I experimented with weight on a standard piece of webbing attached view sex buts to the top and bottom holes in the nomad, but the results were less than optimum.
Consequently, I bought the weight plate. I played in the quarry today seeing how sidemount went in really cold water with the plate. I had my heavy DUI undergarment with a vest on top. Normally, I have 2 pounds of weight on each shoulder strap and that works great in terms of trim in N FL with a dry suit and lightweight underwear.
For today's 39 degree tempts, I started with 5 pounds with 2500 psi in X7-100s, but I had to dump everything and put a squeeze in the suit to even get close to neutral. The heavy weight undies are ptretty floaty compared to what I wear in FL. I added two 4 pound weights, along with the original 3 pound weight and a 2 pound weight in the pockets on the weight plate and that worked very well overall with enough weight to loft the insulation as well as hold a safety stop with 500 psi on each tank.
Trim wise, I started with the weight plate it in the middle holes on the Nomad but trim was less than wonderful with a distinctly feet low tendency. For the second and third dives, I moved the plate to the top hole and trim was great.
One annoying thing about the plate is that the holes in the weight plate are about 1 hole diameter too long, putting a bit of a bend in the plate and pressing on each screw. Be sure to tighten them both down a lot as the pressure and the bend tends to defeat their otherwise self locking traits and when the top one comes loose, things get interesting in terms of trim. I see a hole punch and a couple new grommets coming in the very near future.
Overall, the plate worked well and removing and replacing the tanks went very smoothly as did swinging them forward both individually and together with only very slight head down trim issues. All in all it was very smooth and required far less adjustment than I anticipated.