BC Failure Mode

[aquaregia]

What's the point of the weight integrated BC? Does it make a big difference to trim? I find myself not able to keep my feet as high as I would like. If it's just comfort, I can't really be bothered. I'm wearing around 23lbs right now, but even 30lbs wasn't uncomfortable.

Although saving money is a large part of it, I do like to reduce waste and gain experience by repairing old stuff. People gave me a lot of heat when I redid my own brake lines, claiming that they were important to stop the car; however, I don't really think that brakes are the solution to most problems on the road. I'm primarily curious about failure modes because if a BC were to fail catastrophically when I'm midwater, I'd have a problem I'd need to solve quickly. If it just means that my buoyancy is crappy and I keep having to top it up, it doesn't seem as dangerous.

 

[moneysavr]

awap,
It really is funny how phrases like "go to your local LDS" and "all dive equipment is life support equipment" seem to turn up so often in the same post. I guess the "average ebay dive junk" is just the cherry on the top of this BS.

I have bought lots of dive gear on ebay including some unusable BCDs. But the unusable one were always advertised as such. I have never been surprised by a piece of crap from ebay.



Great job on your ebay skill's! REALLY!!!!!! No JOKE!
IMO=ebay has its place, some times a diamond in the rough can be found most often unless your timing and know how on what your looking bidding on,and repair skills to service said purchase are A#1 make it as safe as it was manufactured and NEW!!!
it can be no real big savings,based on whats your life worth Dude??????? and some times you pay more.IMO its the auction mentality, with winners and losers and some=most folks like to win!

In my post I am stating some fact's that as in a new diver purchasing online equipment ,some ones junk,un tested,are they taking it in for service or not??
Now read this link as the bodies of these two were recovered by a fellow SB and pal,
NOTICE EQUIPMENT FAILURE<<<<<<<<<
CDNN :: Equipment Malfunction, Diver Error to Blame for Scuba Diving Deaths

Using "SCUBA" Breathing copmpressed gas in a enviroment that can not sustain a human being, are you saying that dive euipment is not life support?:shocked2:
if so you will just be a statistic among the ebay diving deaths yearly,Lets see I have dove with personaly (2) seperate divers from SB's that are now in the big pond in the sky! Not refering to ebay purchased equipment but both were equipment / diver fatalities and both had more dives than you.
not to stir up a hornet nest I just think newer divers/any should be wear,take any,ALL purchases to a authorized dealer for a look over before even hitting any body of water with questionable equipment! and IMO lots of Ebay stuff is questionable!
This is just MY OPPINION! and last with out a LDS
you going to use your local gas staion to fill your tanks?
Dive safe,
Brad

 

[scubafanatic]

What's the point of the weight integrated BC? Does it make a big difference to trim? I find myself not able to keep my feet as high as I would like. If it's just comfort, I can't really be bothered. I'm wearing around 23lbs right now, but even 30lbs wasn't uncomfortable.

Although saving money is a large part of it, I do like to reduce waste and gain experience by repairing old stuff. People gave me a lot of heat when I redid my own brake lines, claiming that they were important to stop the car; however, I don't really think that brakes are the solution to most problems on the road. I'm primarily curious about failure modes because if a BC were to fail catastrophically when I'm midwater, I'd have a problem I'd need to solve quickly. If it just means that my buoyancy is crappy and I keep having to top it up, it doesn't seem as dangerous.

Saving $ = good (within reason!) , recycling/refurbishing = good (again within reason), however, in my book, a 30-something 'BC' so prehistoric it's got a CO2 cartridge is $ saving that's out of control! Honestly, scuba ain't the world's cheapest sport, so maybe it's time for a rethink? Most of the dive ops/boats I use wouldn't let you into the water with anything remotely like that, too dangerous/obsolete, and they wouldn't let you risk hurting yourself or messing up the trip for all the other divers if a trip got canned to whisk you back to hospital/morgue. Also, don't look to be included with the divers who go get to do the fun dives (deep/current/challenging) as your survival gear (which is what scuba gear really is) isn't up to remotely modern standards....that gear will label you hopeless/clueless newbie and you will sterotyped as non-serious/totally inexperienced. Also, if something happened to you, would you leave behind a widow/orphans that would be devastated ? Yeah, you could probably get away with sneaking it to a local lake/quarry and diving it, not out in the real world though.

