Steel HP 23 vs Al 19 redundant air source

[KenGordon]

wish I hadn't found Scubaboard until after I completed my pool work for my recertification and gotten a few dives under my belt to continue my excitement and enthusiasm.

Don’t worry about SB people. They have their own special ecosystem which may or may not relate to the real world.

Ponies are a classic for long argumentative threads. This one has been quiet so far.

If you are restarting from scratch you will probably be best to get some diving in before making any big or expensive decisions about what to do next. Extra kit, like a pony, can be a distraction and reduce your enjoyment of whatever the actual reason for the dive is. The goes for cameras, wild regulator hose routings and so forth. Do some diving, try stuff out gradually, see what works for you in your circumstances.

 

[Lostdiver71]

A lot of my setup is unconventional, ignore the haters and just go diving! Whatever works for you is good for you!

 

[happy-diver]

a 3l steel Faber inverted with a 1.2m hose

you can overpump them unlike aluminium

and carry 50% for overextension and use it

also use the bottle in some deco planning

so maybe clip the reg somewhere like this

Free of closed minded fearmonger parrotting
from those may try and still won't have a clue

Stray out of the bird sanctuary and go diving!

 

[Cdncoldwater]

I don’t think this has been answered.

Many PSD divers that use tank mounted redundant air cylinders typically have a releasable mount. They have to be able to release it themselves and provide it to another PSD if necessary.

Some of the members of the Texas State Guard dive team which we have equipped are using AL30s mounted with the Trident aluminum pony bottle mount. With this system, you pull a pin and the AL30 is released.

That is similar or the same that I’ve seen used by the PSD folks I know and those that wise one as a pony for solo. I can’t say I’ve seen one without a release yet and I don’t think I’d use that type. Thanks for the information.

 

[halocline]

I wish I hadn't found Scubaboard until after I completed my pool work for my recertification and gotten a few dives under my belt to continue my excitement and enthusiasm...

...Finding myself becoming extremely defensive within a few replies of a post of what I thought was a legitimate and well thought out question regarding simple redundant air disturbs me.

I bet your reaction is more about the internet as a communication medium and less about how you feel about diving. These forums can be a great source of information, but it is very easy to take things that people write on them personally. It's definitely an imperfect way of communicating.

Your question was absolutely legitimate, despite the fact that several posters disagreed with your premise. In my reply, the thing I would want you to understand the most is that the issue of diving safely and extra gas is much more involved than simply 'carrying a bailout bottle makes you safer'. It does not. Dive safety is about diver behavior and judgement, and good training and habits. At your level of experience, that might mean (I don't know nearly enough about you to say definitively) simply avoiding any situation where you might reasonably need redundant gas. It's just something for you to think about. The fact that you are asking these questions means that you have a sincere interest in diving safely, and that's great.

 

[shoredivr]

a 3l steel Faber inverted with a 1.2m hose

View attachment 612967

you can overpump them unlike aluminium

View attachment 612968

and carry 50% for overextension and use it

View attachment 612969

also use the bottle in some deco planning

View attachment 612970

so maybe clip the reg somewhere like this

View attachment 612971

Free of closed minded fearmonger parrotting
from those may try and still won't have a clue

Stray out of the bird sanctuary and go diving!

Your experience of sample size n = 1 is somewhat limited. It’s in vogue right now in this world to say things like “closed minded fearmongering” but that doesn’t make the people who have died while wearing a backmounted pony magically go away.

 

[Marie13]

I don’t buy into the “if you want redundancy, you need doubles or sidemount.”

A lot of divers don’t want to deal with the expense or other hassles with diving doubles. Maybe they’ve got physical issues that make the extra weight a no-go. Maybe they just want the redundancy on deeper dives (so not all the time).

An AL40 fits this need pretty well. Works well for me for deeper single tank Great Lakes wreck diving. I’ve seen a lot of divers with this set up.

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

I bet your reaction is more about the internet as a communication medium and less about how you feel about diving. These forums can be a great source of information, but it is very easy to take things that people write on them personally. It's definitely an imperfect way of communicating.

Your question was absolutely legitimate, despite the fact that several posters disagreed with your premise. In my reply, the thing I would want you to understand the most is that the issue of diving safely and extra gas is much more involved than simply 'carrying a bailout bottle makes you safer'. It does not. Dive safety is about diver behavior and judgement, and good training and habits. At your level of experience, that might mean (I don't know nearly enough about you to say definitively) simply avoiding any situation where you might reasonably need redundant gas. It's just something for you to think about. The fact that you are asking these questions means that you have a sincere interest in diving safely, and that's great.

Agreed. Keep in mind that when people are disagreeing with you here...99.9% of the time...I really don’t think they mean anything personal by it.

The best thing about this place is that you have access to such a diverse group of people with different ways of looking at things. If you have an open mind about how you process their feedback, it gives you an opportunity to try out configurations or methods that you might not otherwise have been exposed to.

Prior to me purchasing an AL40...i asked a question here similar to the OP. I was leaning towards a much smaller bottle, because “you don’t know what you don’t know.”

Based on the feedback that I received, I elected to go with a larger bottle. It came in handy on a few occasions, for a number of reasons. Ex. My buddy dives side-mount and a rebreather. I routinely (preplanned) used the AL40 as a sort of poor mans side-mount to extend my shallow-ish quarry dives.

That also gave me an opportunity to practice swapping between bottles and get an idea of how long it would last at various depths.

 

[2airishuman]

I don’t by into the “if you want redundancy, you need doubles or sidemount.”

I don't think anyone said that in this thread.

What I wrote is that there are situations where doubles are sufficient to mitigate the risks inherent in the dive but a pony is not. I don't think this is controversial, is it? OC technical diving more or less presumes doubles.

 

[apenland01]

I bet your reaction is more about the internet as a communication medium and less about how you feel about diving. These forums can be a great source of information, but it is very easy to take things that people write on them personally. It's definitely an imperfect way of communicating.

Your question was absolutely legitimate, despite the fact that several posters disagreed with your premise. In my reply, the thing I would want you to understand the most is that the issue of diving safely and extra gas is much more involved than simply 'carrying a bailout bottle makes you safer'. It does not. Dive safety is about diver behavior and judgement, and good training and habits. At your level of experience, that might mean (I don't know nearly enough about you to say definitively) simply avoiding any situation where you might reasonably need redundant gas. It's just something for you to think about. The fact that you are asking these questions means that you have a sincere interest in diving safely, and that's great.

This is true. After some amazing fishing this weekend and talking with my son, I am going to get back into diving, especially since I have spent about $2,000 on gear to this point.

The other thing my son and I discussed is all the stuff that has happened in my life and that my happiness is most important and if I die doing something I love, so be it. He said he would burn my body and spread my ashes in the lake whether I died from cancer, car accident, boat accident or diving accident. I respect that. And I will live by that.

I want to do things in my life that allows me to do things until I die of natural causes, whatever that may be. In the future, I will glean all the information I can from Scubaboard regarding a question I have and simply apply it to my diving. If my question is completely unanswered in 20 years of Scubaboard, I will ask it. I suspect my posting of questions will decrease dramatically, but I will still participate in other interesting conversations.

I appreciate the responses in this thread.