What weight system do you use with your harness/backplate set up?

[Blue_Devil]

Hey guys,

So this is what I ended up going with...

A V-weight pouch which will fit inside the channel of my back plate (finally found what I was looking for )

A couple of weight pockets to attach to my cam bands

And a rubber weight belt

This set up should leave me with about 8lbs on my belt (2 lead blocks) which should be perfect and definitely improve the comfort level.

 

[Jbell8289]

This is an absolutely ridiculous statement. The thermocline at our local quarry is about 15 feet in the spring and only about 30 to 35 feet when the water is warmest. Depth compression of my 13mm worth of neoprene makes a huge difference in my buoyancy well above even 60 ffw depths. Even as a newb (or perhaps especially because I'm a newb) I can tell a dramatic difference in my buoyancy simply based upon my suit. I only wear 14-16 pounds (still haven't dialed it in) with that much neoprene so I could swim it up if I had to, but I'm one of the lucky ones. Temps range from the high 30s to the 70s depending upon depth and time of year. Do you dive dry when the temps are above 50? What about temps above 60?

I feel like if you are wearing 13mm worth of neoprene then why would one not consider a dry suit? and i know many people who dive dry in temps well above 60 especially down here in the south... we dont like to be cold ..... and like i said MOST dives dont require ditchable weight. There are of course always some acceptions. You being a new diver i assume you dont want to shell out $1000+ for a new drysuit yet, so therefore 13mm is an alternative and probably does compress even at 30' but my point is that is not optimum. If you were diving dry you would then have a redundant buoyancy system and therefore ditchable weight would not really be necessary....and of course theres always the option of ditching your rig altogether if you cant swim it up....and.....imagine if that 14-16lbs of weight were to fall off at depth, i imagine it would send you rocketing towards the surface and a possible hit of DCS ????

 

[c5diver]

60s and dry.. Ha Ha i was in the keys a few weeks ago water temp 79-82 i dove dry there and everywhere i dive. 30 min in 80 degree water and im cold. i have a drysuit so i use it. comfort is the key to enjoyable diving. i hear it all summer at the local quarries "its cold at 40 feet" so they limit there dive by comfort. sure you feel the diffrence as you go deeper when your dry but you dont get cold. that is the diving tropical drysuits are made for and they work great. had i know i would never had a custom made wetsuit, i would have gone dry from the start.

 

[fjpatrum]

I feel like if you are wearing 13mm worth of neoprene then why would one not consider a dry suit? and i know many people who dive dry in temps well above 60 especially down here in the south... we dont like to be cold ..... and like i said MOST dives dont require ditchable weight. There are of course always some acceptions. You being a new diver i assume you dont want to shell out $1000+ for a new drysuit yet, so therefore 13mm is an alternative and probably does compress even at 30' but my point is that is not optimum. If you were diving dry you would then have a redundant buoyancy system and therefore ditchable weight would not really be necessary....and of course theres always the option of ditching your rig altogether if you cant swim it up....and.....imagine if that 14-16lbs of weight were to fall off at depth, i imagine it would send you rocketing towards the surface and a possible hit of DCS ????

Yes, part of my reason for diving wet is I don't want to spend on a drysuit just yet. I also had no intention of diving colder water when I started this, but the bug has bitten me and I want to dive more than I anticipated.

Sure, diving dry would be more comfortable and afford some redundant bouyancy, but to say "should be" is akin to saying anything else is simply incorrect. It's not, it's just a different choice. Furthermore, there are still buoyancy issues in a dry suit, and some of that is to do with compression of undergarments, as I understand it. (I may be reading things here incorrectly though.)

I tend to agree with you about the ditchable weights, though I don't have to carry much weight, like I said. If I was a more "floaty" person, I'd be far more inclined to have ditchable weights than I am right now...

 

[Crush]

Yes, part of my reason for diving wet is I don't want to spend on a drysuit just yet. I also had no intention of diving colder water when I started this, but the bug has bitten me and I want to dive more than I anticipated.

Sure, diving dry would be more comfortable and afford some redundant bouyancy, but to say "should be" is akin to saying anything else is simply incorrect. It's not, it's just a different choice.

I agree. It is not as if all those divers diving wet 30 years ago were doing it wrong...

When I started diving two years ago I didn't want to spend too much money in case I decided that diving wasn't for me. I bought a BC, regs, a computer, and a wetsuit. I froze my butt off for a year and finally decided to get a drysuit. I am glad that I waited to get the drysuit since, had I bought one straight-away, I would have gone for a cheaper one. After freezing for a year I now really appreciate the drysuit. I spend $2K on a custom-tailored suit and believe that it was money very well-spent.

 

[Mtbr]

Also, placing the weight on the cam band (which I do) makes for a setup which is more unstable than if the weights were on the plate since the mass (weight) is above the source of lift (the wing). It becomes very easy to turtle yourself if you stack on enough weight.

mpetryk,
Do you think adding 8lbs on to a top cam band (4lbs on each side) is enough to turtle oneself? I'm dive dry with a bp/w. All I need is 8 lbs of ballast. I'm very leg heavy, so I like to compensate by going top heavy.

 

[gsk3]

Do you think adding 8lbs on to a top cam band (4lbs on each side) is enough to turtle oneself? I'm dive dry with a bp/w. All I need is 8 lbs of ballast. I'm very leg heavy, so I like to compensate by going top heavy.

I put 7lbs in my cam bands when I dive singles. It's no big deal. Just slide the weights off as far to the side as you can (so they're on the side of the tank closest to you), so the moment arm is a little smaller.