OP
I have both.
The New Dive Rite Optima CM - My 30 Hour Review
- Thread starter Superlyte27
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wstorms
Contributor
So if I understand it correctly, you use your bm setup for dil and bailout? If so, do you use a regular hog setup for your bm? Doubles, longhose, alternate? Is the alternate easily accessible or are the CL's up there? And if you do use a longhose, do you run it over the breather?
I think the idea of adding a breather to an existing (and easy to rent everywhere in the world) setup is brilliant, but as a rb noob, I wonder how it all would come together
I think the idea of adding a breather to an existing (and easy to rent everywhere in the world) setup is brilliant, but as a rb noob, I wonder how it all would come together
OP
So if I understand it correctly, you use your bm setup for dil and bailout? If so, do you use a regular hog setup for your bm? Doubles, longhose, alternate? Is the alternate easily accessible or are the CL's up there? And if you do use a longhose, do you run it over the breather?
I think the idea of adding a breather to an existing (and easy to rent everywhere in the world) setup is brilliant, but as a rb noob, I wonder how it all would come together
No
Putting a chest mount CCR onto a set of backmount doubles is not really done by anyone anywhere (i'm sure someone has tried it but as a regular "thing" no)So if I understand it correctly, you use your bm setup for dil and bailout? If so, do you use a regular hog setup for your bm? Doubles, longhose, alternate? Is the alternate easily accessible or are the CL's up there? And if you do use a longhose, do you run it over the breather?
I think the idea of adding a breather to an existing (and easy to rent everywhere in the world) setup is brilliant, but as a rb noob, I wonder how it all would come together
Sidemounting al80s of bailout (one or more) would be much more common on pretty much any CCR, whether chest mounted or backmounted
I can see the appeal for someone who is doing hypoxic dives on OC already and wants to go CCR to reduce gas costs. Using exactly your existing setup (twinset plus 3 deco gases) as bailout, so if you have to bail out then you are in known territory, vs suddenly needing to sidemount 4 bottles.
The other benefit is that if the CCR decides to futz out on the boat, with a little bit of pre planning you can still do the dive OC.
My whole reasoning for getting a CM or SM CCR is because I don't want anything on my back, but I can see a use case for BM doubles bailout on a dive that does not involve restrictions etc.
OP
No one would do this. That dive I posted earlier in the thread on the way to 500', I had side mounted two AL80's and butt mounted one AL40.
FYI, in well over 1000 hours on the Optima, I have never missed a single dive from a malfunction of the unit. It's the only rebreather I have that I can say that about.
Imagine a 4 hour dive in Open water at 100'. How little bailout do you actually need to bring? Not much at all.
OP
Caveeagle
Contributor
does that include o2 cells tripping out? (In date). I have far fewer hrs on my O2ptima, but have had two dives where either a bad cell, or bad connection caused one cell to flake out within the first 10m of the dive. Of course there are four cells, and I probably didn’t need to turn the dive, but in one case it was a training dive, and didn’t want my instructor to count it against me if I ignored the issue.
*I still believe the O2ptima to be a highly reliable eCCR, just a little surprised by a claim of 1000hrs with no failures.
I tend to be really conservative on my bailout, probably more so than necessary. On a 200' dive with 2x AL80 (one of 50 and one of bottom gas/dil (18/45 or similar)) I find I am limited to 40 min TTS on the CCR (which becomes 60min TTS on bailing out). If I had a 100min TTS I would want 4x bottles but again, thats me and MY settings, YMMV.
When it comes to CCR diving, I am very much in the Richard Pyle school of "when I had 50 hours I knew everything, when I had 200 hours I realised I knew nothing". I am not sure where the cutoff of actually knowing stuff comes back, because I am not there yet.
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