above, in number 1 you say to use a quality silicon grease. Can you recommend one?

I got a little bottle from TiZip with my Drysuit. It looks like this: TiZip Zipper Lube .
This is intended to just use on the docking end, though they have other documents that talk about lubricating the entire zipper, not sure this applies to a masterseal.