New tropical BC or new plate?

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Hello, I just found out that I am going to have the opportunity to live in Kosrae, Micronesia for a year and am excited about all the diving. I am from Oregon, so when I bought my set up I bought a DSS 30ish lb wing with a SS backplate and a OMS comfort harness. I have used it both in the San Juans and on a few trips to tropical places and enjoyed it.

My question now is whether I should buy a new travel/tropical oriented BC or just get a new backplate? Would I notice the difference going from SS to Al enough to justify spending 100 bucks? I was looking at the Oxy travel plate that is just fabric but I don't think that it will work with my DSS wing? Is there anything else similar to that, a nice soft light backplate that I wouldn't mind diving with in a thin exposure suit?

Thanks for any thoughts
 
Transpac works well for me. If you really want it stripped down you can pull all the padding off of it, but I don't think it's worth it... The oxycheq soft plates are nice, but why not just bring your current plate?
 
new BC------1 will never do.....
 
Why would you change? A SS BP is the perfect offset for the bouyancy of an empty aluminum tank.
 
Why would you change? A SS BP is the perfect offset for the buoyancy of an empty aluminum tank.

+1 I dive SS BP/W, no STA. In salt water I am 8# lead with AL80 and 2# with steel HP120. I love the stability of the BP.
 
Save the money and take your current BP.

I have both an Al and SS plate. I use the Al with high capacity steel tanks and the SS with Al tanks. Works great.
 
Hello, I just found out that I am going to have the opportunity to live in Kosrae, Micronesia for a year and am excited about all the diving. I am from Oregon, so when I bought my set up I bought a DSS 30ish lb wing with a SS backplate and a OMS comfort harness. I have used it both in the San Juans and on a few trips to tropical places and enjoyed it.

My question now is whether I should buy a new travel/tropical oriented BC or just get a new backplate? Would I notice the difference going from SS to Al enough to justify spending 100 bucks? I was looking at the Oxy travel plate that is just fabric but I don't think that it will work with my DSS wing? Is there anything else similar to that, a nice soft light backplate that I wouldn't mind diving with in a thin exposure suit?

Thanks for any thoughts

Option 1: Take the gear you have. Should work OK

Option 2: Keep the plate you have and get a smaller wing.

Tobin
 
If your spending a year living there your probably going to be diving a lot, would a light weight "travel" BCD take a year of hard diving, I'd keep the BP + wing, if weight is a problem get an Ali BP if not keep the SS.

It probably won't be an issue but if you are worried about comfort with a thin exposure suit (or even just a t-shirt) then get a comfort pad thingy.
 
It is true that when I was in Belize in a 3 mil full wetsuit the weight was about right. I just wasn't sure if I wanted the bulk of the SS to lug around the island, go shore diving with, etc. Now that you guys are saying it though, I guess it doesn't make sense to change, maybe I will look into getting a pad so I could dive in a tshirt and not worry about it. Any suggestions for a pad that would attach right to the DSS plate?

Thanks a lot
 

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