 

[herman]

If that is the same accident I read about a while back, you need to read the actual report. Equipment failure was the initiating event but played a minor role in both deaths. Inexperience and poor training did the rest. The minor equipment failure- a torn BC, should have been nothing more than a PITA. The series of events that followed are what got them into trouble and all can be attributed to poor training and lack of experience.
BCs are not life support, they are a creature comfort device, nothing more. For many years in the early days of diving they did not exist and some of us to this day do not use them when they are not needed. Unless you are diving a lot of tech gear there is rarely a need for them if you are properly weighted...more training is needed by many divers in the art of proper weighting rather than teaching them to rely on equipment to cover for their poor training and skills. When you start depending on them as life support is when you get into trouble.

 

[scubafanatic]

If that is the same accident I read about a while back, you need to read the actual report. Equipment failure was the initiating event but played a minor role in both deaths. Inexperience and poor training did the rest. The minor equipment failure- a torn BC, should have been nothing more than a PITA. The series of events that followed are what got them into trouble and all can be attributed to poor training and lack of experience.
BCs are not life support, they are a creature comfort device, nothing more. For many years in the early days of diving they did not exist and some of us to this day do not use them when they are not needed. Unless you are diving a lot of tech gear there is rarely a need for them if you are properly weighted...more training is needed by many divers in the art of proper weighting rather than teaching them to rely on equipment to cover for their poor training and skills. When you start depending on them as life support is when you get into trouble.

Herman, I appreciate your position, but the reality is that the world (dive ops operating in the year 2010) really couldn't care less about what worked for Lloyd Bridges/Sea Hunt back in the day, so yeah, knock yourself out at the lake on your own where nobody will see/spot ya, no problem, but it's just not gonna fly out in the real world, where the dive boats/ops set the rules, not the divers.

 

[aquaregia]

For what it's worth, I would really only intend to be diving easy shore dives in 30' with this BC (Monterey Breakwater and Lover's Cove, likely). My buddy and I can borrow club BCs for dives we do with the club, but we'd like to be able to go out without the rest of the guys sometimes.

 

[redacted]

awap,
It really is funny how phrases like "go to your local LDS" and "all dive equipment is life support equipment" seem to turn up so often in the same post. I guess the "average ebay dive junk" is just the cherry on the top of this BS.

I have bought lots of dive gear on ebay including some unusable BCDs. But the unusable one were always advertised as such. I have never been surprised by a piece of crap from ebay.



Great job on your ebay skill's! REALLY!!!!!! No JOKE!
IMO=ebay has its place, some times a diamond in the rough can be found most often unless your timing and know how on what your looking bidding on,and repair skills to service said purchase are A#1 make it as safe as it was manufactured and NEW!!!
it can be no real big savings,based on whats your life worth Dude??????? and some times you pay more.IMO its the auction mentality, with winners and losers and some=most folks like to win!

In my post I am stating some fact's that as in a new diver purchasing online equipment ,some ones junk,un tested,are they taking it in for service or not??
Now read this link as the bodies of these two were recovered by a fellow SB and pal,
NOTICE EQUIPMENT FAILURE<<<<<<<<<
CDNN :: Equipment Malfunction, Diver Error to Blame for Scuba Diving Deaths

