APEKS harness and sidemount

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Dustinh

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Greetings!

Apologies if this has already been covered, but I searched the board and I couldn't actually find any answers.

I've got some pretty bad back problems that have developed over the last 2 years, but I refuse to give up the thing I love the most in this world (scuba). I'm seeing more and more that sidemount seems to be the way to go for me. I have the APEKS WTX harness and I really love it. It's incredibly comfortable and fits me perfectly. I'd hate to give it up. What's the best way for me to rig the setup so that I can use it for sidemount?

Thanks for any advice!
 
It'd probably work okay in conjunction with a donut wing (~30lbs) and the OMS Profile Adapter. Use bungees between the d-rings on the WTX and those on the Profile to secure/shape the wing; it should ideally be a little 'pear shaped' - bigger at the bottom, minimal capacity at the top.

Have a look at my old project the 'Frankenstein' - which used an Oxycheq Travel Lite harness in the same way...

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/si...ject-frankenstein-my-diy-sidemount-trial.html

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Devon,

Thanks for the pics and the reply. It seems that the OMS system you mentioned is discontinued sadly. Any other suggestions? I'm surprised that Apeks doesn't make a sidemount adapter for their harness. They make a sidemount regulator setup, but no harness. Weird.

The wing I currently have is a 60 pound. Interesting that you're using such a small wing. Any particular reason? Will my current wing work at all, or do I really need to invest in something different?

Thanks again for the help.
 
Check out Unified team diving's alpha hybrid wing, I've had one for years and can't say enough good about it. Does SM and single tank BM.



From website;




UTD Alpha/Delta Trim Device/Wing - For Back-Mount or Side-Mount Diving (upto 37lbs/17kg)


In designing the new Alpha/Delta Trim Device, we set out to create one trim device that can do it all for back-mounting a single tank or side-mounting a single or double tank . Alpha/Delta works in warm or cold water diving environments and fits all hard, soft or travel backplates and side-mount harnesses, Alpha/Delta is truly the only trim device you will ever need. To accomplish this we drew on everything we had learned designing the ground breaking Z and Z+ side-mount systems. What emerged was a versatile trim device that will accommodate almost any type of back-mount single tank diving you do or single tank/double tank side-mounting you will ever do.


The key to it all was a very low profile, streamlined trim device that contours to the body. The Alpha/Delta, with upto 37lbs/17kgs of lift, has a much lower profile than traditional wings. This streamlining produced a trim device that simply will not “taco” or wrap up and around the side of a tank, producing drag. Neither will the Alpha/Delta Trim Device allow gas to roll around the bladder (referred to as “air shifting&#8221:wink: which produces instability in the divers trim.


In designing the Z and Z+ side-mount systems we learned quite a bit about how the positioning of lift effects a divers trim. In previous wing designs, the emphasis was on placing the majority of the lift near the shoulders to achieve proper horizontal trim. The Alpha Trim Device puts the majority of the lift lower on the body, exactly where the diver needs it. This naturally places the diver in a flat, feet up position.


Introducing the Alpha/Delta Back-mount and Side-mount Diving Trim Device. One trim device for all back-mount single tank diving and side-mount diving environments.




Features and Benefits


The Alpha/Delta Trim Device/Wing is designed for back-mount single tank recreational diving or side-mount single or side-mount double tank diving.
Designed for horizontal prone position diving
Easy to dump air from the left or right rear dump vlave (OPV) and from LP hose located on-top of the wing or the bottom of the wing (as desired), even while in the Horizontal prone position
Power inflator and OPV are interchangable from the bottom right side, bottom left side or the top of the trim device. Based on your needs.
Heavy duty cover on wing to protect bladder
1 year warranty on wing
Upto 37lbs / 17 Kg Alpha Trim Device/Wing


Alpha/Delta style trim device for single tank back-mount diving or single tank/double tank side-mount diving.
One wing works for warm water and cold water diving. No need for a 20lbs/9kg wing or a 30lbs/14kg wing or a 40lbs/23kg.
Super Low Profile and Streamline.
Always stays snug to your body. No wing flapping around or "Taco"ing - Significantly Reduces Drag and Dynamic Instability.
Dumps from left OPV and the top mounted LP hose for back-mount or right OPV and bottom mount LP for side-mount
Correct position of the lift cell to keep you in the horizontal prone position - Hence Trim Device.
Inflator/Deflator LP hose and OPV can be moved to the left or right, top or bottom as need be.
Upto 37lbs / 17 kg Lift
Fits any Backplate, Harness, Soft harness.
For more information Click Here





For more information, please visit this products webpage.
 
It seems that the OMS system you mentioned is discontinued sadly.

It's still for sale.

Scroll down for the sidemount adaptor: OMS Technical Dive Harness Backplate Systems http://www.OMSdive.com

It normally comes with the Tesseract Wing, but you can use it with virtually any wing or backplate. It can take some modification though. For mine, I swapped the LPI to the lower dump as the top of the adaptor tends to cover the LPI is top/central mounted on the wing. That works great - and is a feature on many/most sidemount rigs anyway.

The only difference with the Tesseract wing is that it has offset LPI at the top and some loops to take the straps included on the Profile Adaptor. With some ingenuity, you can adapt around this with any wing.

I'm currently putting a Custom Divers 60lb Dual Bladder TDB wing into the adaptor (for technical 6+ cylinder sidemount dives).

