Question CCR for recreational depths

[OceanOpportunity]

Sorry, that number's way out. The website says $1850 for an OXYGEN rebreather.

No computers, HUD, solenoid, etc.

That's no comment on the RD1 concept which seems great. But the costs for a fully-functioning rebreather are a lot more than that price. A Shearwater Petrel costs almost that amount!


View attachment 780620

Dive-ready, at retail, the unit is less than $3k. From there you can add a monitor of choice, and an orifice, and be in a mCCR for less than $5k

 

[Angelo Farina]

There is nothing inherent about CCR that makes it significantly more expensive than OC.
....
This could be the case for all divers if CCR's were mass produced and their initial training was CCR.

In Italy a Cressi ARO unit was costly approximstely half of a compressed air scuba system of the time.
This was the main reason for which the ARO was the preferred scuba system here from 1948 up to 1968.
An ARO unit was cheaper to buy, but also cheaper to operate: it was designed for operating with medical soda lime manufactured by Carlo Erba, which you can buy at any pharmacy store for a small cost, and industrial-grade pure oxygen. Refilling a 1-liter tank by transfilling was often done for free or for one buck...
It was also lighter and compact, and heating the gas, so much confortable for female divers who did not like to use a diving suit.
Finally, rebreathers were employed in diving school as the main training apparatus until around 1980, when Padi arrived here, changing everything.
So all OW divers were trained with ARO rebreathers.
It was working well.
AROs went out of fashion when it was discovered that using them at depth greater than 6 meters is truly dangerous.
In 1975 max depth was 10m, so it says my first OW license.
However a few years before (until 1970) max depth was 18m with proper depth-dependent time limits, and the practice of starting with the loop full of air, instead of pure oxygen, was widespread, allowing to reach a depth of more than 20m.
Of course this caused a number of accidents in the sixties, which triggered the studies which caused the progressive reduction of max allowed ppO2.

 

[L13]

Sticking neck out here: CCR is 10x more expensive than open circuit.

Doesn't take much neck sticking to say CCR is 10x right now.

The question is it inherently that way, or just a result of maturity of the product and low volumes.

Take just one example: the Triton DSV is €300. There is nothing about it that makes it more than €20 if made in large volumes. Just the mushroom valves are €26.25 each, in high volume they would be less than €1.

All your other points are valid NOW. But they are not inherently true for the future. Rebreathers are evolving. They are become simpler and safer to dive with each generation. As they become more wide spread, the volumes are going up and the prices are going down.

 

[CT-Rich]

A bunch of great points about today. Things about the availability of Sorb aand O2 are all vailid. When did mixed gas diving, dive computers, BCDs with LP inflators show up on the market? How long did it take for them find their way to places like Honduras and the Philippines?

The addition of an SPG was considered an extravagant accessory back in the days of the J-valve. Drysuit diving has not always been as popular as it is today. Imagine telling a diver in 1970 that the most expensive pieces of kit will be a computer to replace his tables, a drysuit that will replace his wetsuit, a BCD that will replace proper weighting. Every one of those things add training and complexity to diving and more than double the cost of the thing they replace.

Think of the most expensive items of dive kit you own, when you started diving would you have ever realistically said you would spend that kind of money on a piece of gear that gives you X-benefit? $500 dollar to replace a $50 bottom timer and $50 depth gauge? or an extra to S400 too get rid of and SPG?

Someone mentioned you'll still be limited to an hour of bottom time. True. It used to be that you would be limited by what the paper tables said you could do a day. Computers blew that completely out of the water. You can safely dive five times a day. What will happen when dive operators offer you a four hour limit on diving and they charge triple the price and spend less on fuel? SCRs and CCRs will eventually take larger and larger shares of the dive market. Scuba didn't completely wipe out the snorkel tours, but few companies are making Snorkel tourism a core of their business.

 

[L13]

It is a multiple problem issuse why you don't see ccr's a lot in recreational diving.

The first thing are for sure the costs. Why spent that amount of money for the gear, but also per dive for just a recreational dive?

Marginal cost per dive is less on a CCR.

Then second, divecenters don't like it. You still can just dive max 45-60 minutes, you still have to follow a guide, you still get buddies up with an open circuit diver.
Thirds, divecenters don't have sorb or oxygen and bailout tanks.

Maybe not now, but it wouldn't be hard to stock sorb, many already have oxygen, and all of them have "bailout tanks."

