Broke even CCR vs OC fills costs!

[Superlyte27]

As you said, you need to remove all the fixed costs. Once done, you need to determine whether a few more minutes underwater are worth the substantial extra upfront cost of an RB, combined with the dangers relative to an OC rig. Please understand that I'm not someone who shuns risk in the face of reward. But you must recognize the additional risk associated with a RB over OC. There have been a few folks who have died on shallow dives using RBs, taking photos or whatever, with lots of time on their rigs, because something went wrong. OC doesn't suffer from the same types of risks.

Let me know how you cost that out.

Mike

Read above where multiple other risks are removed, simply by adding three manageable risks. Too much O2, too little O2 or too much co2. Oh, and it's more than "just a few minutes more bottom time"

 

[Pozz]

"You can't break even a ccr" is what I've been told by the rebreather salesman I've had a long, hard chat with....

Since the cost per minute is obviously favoring CC break even is possible, it's more of a matter of when that happens, as the initial investment is consistent (if you buy a new unit)
When I tried to run the same math I found that it would take me something like 9 years at 20 mix dives / year (which is sadly more that I realistically do) of course if you do more/deeper mix dives the timeframe shorten (as you can see from the SC row below, which assumes an initial expense of 5000EUR vs 10k EUR for CCR)

 

[lermontov]

Since the cost per minute is obviously favoring CC break even is possible, it's more of a matter of when that happens, as the initial investment is consistent (if you buy a new unit)
When I tried to run the same math I found that it would take me something like 9 years at 20 mix dives / year (which is sadly more that I realistically do) of course if you do more/deeper mix dives the timeframe shorten (as you can see from the SC row below, which assumes an initial expense of 5000EUR vs 10k EUR for CCR)

View attachment 428000

so to clarify your calcs are based on year one purchase ccr equipment ? what about purchase OC equipment, are training costs the same for both?
the argument/rationale is really aimed any purchasing additional scuba equipment i.e. ccr after you already got your OC gear and training. What would it be like if you subtracted the cost of OC gear against your ccr purchase

 

[abnfrog]

gotta say ive been diving rebreathers since 1997 (as a civilian ) and like to see the math too at 8 bucks a fill vs 5-8 k on a breather plus at least 1 k on training .......

 

[RainPilot]

I dont think a lot of people are getting twin 100's filled with 10/65 for 8 bucks a pop....

I've been looking at going full trimix this year. I worked on the equivalent of:

Tec 50 Trimix
5 post cert dives at this level.
tec 65 Trimix
5 post cert dives at this level
Full trimix course
5 dives at 80-100m to work up to a 120m dive on a u-boat we have here.

The gas bills for all of this come to more than the cost of a Poseidon 7 lightly used (4K USD) plus the consumables and gas for those dives. Training costs are the same on both sides OC vs CCR. Round here, the gas bill for a 100m dive is around 500 USD vs 15 USD of sorb and around 100USD for the dil and O2 fill. Also, our local tech operator supplies bailout and only charges for usage so i dont even have the expense of unused helium fills standing around

In my case, going CCR for tech immediately will have me break even by the time I've done Mod 3. At 400 USD a dive differential, 15 dives buys the unit and another 5 dives pays the training costs.

 

[Pozz]

so to clarify your calcs are based on year one purchase ccr equipment ? what about purchase OC equipment, are training costs the same for both?
the argument/rationale is really aimed any purchasing additional scuba equipment i.e. ccr after you already got your OC gear and training. What would it be like if you subtracted the cost of OC gear against your ccr purchase

Yes exactly, OC equipment was not included (as the spreadsheet was made for my case), CCR training costs were assumed inside the 10K initial CCR expense.
Counting OC gear would make the break-even time shorter, although the biggest impact would be buying a cheaper second hand unit, if you can get one+training for less than 5k you can recover the cost in 2 years

 

[lermontov]

I dont think a lot of people are getting twin 100's filled with 10/65 for 8 bucks a pop....

I've been looking at going full trimix this year. I worked on the equivalent of:

Tec 50 Trimix
5 post cert dives at this level.
tec 65 Trimix
5 post cert dives at this level
Full trimix course
5 dives at 80-100m to work up to a 120m dive on a u-boat we have here.

The gas bills for all of this come to more than the cost of a Poseidon 7 lightly used (4K USD) plus the consumables and gas for those dives. Training costs are the same on both sides OC vs CCR. Round here, the gas bill for a 100m dive is around 500 USD vs 15 USD of sorb and around 100USD for the dil and O2 fill. Also, our local tech operator supplies bailout and only charges for usage so i dont even have the expense of unused helium fills standing around

In my case, going CCR for tech immediately will have me break even by the time I've done Mod 3. At 400 USD a dive differential, 15 dives buys the unit and another 5 dives pays the training costs.

why do the tec 65 you can do the ER and then straight to ADV trimix

 

[Alastor]

May I add a different point of view ?
I was trying to do the same math with my instructor (OC) not longer than one month ago.
During the discussion I realized that the discriminant factor could be not economic, but more pratical: in CC you always breath the best mix at any depth.

 

[RainPilot]

why do the tec 65 you can do the ER and then straight to ADV trimix

Same reason I'm budgeting several work-up dives between courses. In my particular case, I would prefer to build up level by level. There is too big a gap between 50m with 30-40 min deco and 100m plus dives with several hours of deco for me to be comfortable jumping ahead.

To the original topic, if I did the bare minimum then sure, it would take a little longer to break even but the point stands that, where I live, it doesn't take a lot of trimix range dives to break even. I imagine helium is even more costly for Cameron.

 

[Pozz]

May I add a different point of view ?
I was trying to do the same math with my instructor (OC) not longer than one month ago.
During the discussion I realized that the discriminant factor could be not economic, but more pratical: in CC you always breath the best mix at any depth.

The pro's and con's of rebreathers are a whole another discussion but if we really want to go down that road, the real deciding factor for me was "do i need one?"