I built my own lightweight sidemount now, based on the Razor - but that's a 'from scratch' project and wouldn't be compatible with your existing WTX harness.

Any other suggestions?

I've seen several sidemount divers who've done their own conversion. The fundamental problem to overcome is 'taco' of the wing. You need to restrain the wing somehow. The Profile adaptor solves that and also provides a convenient butt plate. The other solution is to have some tabs/straps sewn onto the wing itself. Use those to restrain the wing from taco'ing.

Have some a short length of 2" webbing sewn into the bottom of the wing. Thread that webbing through a retainer towards the back of the waist strap. It now pulls the lower wing close against your hips. Use bungee loops to restrain/reduce the mid-upper wing.

The wing I currently have is a 60 pound. Interesting that you're using such a small wing. Any particular reason?

Actually, the 30lb wing was relatively big :wink: I use a 10lb bladder with my current micro-rig... that's sufficient for 2x Al80 + 2x AL40 (or 3x Al80). It doesn't provide much surface flotation though - but that's not an issue where/how I dive. I float at around nose level... but my normal procedure is to remove the tanks on ascent and clip them to a drop-line. By the time I reach the surface, I am plenty positive.

I only use a 40lb Halcyon Evolve for technical diving (back-mount). Again... it's defined by how/where you dive. I'm in the tropics... so that means Ali cylinders and minimal exposure protection. With steel tanks and/or thick wetsuits you'd need more.

Just look at the SMS50... that has just 25lbs of lift. It's plenty for 2-3 cylinders (tropical diving).

Will my current wing work at all, or do I really need to invest in something different?

I'll post some photos of the TDB 60lb that I am currently configuring. Next day or so..
 
First off, thanks so much!! a TON of great, thorough info.

Decompression, I appreciate the info about the UTD harness. It's tempting, but I'm trying to be cheap and not mothball my ATX.

It's still for sale.

Scroll down for the sidemount adaptor: OMS Technical Dive Harness Backplate Systems http://www.OMSdive.com

I'm not sure how I missed that. I must be having a brain dead day. I checked a few online stores and couldn't find it in stockanywhere, but I have a few places locally that sell OMS.



I only use a 40lb Halcyon Evolve for technical diving (back-mount). Again... it's defined by how/where you dive. I'm in the tropics... so that means Ali cylinders and minimal exposure protection. With steel tanks and/or thick wetsuits you'd need more.

I'm diving in the NE United States, so that mean double 100 steel, and I have a 7mm dry suit.The law of the land here is pretty much you exit and enter the water with all your tanks attached, and you don't ever really take them off unless you have to donate a stage bottle in an emergency.

Thank you again for all the help. I look forward to the pictures. Once I get my rig together, I'll make sure to do the same.
 
The law of the land here is pretty much you exit and enter the water with all your tanks attached, and you don't ever really take them off...

Sidemount benefits from (needs?) different procedures and protocols. It's new, so those changes haven't hit the mainstream yet. They will eventually, I am sure.

I guess divers need to look for "sidemount friendly" dive operations/boats, who understand the needs of a sidemount diver.
 
I have a WTX for single cylinder DM stuff, love the comfort but would like to change things around, anyways, If you bought a sidemount bladder, and then positioned the D rings (dependent on what suit/cylinders you are using), i can't see what would go wrong :).
 
Hi Dustin,

I used a WTX standard harness on a stainless steel backplate with a bungeed WTX 4 wing for sidemount for 2 years.

The WTX 4 produced since 2011 have an internal bungee system to restrict the volume of the wing. This is great and solves much of the tacoing effect. It also offers the possibility to choose where to keep the buoyancy. Want more buoyancy by your butt? Tighten the top bungees more... This eliminates the need for mounting lead to shoulder straps (which causes many problems IMO).

The weakness of this system is that, in order to remove the remaining tacoing and to strengthen the whole, the wing is sandwiched between the backplate and the diver's back. The harness is routed above the wing and the wing ends up being very streamlined. This setup can be uncomfortable if you need to completely fill the wing, since the wing ends up pushing against the diver's body. This could be a problem with stainless steel tanks. This method effectively replaces the need to use (and buy) an OMS Profile adapter...

The next step is to add some extra tank attachment points to the rig. For stainless tanks, I would add a cheapo butt-plate (can find some for less than 60 bucks in Europe) with some railings for backgas. For alu cylinders, you can use some moveable attachment points (rubber rings or redundant bungee rings) so that you can move the cylinders around the waist straps as their buoyancy changes during the dive. A less sexy option IMHO is to use an extra D-ring so that you have 2 D-rings on each side of the waist strap. This is less nice since you only have 2 places for bottom attachment of your tanks and this makes it difficult to keep your tanks streamlined at all times (unless using weights on the cylinders, which also introduces many problems).

I also recommend to use 2 separate bungees (redundancy if one bungee breaks) routed through the backplate and attached to the shoulder straps for top attachment of the tanks. Deco tanks can be secured to the regular D-rings.

This system worked so well (in tropical waters with a 3mm wetsuit), I was very reluctant to let go of it. I even did not switch to the xDeep Stealth2 system when I got hold of one. I have now switched to a White Arrow low profile sidemount wing since this allows me to use the same backplate/harness system for backmount/ sidemount or rebreather.

It's also one of the cheapest system you could assemble if you already have this wing, backplate and harness... Great for trying out sidemount without breaking your piggy bank.

I'll try to find some pictures of my old "Frankenstein" rig for you guys to see what it looked like.
 
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