Freedom Plate's Cousin

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I must be missing something. It looks like the plate is curved to follow the spine like the Freedom Plate but I don't see anything that gives the tank the ~3° offset. How does that work when the curved pack is cam-banded to the straight cylinder?
The roll control blocks hold the tank away far enough that the tank doesn’t high center in the middle of the plate. This design counts on wings with fairly robust roll control cushions located at the sides of the slots top and bottom. The wings with long continuous bars probably won’t work (Hog).
The wings that I know for sure that will work are the VDH wings, and the Oxycheq wings.
People seem to be concerned about the tank sitting too flat and bumping into their butts. This gives me a chuckle when I think of the alternative.
Like I said, this thing isn’t even available yet. I have not even had a chance to try it yet myself. I don’t have access to warm salt water. I’ll have to use it in my local 48 degree water with a big weightbelt. I’ll try it with my VDH 18 wing, we’ll see how that goes? It’s possible there may have to be a small bracket of some sort welded to the bottom to kick the tank out, I don’t know yet. But add in more time for fab and welding and guess what happens to the price?
 
It’s possible there may have to be a small bracket of some sort welded to the bottom to kick the tank out, I don’t know yet.

Eric,
I put in almost 20 hours diving this plate and loved every minute of it. I also did a bit of shore diving (Bonaire) so carried it around on my back with an Al 80 attached and 8 lbs of lead hanging on the upper cam band....again, no issues.

If someone needs to modify it, at the most put a hole to attach a rubber-baby-buggy-bumper.
 
People seem to be concerned about the tank sitting too flat and bumping into their butts. This gives me a chuckle when I think of the alternative.

It depends a lot on body geometry. The old Voit packs' offset was even more exaggerated than the Freedom plate. The Voit pack fit me great, before I got old and my butt disappeared. :( For other readers, here is an image from the Voit catalog.

full.jpg
 
Ah.....you've discovered my secret for comfortable single tank backplate diving,
I got old and my butt disappeared.
 
It depends a lot on body geometry. The old Voit packs' offset was even more exaggerated than the Freedom plate. The Voit pack fit me great, before I got old and my butt disappeared. :( For other readers, here is an image from the Voit catalog.

?Believe it or not?
I actually replicated the sister plate to that one (Aqualung) for a friend by taking his old broken plastic one, glueing the pieces together with crazy glue and making a perfect mold from the original pack and making an identical plate out of fiberglass.

An original modern design based on one like that Snug Pack could be moulded out of fiberglass. It could also be upgraded with slots in the proper locations for modern wings. I’d have to start with a plug, then cast a mold, then hand layup the “part”.
Have to use high strength isophlalic or marine vinyl ester resin with C-cloth or carbon. Some clean up time and slot cutting. The typical fiberglass dust everywhere and the constant itching. The wife’s constant barrage of complaints about the smell, etc.
I might consider it for a plate for myself and a few local friends, but for production? Maybe not so much.

To try and form something like that out of a single flat piece of aluminum would be a lot of work. There would almost need to be opposing dies made (male/female) and the plate would have to be put into the “Slam-O-Matic”.
Way too much work for something that I was hoping to sell for around $100.
 
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FWIW I had a couple of "Snug Packs" one for singles, one for doubles. I prefer my Freedom Plate, thank you very much.
 
I actually replicated the sister plate to that one (Aqualung) for a friend by taking his old broken plastic one, glueing the pieces together with crazy glue and making a perfect mold from the original pack and making an identical plate out of fiberglass.

I totally believe it. I had one crack and put one layer of fiberglass over it front and back. More work than it was worth, except for then when I didn't have any money.

To try and form something like that out of a single flat piece of aluminum would be a lot of work.

I totally agree. I have an Aluminum plate with a similar design that was made by Waterlung. It is much thinner than the Freedom Plate but very strong because the tooling rolled all the outer edges a bit. The tooling cost for stainless would be even more insane.

Hang in there, the way 3D printing technology is progressing you will be able to send a computer file to a vendor soon that won't care how many curves, slots, and thickness changes are in your metal part. Actually you can now but the part cost is still too high for your purposes.
 
I prefer my Freedom Plate, thank you very much.

Me too. One thing that is really interesting is the stainless doubles band they used. A modern design would be much better than our bands now. They could very precisely control the center-center distance of cylinders making the need for adjustable width isolation manifolds unnecessary. In fact, that might be an interesting product for Eric. I still have one if he wants to see it. :poke: :D
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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