6 cu ft VS. 13 cu ft Drysuit Inflation Bottle

[Slamfire]

Now here's a related question...do you use your drysuit for buoyancy control or just enough air to keep the squeeze off?

In my case I can't categorically say it's entirely and exclusively one or the other. Keeping the squeeze off will definitely affect bouyancy. Other things are also considered, like the ease to maintain trim, insulation, manuevrability, flexibility. I guess the oversimplified answer from me would be to keep the squeeze off. But in reality, I use both the suit and the wing for bouyancy control in addition to use them to affect some of the factors I mention above.

 

[Slamfire]

Stroke alert

Is there anything else you're going to do about it?

 

[CaveMD]

Oh for crying out loud. This is tech diving. It costs a lot of money. If you don't have 80 bucks to buy a DIN valve then you need to seriously consider if this is an activity you should be involved with rather than nickel rocketing a bad solution to a money problem.

$80? You can buy them a hell of a lot cheaper than that. New ones can be had for half that, he is probably spending more on gas fills than it would cost him to buy a din valve for the cylinder

 

[Slamfire]

I have a blue steel manifold in one of my doubles set and I found that Pirahna sells blue steel modular valves with plugs for use in single tanks. I thought it'd be interesting to get one to try it out. I know properly maintained valves are not very prone to failure, but I thought it'd be neat to have an extra valve that you could plug into the manifold if you ever need to. Have any of you tried modular valves with plugs on single tanks?

 

[ucfdiver]

Now don't get discouraged. I will no longer be using my leanest nitrox mix for suit inflation. Even if I do use the 13 on the right tank, it's still some progress towards doing it right.

I don't see what the big deal about argon vs nitrox is. Scientifically you're dealing with marginal gain at best, real world testing shows even smaller gain.

Now here's a related question...do you use your drysuit for buoyancy control or just enough air to keep the squeeze off?

I use mine for buoyancy during deco (to stay warm), suit squeeze during the dive.

I have a blue steel manifold in one of my doubles set and I found that Pirahna sells blue steel modular valves with plugs for use in single tanks. I thought it'd be interesting to get one to try it out. I know properly maintained valves are not very prone to failure, but I thought it'd be neat to have an extra valve that you could plug into the manifold if you ever need to. Have any of you tried modular valves with plugs on single tanks?

Yup, one of my stage bottles is a modular valve, and both of my LP85 singles are. I wouldn't use one as an argon valve just due to weight.

 

[Slamfire]

I don't see what the big deal about argon vs nitrox is. Scientifically you're dealing with marginal gain at best, real world testing shows even smaller gain.

Well, another advantage of argon is that you do not have to O2 clean your drysuit for use with nitrox and if you have it O2 cleaned already you don't have to worry about contaminating it with methane emanations.

Spoiler

For readers who do not know better, this is an attempt at humor. There is no such thing as O2 cleaning your drysuit. For James: I meant the comment more equipment wise and not gas choice wise (argon vs nitrox). I bet when you inflate your suit with nitrox you're not commiting the strokery of getting it directly from a slinged stage/deco bottle

Yup, one of my stage bottles is a modular valve, and both of my LP85 singles are. I wouldn't use one as an argon valve just due to weight.

I could easily swap it for the valve on an Al40.

 

[Captain12Pk]

Edited for content.