Mixing brands and stages

ShinySideUp · Nov 9, 2007

Hi all,

I have a new Cressi Ellipse Titanium 1st and 2nd stage, which also has a Cressi Ellipse octo. After diving with several insta-buddies who I feel would be unable to help me in an emergency, I have decided to go ahead and get a 13cf pony.

I just purchased a Mares rebel12 1st and 2nd stage. What I would like to do is to put the Mares 2nd stage on the Cressi 1st stage to use as an octo, and put the Cressi octo onto the Mares 1st stage for the pony rig.

My question is if this OK to do, are there any issues you can think of with this setup?
The Cressi octo is eye searing yellow, so I think it would be better to have that attached to a pony I can hand off to someone if needed.

Thanks in advance for your input

jefffalcone · Nov 9, 2007

You shouldn't hand off your pony reg. If a diver is OOA you should hand them a reg that you are absolutely certain will provide air. Since you aren't breathing off your pony, you don't know for sure that there isn't a problem with it. If the bright yellow color is the only reason you want to swap stages, keep it they way it is. Your pony is a back-up for if your main air sorce fails. Your main air sorce is your buddy's back-up.

sorry. I just reread my post and realized I didn't answer your question. As I understand it, there shouldn't be a problem if you want to do this. Possibly the seconds will have to be retuned to preform optimally with different firsts, but most firsts put out pretty similar IPs so it should be fine.

battles2a5 · Nov 9, 2007

Jeff- I think you are absolutely right about passing the reg you know is working- IF you are dealing with equally trained, competent, and safe divers that can handle an OOA without issue. If you are dealing w/ a stanger off a boat that goes OOA and comes charging at you w/ panic in their eyes, I would have no problem passing a pony to them, keeping it between me and the paniced diver the whole time. A good friend of mine took a ride to the surface after a panicked diver accepted his reg and then bolted for the surface dragging my buddy with him. 1 casualty is always better than 2. Another good reason not to dive w/ insta-buddies.

jefffalcone · Nov 9, 2007

battles2a5:
Jeff- I think you are absolutely right about passing the reg you know is working- IF you are dealing with equally trained, competent, and safe divers that can handle an OOA without issue. If you are dealing w/ a stanger off a boat that goes OOA and comes charging at you w/ panic in their eyes, I would have no problem passing a pony to them, keeping it between me and the paniced diver the whole time. A good friend of mine took a ride to the surface after a panicked diver accepted his reg and then bolted for the surface dragging my buddy with him. 1 casualty is always better than 2. Another good reason not to dive w/ insta-buddies.

If this happened to me the reg would get ripped out of his mouth as quickly as it had been put there. If he wanted the air, he would come back to it.
Nontheless you make a good point. I was thinking from the standpoint that the only reason a diver would be OOA is some kind of malfunction. I haven't yet had the misfortune of a moron instabuddy, but I like to travel alone, so I'm sure I eventually will.

jeckyll · Nov 9, 2007

Not to get too far off track, but if you are diving with someone new, you should check on their remaining gas more frequently. If someone who is your 'buddy' comes up to you and is out of gas and you had no clue, you own part of that IMO.

As for which reg to hand off: This is something that needs to be discussed pre-dive (and has been discussed over and over on SB). Some folks like handing off a pony. This is not my personal preference, nor would I choose to dive with someone who told me "in an emergency I'm going to hand off this 13 cf pony".

YMMV

Tim Greaves · Nov 9, 2007

ShinySideUp:
Hi all,

I have a new Cressi Ellipse Titanium 1st and 2nd stage, which also has a Cressi Ellipse octo. After diving with several insta-buddies who I feel would be unable to help me in an emergency, I have decided to go ahead and get a 13cf pony.

I just purchased a Mares rebel12 1st and 2nd stage. What I would like to do is to put the Mares 2nd stage on the Cressi 1st stage to use as an octo, and put the Cressi octo onto the Mares 1st stage for the pony rig.

My question is if this OK to do, are there any issues you can think of with this setup?
The Cressi octo is eye searing yellow, so I think it would be better to have that attached to a pony I can hand off to someone if needed.

Thanks in advance for your input

Just make sure that the IP is correct for the 2nd stage that your using, other than that the only problem that I see is if you have an overbalanced 1st stage with an unbalanced 2nd stage.. I have heard that this will cause the 2nd stange to leak if your going deep..

battles2a5 · Nov 9, 2007

Oh yeah, I was always have the pre-dive discussion about OOA, and since I dive a long hose I explain that I will hand it to them and I will take my back-up. The guy that screwed my buddy was not part of our buddy team. His buddy left him, he went out of air, my buddy tried to help him and got screwed for it. So for those cases, handing a pony over while using it to protect yourself is not a bad option. In a perfect world, people would know how to handle an OOA but unfortunately that is not the reality we live in.

battles2a5 · Nov 9, 2007

Oh, and to the OP, sorry for hijacking your thread. But as Tim said, as long as the IP from your first stage matches your second, you should be ok. I think some of the Apeks first stages are overbalanced to compensate for air density at depth, but you should be ok.

ShinySideUp · Nov 9, 2007

Thank you all for your input. I have had a few scary incidences with insta buddies, which is why I'm leaning towards handing off a pony to keep these guys away from me. Of course my primary reason for having a pony is as a personal back up, but I travel a lot and always seem to get paired up with someone who I know will not be calm and cool in an emergency.

jefffalcone · Nov 9, 2007

There's nothing wrong with diving solo. You have redundant air.

Mixing brands and stages

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