We are talking "what could be", not "what is."

 

[Wibble]

A quick word about the size of the market...

Doesn't PADI do something like a million certs per year? Just say half of theirs are OW (and add in all other agencies) that would be 500k per annum. That's what we call a lot; a big market.

The best selling rebreather of all time, the AP Inspiration, which has sold orders of magnitude more rebreathers than most other manufacturers, probably more rebreathers than all other manufacturers put together. I "heard" that they'd sold something like 50,000 (***please correct me if this is wrong).

Anyway; if the total number of rebreathers ever made is probably around 100,000. A lot of those (most?) would have been scrapped.

Wonder how many rebreathers are made every year? Would be a safe bet to put it well under 10,000. Probably closer to 5,000 or even less worldwide across 30+ manufacturers, mostly very small companies.

That's a tiny market.



*** If anyone's got better numbers, please speak up!

 

[L13]

A quick word about the size of the market...

Doesn't PADI do something like a million certs per year? Just say half of theirs are OW (and add in all other agencies) that would be 500k per annum. That's what we call a lot; a big market.

Wonder how many rebreathers are made every year? Would be a safe bet to put it well under 10,000. Probably closer to 5,000 or even less worldwide across 30+ manufacturers, mostly very small companies.

That's a tiny market.

So, if volume went up from <5k to >500k, how much would price drop? Even with added features to make it more "recreational".

 

[Wibble]

Marginal cost per dive is less on a CCR.


Maybe not now, but it wouldn't be hard to stock sorb, many already have oxygen, and all of them have "bailout tanks."

We are talking "what could be", not "what is."

Sorry, have to disagree.

OC, specifically shallow OW OC, only needs a cylinder of air or maybe nitrox (normally using a membrane compressor) and a breathing regulator.

OC pre-dive check is literally checking the nitrox is appropriate for the depth; that there's sufficient gas for the dive and a couple of breaths from the two regs. (Am ignoring the wing, weights, etc. as this is common to both)

A CCR needs absorbent, high pressure oxygen (which is only available from oxygen manufacturers AND needs a booster) and consumables (cells -- whilst solid state cells exist, their not generally available). It needs a diluent. CCRs are far more complex than OC requiring two first stages, specialist loops, hoses and connectors, counterlungs... Then there's the standard BP + wing. You also need more cylinders (diluent, oxygen, bailout)

The pre-dive check on CCR takes a few minutes to ensure that all is well; both tanks on, ADV works, oxygen OK, solenoid, PPO2 correct, pre-breathe to check if "anything feels funny", etc. In other words a whole checklist of things.



Even a mass market SCR rebreather such as the Mares Horizon (one or two others are available) is still complex with Sorb, sensors, bailouts, etc. It is dumbed down with the computers doing more, but it's still one hell of a lot more work than OC's gas on, breathe backup, breathe primary, inflate BCD, check fins + mask + weights... Jump.

 

[berndo]

Marginal cost per dive is less on a CCR.

That's total balonie.

Maybe not now, but it wouldn't be hard to stock sorb, many already have oxygen, and all of them have "bailout tanks."

What do you think it costs to ship sorb and O2 storage tanks to dive destinations around the world?
The cost of sorb basically doubles just by shipping it from the UK to the US and shipping from Europe to the US is pretty cheap.

The addition of an SPG was considered an extravagant accessory back in the days of the J-valve. Drysuit diving has not always been as popular as it is today.

An SPG doesn't have to be build and broken down a cleaned after every dive day. It doesn't need cells that can fail, extra training and it doesn't get people killed.

We have have seen plenty cheaper 'rec' rebreathers. Atlantis, Dolphin, Ray, Voyager, Subatix, Explorer, cis-lunar, etc. and now that Mares/Revo unit that will also fail.
Even if they were cheaper, they're still not worth the hassle for rec dives. A Dolphin or Ray goes for well under a grand basically brand new online... and people still don't want them. It's not worth the effort on rec dives. There is nothing new here.

Screwing a reg onto a tank is easy, safe, relatively cheap and is all you need to look at fish while paddling aroud a reef in 60' of water. There is a reason you never see the poseidon or drager units in the wild.

 

[Wibble]

So, if volume went up from <5k to >500k, how much would price drop? Even with added features to make it more "recreational".

Of course the price would drop. In complete agreement there. The issue is that a rebreather is way more complex than a reg + BCD + tank therefore it can never be as cheap as a rebreather.