al 80 and dry suits

[arcticat99]

i been doing a lot of reading and most people are using steel tanks with dry suits for the reason of carrying less weight ,my question ?is there a lot of people that dive aluminium with drysuits .cant seem to find any good used steel tanks here and they are almost double in price of aluminum ones

 

[SecT]

Here in sweden i've only seen al 80 as stage. Most here also use drysuit. in cold water with drysuit and thick undergarnment need about 8 kilo lead with and 10 litre steel. So with al 80 more lead so not practical. Here the prics is similar between alu and steel though, not big difference.

 

[northernone]

Fellow Canadian here. Yes al80s are common in dry suits. Easy to find, cheap to buy. No one I know actually likes them compared to steel but cost and availability make them common. You might find a steel 72 on kijiji occasionally as 'vintage collectable' and those can be nice little tanks.

Regards,
Cameron

 

[Crazy_Canuck]

another canuck. yes al80's sidemount in drysuit only because they are cheaper to buy and once you get set up for them if you need a rental then no problem with weights, yes a little more to carry overall but I am a big guy trilam suit 2 al80's and I need 22lbs to make it work.

 

[Marie13]

I use an AL80 with my drysuit.

 

[KevinNM]

Yeah, I run a halcyon V weight bag full of lead shot.

 

[207diver]

I dive al80's in a drysuit. Mostly because of cost but I don't seem to have any issues except for the extra weight required. Definitely not ideal but very doable.

 

[rhwestfall]

Im not Canadian, but if I look south I see Canada....

Dry suit diver here in the Great Lakes. I hate carrying lead on my waist. With that, I just say no to aluminum tanks. I even loathe them as singles when I'm diving wet.... I do have a set of dbl AL80's I use for summer "techreational" in a wet suit.

 

[AlexL]

wife and i just moved up to double HP-100s (uh... 12L x 240bar?), and they are pretty much on the money neutral at 500psi/30bar on a steel plate paired with a drysuit, full set of undergarments, and no additional ballast weight. its quite nice, but that sticker shock is most definitely not!

before that, when diving dry local with a single AL80 and a steel plate, it was around 24~28lb of extra ballast. 8lbs on a cam band on the tank, and 16~20lb on the belt. as mentioned by others, not a fun situation, but doable if you need to get your dive on.

 

[Jean Francois Desfosses]

I used to dive with Al80's, but being an air hog, I got steel 130's. Lost some weight, got better, no longer an air hog, and I need no weight at all anymore!