Oral Inflation With an Integrated Power Inflator

[BobSaccamanno]

I am considering getting a Scubapro Air 2 and having been looking at some videos on YouTube. There are several videos that discuss the pros and cons of air integrated power inflators, but I haven’t seen any that demonstrate how to orally inflate a bcd with one. Is it possible to orally inflate your BCD with one of these? If so, how does it work? Is it difficult?

 

[Yawana-Dive]

The Air2 orally inflates just the same as a regular BCD inflator. Push the button and blow. I use one of these sometimes and it’s quite a nifty bit of gear but quite complicated internally and fiddle to service and tune. They also have a tendency to free flow at the most inconvenient time and need adjustments. The Air2 is a regulator and needs proper cleaning and drying.

 

[ibj40]

The Air2 orally inflates just the same as a regular BCD inflator. Push the button and blow. I use one of these sometimes and it’s quite a nifty bit of gear but quite complicated internally and fiddle to service and tune. They also have a tendency to free flow at the most inconvenient time and need adjustments. The Air2 is a regulator and needs proper cleaning and drying.

I'll respectfully disagree with a portion of your comment.

I use one of these all the time, and it is quite a nifty bit of gear. I have never had a problem getting it serviced by my LDS, and it has never free-flowed. Mine has no external adjustment ability either.

I have it regularly serviced with the rest of my rig.

 

[johndiver999]

You will/should practice orally inflating the BC EVERY DAY, when you are rinsing it out at the end of the day. I generally, blow it up orally, dump the sea water out, squirt some freshwater inside, blow it up (orally), swish it around and dump the water out. If you do that each use, it is pretty hard to forget how the orally inflation works.

You just press the deflate button and blow- exactly the same as any other standard BC inflator/

 

[jonhall]

Just wanted to agree with the others on the oral inflation. Pretty easy to do and I generally only do it when rinsing the BC out as @johndiver999 indicated.

Side note: I had a free flow, on the 7th of 10 dives I was doing on a trip. BC kept inflating and I had to dump air to stay down. On the surface interval, it hit me that I could control it with the cut off valve, so was able to do the last 3 dives without any problems. Once home, had it repaired by a LDS.

 

[Doctorfish]

I have used an Air2 for 15+years and like the fact that you cut down on hoses by one and streamline/simplify. It's easy to adjust the Air2 cracking pressure to cut down on free flow
On the negative side, short hose so if you ever need to buddy breathe, you need to put the Air2 in your own mouth and hand over the primary. Also, the reg, when de tuned to decrease free flow is a bit of a dog. Also, as pointed out, this is a reg so needs to be serviced.

All in, I like the Air2. Others will no doubt argue.

As per jonhall's comment re free flow, sounds like that was the power inflator and not the actual reg component.

 

[jonhall]

free flow, sounds like that was the power inflator and not the actual reg component.

Yes, thanks for the correction. I shouldn't have described the incident a free flow.

 

[Belzelbub]

I’ve never used an AIR 2, but have used other integrated inflators such as: Zeagle Octo Z, Zeagle Octo +, and Atomic SS1. The Octo Z and SS1 manually inflate in much the same way as a standard inflator. Depress the manual inflate/dump button and blow. My daughters both did their checkout dives with Octo Zs. My oldest daughter was certified shortly after her 10th birthday. She had a bit of an issue at first with the Octo Z. The button was tough for her to press enough to get air going into the BC instead of out the exhaust. The SS1 was easier for her to depress fully. Probably not an issue for most people. Her younger sister got certified when she was a bit older and had no issue with the Octo Z. I think it was just her tiny hands at that age.

The Octo + on the other hand was a different animal entirely. While most, if not all, of the integrated units today vent and manually inflate through the mouthpiece, the Octo + did not. Instead, there was a ~1” hole opposite the vent button. To manually inflate, you had to press the button and seal your lips around the slightly raised circumference and blow. The Octo + has been discontinued for many years, and I haven’t seen another that functioned like it, apart from the Apeks Octo Plus, but they were the same apart from the label.