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Why not? Works perfectly and reg is far from the buoy.
There is a significant entanglement risk by doing this, isn't there? Already saw some people going up with reg attached to the buoy/line.
why would you exhale into the opening when you can blow into the inflation tube? A lot less efficient to try to blow into the bottom of the buoy because you will likely waste gas out the edges.
I wouldn't say the entanglement risk of inflating with the regulator is significant. There should never be anything that actually attaches the buoy to your body once it is inflated. If they went up with the buoy, they didn't make sure the buoy was clear before inflating it.
One extra step that I teach that helps prevents the elevator ride.
At 4:10 in the video, you can see Achim start to inflate the dsmb. Especially with large DSMB's, when in current, if there is a light or mirror on the dsmb, etc etc you put a small puff of gas into the dsmb. All this does is cause the top of the buoy to rise just enough to keep the buoy controlled instead of flapping in the proverbial wind. It won't cause anything to go uncontrolled to the surface as it only has just enough lift to keep itself vertical. At this point, you can ensure that the spool or reel is clear, check above you, then finish inflating the buoy. This can be done with any inflation method you choose. I teach our students to inflate orally, with a power inflator on the inflation nipple, and with a regulator, but they only do the regulator/inflator once and the rest of the practice is done orally. I don't like the power inflator because you usually need two hands to inflate them which means your spool/reel is either dangling or clipped off which is bad. I don't like the regulator because it's annoying and requires an open bottom DSMB and I don't like those. I have one, but I don't like them.
The bigger concern with people taking an elevator to the surface usually comes when they have a buoy that really is designed for surface use. These are usually the 2m+ in length and also usually have a big strap at the bottom of them which allows you to step on them to keep them vertical. Great for when you get to the surface and need someone to come find you, but really ungainly to shoot from depth. The big strap at the bottom allows a lot of potential for things to get grabbed because it's a loop, and it's compounded by the fact that you almost have to inflate these with a regulator or power inflator because of their volume. I say almost because if you're deep enough you don't have to, but who wants to shoot these things from 100+ft?
If I'm in OW, I have a 1m little buoy from @cool_hardware52 that I love because the DSS model is really tiny, still has solas tape on top, but can be fully inflated in less than one breath. Slick little buoy. Great for letting a boat know where you are for drift dives, send message up from deco, etc etc.
The big one I have is a 2ish meter behemoth that is the "oh sh!t I'm lost, come find me" buoy and that doesn't get deployed from depth. It is open bottom, has a big loop thing so you can step on it, etc. but it's not one that I plan to deploy from depth