JonTNY
Registered
Finally I've had a chance to dive the SF2 rebreather in both back mount and side mount. Here's the story:
Back mount: IT'S AMAZING, clean, streamline, noticeably warm gas, Shearwater Divecan. The finish work and machining is every thing you'd expect to see on a mid to high end AMG. A few things really stand out:
1) The gas temperature, its warm, noticeably warm, I'm reasonably sure this will assist core temperature in cold water or those long boring hangs.
2) The trim: The unit sort of forces great trim, this is obviously an inherent benefit of the countering placement.
3) WOB is excellent, there's some talk about the unit being unmanageable in the vertical position (heads up or down), this is simply not true. Yes loading changes as it must but its unexpectedly comfortable and very easy to manage by isolating the DIL. Its intuitive.
Side mount:
Again WOB was excellent, stack a steel 02 bottle on the unit and pipe in DIL from you bail out is about as slick as its going to get. It is a little "busier" then a competitor and you can't put a sphere on the bottom of the unit because it would be to long and have a terrible effect on WOB (trapping the water would increase the exhalation effort well beyond any acceptable level, length would also be an issue) Accessing the 02 add is trouble free, the ADV handles DIL and it works well. I'm not sure how I feel about adding MAV's. I think I'd add a 2L steel to the unit and pipe in DIL from a LP120/85 and be done. No need to complicate things.
Its important to note that side mount rebreather issues are side mount rebreather issues and not SF2 issues. SM breathers are fickle and require time to fine tune to the individual.
The Dive Can boards are potted (no P2 like failures here) and batteries replaceable in 2 minutes or less.
In short this is one hell of a fine rebreather that took 15 minutes to set up on my first try with a checklist.
Cheers.
Back mount: IT'S AMAZING, clean, streamline, noticeably warm gas, Shearwater Divecan. The finish work and machining is every thing you'd expect to see on a mid to high end AMG. A few things really stand out:
1) The gas temperature, its warm, noticeably warm, I'm reasonably sure this will assist core temperature in cold water or those long boring hangs.
2) The trim: The unit sort of forces great trim, this is obviously an inherent benefit of the countering placement.
3) WOB is excellent, there's some talk about the unit being unmanageable in the vertical position (heads up or down), this is simply not true. Yes loading changes as it must but its unexpectedly comfortable and very easy to manage by isolating the DIL. Its intuitive.
Side mount:
Again WOB was excellent, stack a steel 02 bottle on the unit and pipe in DIL from you bail out is about as slick as its going to get. It is a little "busier" then a competitor and you can't put a sphere on the bottom of the unit because it would be to long and have a terrible effect on WOB (trapping the water would increase the exhalation effort well beyond any acceptable level, length would also be an issue) Accessing the 02 add is trouble free, the ADV handles DIL and it works well. I'm not sure how I feel about adding MAV's. I think I'd add a 2L steel to the unit and pipe in DIL from a LP120/85 and be done. No need to complicate things.
Its important to note that side mount rebreather issues are side mount rebreather issues and not SF2 issues. SM breathers are fickle and require time to fine tune to the individual.
The Dive Can boards are potted (no P2 like failures here) and batteries replaceable in 2 minutes or less.
In short this is one hell of a fine rebreather that took 15 minutes to set up on my first try with a checklist.
Cheers.