broncobowsher
Contributor
OK, I'll play.
I picked a Revo. Not doing epic dives every time, actually diving it very much recreationally. I can dump one scrubber and start the next weekend with all fresh scrubber without actually throwing away a bunch of scrubber. I was close to getting a KISS, but thought the electronics would be good to have. Yes, I like the Revo in hybrid mode. I feel I chose correctly. I tried some over the shoulder counterlungs and did not like them. I am too much of a head turner and they felt very confining. So longer hoses and back mounted counterlungs. The backmounted counter lungs initially didn't feel as good, didn't take long and they are fine. Don't even notice now. I also like the Revo for the minimal number of connections/seals. It is easy to build up and tear down for clean up. (One of the small brands I watched the youtube video of the buildup, it was excessively intricate. Too many things have to be fitted just right and lots of room for errors). Another reason for the Revo is travel, but I can't say how that works yet. I do plan to travel with it, but actions have not matched plans yet. I do have a trip on the books for later summer for the U-352, I will finally start traveling with it. It is rather light, expect to be adding lead. I only have the steel tanks, not the lightweight travel ones. See how that goes.
I hear the Revo has poor flood recovery. If I flood it that bad, I would not be trusting the cells or the scrubber anymore anyway, bailing out. So I find that argument against the Revo a bit pointless.
As for the others, they just didn't fit my wants as well. SF2 was nice, but was a bit niche and didn't feel it had as much support. I liked the counterlung design, but not the placement.
Kiss was on the short list, but lacked the electronics that I felt was a good idea.
Hollis was going through ownership changes and as a business looked shakey.
On paper the Liberty looked great. Right up to the point I looked one over and realized it was WAY too complex. Too much redundancy, back up on the back up. Too much stuff that could go wrong. But I do have a Golem gopro case and am really thinking about one of there BOVs. But the rebreather was a wishlist of every feature you can pack on and almost every box possible was checked off.
There are others, I honestly don't remember what made me pass on them.
Another was searching for an instructor. This can be worse than picking the rebreather. There is a local shop that was wanting to sell me a machine, and the owner could start teaching as soon as they reached xx hours. The minimum requirements for an instructor, no I wanted someone who really knew there stuff, not someone who just finished there own checklist. Open water training has been around so long now that it isn't hard to make someone an instructor. But rebreathers are a lot different. While there are plenty of things common between all of them, they are also very much manufacturer and model specific. Finding an instructor that really knows what they need to teach you is going to be better than an instructor that is still learning themselves. I got lucky and found a very well respected instructor that was in driving distance.
Of course that is me, and you are you and not me. You may be more sensitive to WOB and not mind front or shoulder counterlungs. That right there will make the revo much lower on your list and take stuff I dismissed and make them look very good.
As for try dives, do them. You will not learn everything possible. Ask to be around during build up and tear down as well. I found that some will do that off to the side without people around. This will be part of owning a rebreather. You can see how easy or hard it is to take care of it on a day to day basis. Or you may see what a pain it is.
Does that help?
