Revo vs JJ

[Heat Miser]

You do know a GUE style rb is a JJ? Besides that you need to pass Fundies and Tech 1 before you can even start CCR 1. If you're nog GUE trained and do not want to spend a significantly sum of money and time I would forget about GUE rb.

Yes I did know this .... I own a Santi drysuit and I'm not GUE trained .... is there some inter agency policeman going to arrest me?

 

[helodriver87]

Yeah, anyone can rig up a JJ DIR style. You do want to be careful about it though, since you're modifying it from stock. Several non GUE instructors use it that way though, so you should be able to get assistance.

 

[doctormike]

Another vote for training on a rental unit before buying one. All of the pros and cons we are discussing don't make much sense until you have CCR training. Yes, it's a bit more expensive, but I think worth it. I won't really comment on the decision, since I don't know much about rEvos (other than a try dive years ago), but I REALLY love my JJ.

 

[Sifossifoco]

+1 for training on a rental unit, even considering that the harness will probably not be adjusted perfectly for you. It is more expensive, and not just because of the rental costs. I got certified on a rental JJ first, and when I went to do the certification on a Poseidon I was told it wasn't possible to do a simple crossover, because I really only had the training hours on the JJ, so the second certification was full cost too. I loved the JJ, but I ended up buying the Poseidon for one main reason: the JJ distributor was really bad and not 'user friendly' at all.

 

[Tribal]

I did order the JJ last week. I hope I can start the training by the end of the year.

 

[lermontov]

the rEvo has a lower profile than the JJ - most of my dive buddies have JJ - its extremely satisfying when I can wriggle through a hole they cant

i dont like the way the head of the JJ gathers debris in the recess
I use a lot less sorb than they do
rEvo use more cells but im ok with extra safeguard
JJ seems pretty robust though

 

[doctormike]

i dont like the way the head of the JJ gathers debris in the recess

I never had that problem with my JJ, but I guess it depends on where you dive. There are a number of designs of DIY things out there to fix this issue, maybe @rsingler or Pete Mesley could share them...

 

[broncobowsher]

I did order the JJ last week. I hope I can start the training by the end of the year.

You will enjoy it. You picked more of the minivan model instead of the hatchback model. But those minivans sure are useful a lot of the time. As I am a hatchback diver. Little smaller, little sportier, not as versatile. Still a good choice. We will make fun of it, you will make fun of us, we will all have fun in the water. That is what really matters.

 

[azstinger11]

I own my second rEvo now. Nothing wrong with the first one, other than it was a Mini and I found a good deal on a Micro. Smaller and lighter was worth the hassle to buy the new one, sell the old one, etc..

My Mini was built in 2009. My Micro was built in 2012. I had the Mini serviced a couple of months before I sold it. I got the Micro serviced before I ever dived it. Both were overdue. Both were serviced by Richard Morton, of Dive-Tronix. He is the US-based Shearwater service tech and he is also a rEvo factory-authorized service tech. Service on both my units was VERY inexpensive. And very quick. Both units turned around in less than a week from when he received them. I think the bill for the Mini service was about $500, and that included having him do some stuff that it technically did not have to have. The Micro service was more, but that was because I had some upgrades done.

I think that ability to get service done in the US, and the cost, used to be a strike against rEvo, but I don't think it is, anymore. (Richard, at Dive-Tronix, is just awesome) And it certainly should not be a factor for a Belgium-based owner.


I don't have any experience with any other units but rEvo (other than a try-dive on a Dive Rite O2ptima, which I did not like at all). But, there are a few things about the rEvo that I can say that I like about it:

- the dual scrubber design makes it EXTREMELY unlikely to ever have issues with channeling or CO2 bypass.

- the rMS system is great for allowing me to monitor my sorb and not waste it by dumping sorb that still has a lot of life left. rMS gets knocked for being unreliable - as in, system components breaking - not that it gives erroneous readings. But, from what I can tell, the rMS temp probes have been improved in their design over the years and the parts they've had for the last few years seem to be reliable. I don't think that criticism is necessarily valid anymore.

- it is very low profile

- I get good, flat trim without any weight on the unit. That was true with the Mini and a Don Six stand on it, and it is true with the Micro with a rEvo factory stand on it, as well. Also, I don't have to mount the cylinders way up high, to get good trim, like I see users of at least one other brand doing.

- the rEvo Micro, in particular, is very nice for travel. Compact and light, to fit in a checked bag that is under 50#(23kg).

- the CMF means that if my solenoid were to go out, it gives me much more time to notice my ppO2 dropping, versus a unit that is purely electronic. This actually happened to me 45 minutes into a dive on the Jodrey a bit over a week ago. I noticed when the ppO2 had dropped to about 1.15 (from a SP of 1.3), so I would have been fine even without the CMF, in that particular case. But, it is comforting to me to know that it does give me extra safety margin.

- I run 5 sensors. A buddy who used to dive a JJ and now dives an X used to tease me about having so many sensors. "Loads of people are doing very deep, technical wreck dives with only 3 sensors. You don't need more than 3. 5 is just silly." Then he took his X to Bikini and shortly after getting there, one of his sensor connectors crapped out (due to corrosion) and couldn't be fixed with the parts and tools on hand. He had to choose between diving with only 2 sensors or diving OC for the bulk of his time at Bikini. He has not teased me about 5 sensors since...

- I have a Nomad XT wing and a Hogarthian harness on mine. It is very clean and streamlined. When I dived the Jodrey, up in the Saint Lawrence, last week, the boat captain even commented (unsolicited) that my rig was the "cleanest" CCR rig he'd ever seen.

- the process for calibration is done with the unit in ready-to-dive condition. I like that. I only found recently that some other units have all this other stuff that you do to them, with adapter fittings or whatever, for when you calibrate the controller/monitor. It's just a gut feeling, but my gut tells me that putting it together like I'm going to dive it and doing the checks and calibration in that condition just seems better.

- the Mini has bigger counter lungs. Much larger than I needed. The Micro's are smaller. It turns out that they are just the right size for me. But, if it had turned out that the CLs in the Micro were too small for me, rEvo has a very inexpensive kit of spacers that you can install in the case (user-installable) that make the case a little thicker, allowing the CLs to expand more, resulting in the same CL volume as what the Mini has.


Anyway, the rEvo has things that people will legitimately knock. I'm not saying it is perfect or the best. But, those are the things that I particularly like about it. The only think I don't especially like about it is that I do wish there was a way to get water out of it during a dive. The design makes it less likely than most (I think) to get water in. But, if you do, then you're not getting it out again until you get out of the water.

Isn't the Nomad XT a sidemount wing? Just curious how you had that configured.

 

[rsingler]

i dont like the way the head of the JJ gathers debris in the recess

For $6 on Amazon for a yard of 1mm wetsuit neoprene and some velcro, I sewed up a cover that addresses my similar concerns.

Lots of floaty sand for my shore entries and exits here in NorCal. While it's not a safety issue, since there's a second wiper oring at the top of the head, it offends my sensibilities to scratch the inside of the can pulling the head out with sand down in the crack between it and the can. This inexpensive cap, since I wasn't about to pay 70Euro for Narked at 90's version, works fine.

Pete Mesley has a 3D printer version and has published the file. But I inquired about a one-off version from four 3D companies, and got quotes from $160-230. Nope!