A trim issue

[scubafool]

In the past, I have been really happy with my trim with either my AL80 or AL100. But when I added a canister light, my feet wanted to go south. Playing with a few things, such as getting rid of the weight belt entirely, moving the tank up as far as is practical, have helped, but I am still foot heavy.

I have thought about it a little, and have come up with a few ideas that I would like some input on.

I could put an H valve on my tanks, and use the regs that I use on my doubles. Between the added weight of the H valve and the added weight of the second first stage, this might be enough to correct the problem. Plus, since my double regs are DIN, and I would then have two of them, this would be a safer setup.

I could forget about the AL tanks, and get a short, fat steel tank (I was thinking a lp104, any other suggestions?). Such a tank should move my center of gravity up. This would cause me to be overweighted, but I could remedy that by using my AL plate that I use for my doubles instead of my stainless plate, removing ~5lbs of weight. An added benefit of this is that most of the extra weight that I would need to add if I were to do an ocean dive could be taken care of by switching back to my stainless plate.

Then again, I could combine the two, putting an H valve on a lp 104. This is what I am really leaning toward right now. This would give me the ability to carry significantly more gas, and give me more safety because of more redundancy. The only downside might be that I almost certainly would be overweighted.

What do you think? Do you have any other ideas?

 

[spectrum]

I know when I started diving I had heavy feet and the solution was not making my feet lighter but to make my chest heavier to leverage my body. I neded up mocing some weight from my belt to my trim pockets and voila! So I thnk you are thinking along the right lines.

Without changing much could you use a high mounded camband to lash a little weight from your belt to the top 1/2 of your cylinder? 3+3 made a big difference for me.

It's surprising what a change like a light can do to an other wise trimmed out diver. I got quite a surprise just using my PT Shockwave E-LED with 8 C cells.

Pete

 

[OneBrightGator]

Hmmm... how much weight (ditchable and nonditchable) are you using with both plates?

When I use AL singles I put some of my weight in trim pouches mounted on the top camband to balance myself out and it reduces my ditchable weight and weightbelt. That would be my recommendation. (My brother went cheaper and wraps an ankle weight around his valve)

H-valves are nice, no switching regs and such, but they aren't cheap, if you do go this way at least get the modular ones so you can double them up if you decide to and it makes them easier to sell.

An LP 104 is a nice tank and with a H-valve it could be your second (or Ginnie set ) set of cave tanks which is nice, but really a luxury.

 

[scubafool]

I WAS carrying 3lbs on a belt. I tried dropping that down to 1 lb, but had to hold that 1 lb over my head to actually trim out horizontal. My stainless plate and STA are ~ 6lbs negative. Last time out I left the weightbelt on shore and moved the tank ridiculously high. I was close, but still foot heavy. I only got down to 900 psi, so I can't be certain that I wasn't underweighted, but if I was, it wasn't by much.

The trim weight on the tank might work out, and could be done really cheap. This adds something to the overall picture that only solves one issue, while the H valve & bigger tank have a couple of other plusses.

 

[OneBrightGator]

True, true, but an H-valve is $100 bucks if your lucky and an LP104 is $250 min. (although Joel has some screaming deals on tanks, FYI) whereas trim weight pouches are about $10 a piece.

From the sounds of things you need to toss that SS plate for saltwater only and stick with the AL, throw 2lbs. in two pouches on either side and be done with it.