Using "SCUBA" Breathing copmpressed gas in a enviroment that can not sustain a human being, are you saying that dive euipment is not life support?:shocked2:
if so you will just be a statistic among the ebay diving deaths yearly,Lets see I have dove with personaly (2) seperate divers from SB's that are now in the big pond in the sky! Not refering to ebay purchased equipment but both were equipment / diver fatalities and both had more dives than you.
not to stir up a hornet nest I just think newer divers/any should be wear,take any,ALL purchases to a authorized dealer for a look over before even hitting any body of water with questionable equipment! and IMO lots of Ebay stuff is questionable!
This is just MY OPPINION! and last with out a LDS
you going to use your local gas staion to fill your tanks?
Dive safe,
Brad

You keep coming back to the scare tactics, "...whats your life worth Dude???????", as though spending more $$$ (in and LDS) somehow makes you safer. It does not. The accident you cite is interesting as it does appear to involve equipment failure but the article does go on to indicate, "They were either inexperienced or they were complacent."

Let's face it, while scuba gear may be very reliable, it includes some relatively inexpensive (pennies, not dollars) critical components that will occasionally and eventually fail. My life has never been dependent on one of those $0.02 critical o-rings because of training, procedures, and redundancies. Equipments failures never need to result in death for well trained and practiced recreational divers. We do agree on some points. I agree the new diver (actually, all divers) should conduct competent inspections (or have such inspections conducted) frequently on their scuba gear. I just don't necessarily have the faith in "authorized dealers" that you seem to have. I have seen too many half-assed jobs done by "authorized dealers" to put any special trust in that moniker.

 

[aquaregia]

Lets see I have dove with personaly (2) seperate divers from SB's that are now in the big pond in the sky! Not refering to ebay purchased equipment but both were equipment / diver fatalities and both had more dives than you.

It feels sort of rude to ask, but is there a thread or something I can read on those? I try to read as many incident threads as I can, hoping that I can learn something. If this is in incredibly poor taste I apologize in advance.

At this point, regarding BC failure, I am concerned about stuck inflators, but I am not concerned about a ruptured bladder on a dive where I'm along the bottom for the entire dive and I can do a gradual ascent rather than a midwater safety stop. If either of those incidents indicate that I should be otherwise concerned, that would be helpful to me.

And yeah, I know I'm a male in my twenties (actually, it's my 28th birthday today) with basically zero dives, and therefore in one of the higher risk groups. I'm actually finding it fairly informative to get both the "make it your fault" vs "don't let it be your fault" opinions here.

 

[Zung]

I wouldn't worry too much about equipment malfunction. Underwater, everything happens in slow motion: if for any unlikely reasons your inflator gets stuck open, you disconnect it; if your BC leaks, you'll be kicking a lot of sand; if your reg stops giving air, grab your buddy's octo, or go up. That's all there is.

Btw, I wouldn't call California beach diving "easy": I chickened out of Huntingdon beach in LA last summer when I saw that heavy surf pounding.

Happy birthday!

 

[herman]

Herman, I appreciate your position, but the reality is that the world (dive ops operating in the year 2010) really couldn't care less about what worked for Lloyd Bridges/Sea Hunt back in the day, so yeah, knock yourself out at the lake on your own where nobody will see/spot ya, no problem, but it's just not gonna fly out in the real world, where the dive boats/ops set the rules, not the divers.

We are not talking about rules or dive op procedures, we are talking about the BCs being "life support equipment" which they are not. My point is, while they are nice to have, they are not critical to the safety of the dive, as is well demonstrated by the many years in which they did not exist and if anything, they detract from proper training and weighting...which if that is the couple I am thinking about, are dead mainly because of poor training, not because of failure of "life support equipment". If anything, they are dead because they treated it as such.
I wear one when a dive op requires it but I almost never touch my inflator except to dump ALL of the air out at the beginning of the dive. I do not need it for buoyancy compensation (it is a buoyancy compensator after all)because my weighting is spot on and I rarely dive a lot of wetsuit so I have little changing buoyancy to compensate for. Because I am properly weighted I don't need it at the surface either and if things get bad I drop my weights- instant positive buoyancy that will not fail.