1 Counter lung vs 2?

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I am surprised that no one has make a fan assisted rebreather of some sort...

I did some work with a fan-assisted rebreather designs for bailout systems for sat divers. The engineering requirements were much deeper (500M/1,640'), on HeO2, and shorter duration than recreational rebreathers.

I wouldn't be surprised to see "blowers" as an option as battery technology improves but there is a downside besides weight, complexity, and cost — noise.
 
Oh I realize it makes it more complex...
And complexity is not always good.

You have any pictures or diagrams of what you used? Be interesting to see.
 
You have any pictures or diagrams of what you used?

All that is owned by the client. The NDA did not cover the overview of the work. The current state of the art for motors, batteries, sensors, and controllers makes it largely obsolete now anyway. You could easily adjust the WOB-assist for position given particular counterlung design.
 
Was it like a fan? Or was it pumping a counter lung?

Especially If it was SCR you could use the input gas to be the battery to drive the pump, don't have it totally figured out in my head, but similar to a booster,
 
Was it like a fan? Or was it pumping a counter lung?

A little German made muffin fan. Pumping a bellows or counterlung was more complex than it was worth.

The real question is how big a problem is WOB in recreational rebreathers? It's not like you are working hard in 200m+ while a client is paying $250/minute for you to be there. It is really easy to go down the WOB rabbit hole without making anyone's life better.
 
The real question is how big a problem is WOB in recreational rebreathers? It's not like you are working hard in 200m+ while a client is paying $250/minute for you to be there. It is really easy to go down the WOB rabbit hole without making anyone's life better.
WOB isn’t an issue for professionally engineered commercial, military or recreational rebreathers.


And with the right rebreather design there is actually very little WOB Delta between a commercial and recreational/military units nowadays. Which isn’t surprising to anyone, as the functional safety requirement requiring low WOB is the same across all markets.

The attached WOB graphic could do with an update as there are a few newer units like the Hollis Prism2 and Divesoft Liberty that are around the ~1.9J/L point on air at 40m at 75lpm with BMCL and BOV. So while their WOB could still be considerably better, primarily through use of a better performing BOV, it’s a considerable improvement on other older and typically poorly tested unit designs.
 

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WOB isn’t an issue for professionally engineered commercial, military or recreational rebreathers.


And with the right rebreather design there is actually very little WOB Delta between a commercial and recreational/military units nowadays. Which isn’t surprising to anyone, as the functional safety requirement requiring low WOB is the same across all markets.

The attached WOB graphic could do with an update as there are a few newer units like the Hollis Prism2 and Divesoft Liberty that are around the ~1.9J/L point on air at 40m at 75lpm with BMCL and BOV. So while their WOB could still be considerably better, primarily through use of a better performing BOV, it’s a considerable improvement on other older and typically poorly tested unit designs.

That looks like a 14 year old marketing gimmic for non existent rebreathers; take your spam to your own thread
 
I thought split counterlungs reduce the gas flow velocity through the scrubber and thus increase the dwell time of the gas in the scrubber bed in order to increase scrubber efficiency (avoid breakthrough/overbreathing at high breathing rates)? Particularly useful for radial scrubbers like in the Cis Lunar Mk5P and many modern CCRs with a short gas path through the scrubber...
 
I thought split counterlungs reduce the gas flow velocity through the scrubber...

There might be a small buffer action but the gas is not going to move unless there is a differential pressure, almost exclusively provided by breathing. That requires a fully-inflated exhalation bag. The velocity could be reduced a little with an elastic exhalation bag, but that would create a choppy WOB curve.

A properly sized electric blower between the scrubber and bags could even-out the flow and reduce the average velocity, but the problem is easier and more reliably resolved by scrubber design.
 
I thought split counterlungs reduce the gas flow velocity through the scrubber and thus increase the dwell time of the gas in the scrubber bed in order to increase scrubber efficiency (avoid breakthrough/overbreathing at high breathing rates)? Particularly useful for radial scrubbers like in the Cis Lunar Mk5P and many modern CCRs with a short gas path through the scrubber...
no effect on gas velocity. Think about it, your lungs are moving gas at some rate based on your inhale/exhale cycle so the velocity of the gas is determined by your lungs. What does happen is what I had mentioned above where in a split lung design ~1/2 of the gas goes through the scrubber on the exhale cycle *being pushed through* and the other half goes through on the inhale cycle *being pulled through*. This means the scrubber is being used for half as long, but twice as often. This doubles dwell time for the gas that is in the scrubber during the "pause" between inhale/exhale cycles if you ever actually take a pause in your breathing cycle. Now because most people inhale and exhale at different speeds, half of that lung volume will be going through the scrubber at a different rate than the other which COULD increase dwell time, but it depends on if your inhale cycle is faster or slower and where the single counterlung is in the loop *most single lung units are on the exhale side, but the Sidewinder is in the middle and is a weird one because of that*. So if you have a really fast inhale and a really slow exhale then the dual lungs would conceivably have more dwell time at least on the exhale cycle and you get whatever gas is "paused" inside the scrubber which on a radial with a massive reaction front probably helps a little bit, but we are definitely in splitting hairs territory. Dual lungs work on most units because it's convenient, don't discount a single lung scrubber JUST because it is a single lung and automatically assume all dual lungs are going to be more efficient.
Also get out of your head that breathing rates are going to have any realistic probability of hypercapnia, if you get hypercapnic on a modern rebreather and you didn't use the scrubber beyond its rated capacity and didn't screw up the packing then you overbreathed your body. These things are tested at breathing rates far higher than most humans can sustain without passing out.
Just for reference MOST humans breathe somewhere around 20 lpm/0.7cfm and these were all tested to 80 or ~2.8cfm. You can't sustain that breathing rate for any length of time without passing out.
Taken from this link A Comparison of CE Test Data for two Closed Circuit Rebreathers – Joseph's Diving Log

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https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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