certification for homebuilt rebreather

[Mr.X]

Yeah you would think that...but then your not taking into account that morons have power in this country.

I remember my dad having to go to court because a neighbor reported, the deck we built in our back yard, to the city....And we had to have it inspected, plans drawn up, and have multiple folks sign off on our weekend project...

And not sure about you but I get scared thinking about some of the people I have seen diving getting the idea to certify something they made to go diving..

I think the easiest solution is to use your own boat or only use people who are willing to let you do what you want (good luck with that)

While I don't much like legislation, or the tree-house analogy (with respect to life support equipment) , I do think the statement above speaks to how people decide what constitutes "safe". I think we have seen dorks of all size and shapes in every realm. That being the case, we do have to look out for one another as the potential for some knucklehead to hurt themselves & others in the process can be quite large. I have seen it time and time again.

I was loosely involved in a situation where an incompetent ex-RB turned turtle UW. He had been trained by an instructor who was less then genuine (and in my eyes incompetent) who also turned up dead. This was a case that seemed to scaffold incompetence - ending the circle with what could only be a final conclusion. Luckily, they did not hurt anyone else, but left loved ones and others to clean up.

If anything, I have found that true idiots will almost require 4- 8 X the effort, 4 - 8x times the expense and are never honest about their intent. These folks need someone to have a look at what they're doing.

X

 

[waterpirate]

here here, I second the motion to let darwin, not certfying agencies weed out the lime green fins. I have ccr lust, and when my 40 year old back won't lift my doubles anymore I hope to join you all.
Back on topic, what about homebuilt airplanes/experimental. If you build it, you fly it. Where I dive in the mid-atlantic ccr is comoing on strong and the charters I have been on with them, myself and the operators all feel that if you bring it, you dive it, you are responsible for yourself.
Eric

 

[Thalassamania]

When I first started diving rebreather I bought a used draeger dolphin got properly trained and enjoyed the semi quitet world of semi closed rebreather technology. It was not long before the limitations of the rebreather became apparent so I looked for ways to improve it. Fortunately a good friend of mine had just gone down the same path and was able to lead the way to a hybrid KISS/Dolphin marriage that made my Dolphin far more versatile. The problem was I now owned a rebreather that I was no longer qualified to dive. I was able to pass off my Draeger cert card to less rebreather savvy operators or others who knew me and were OK with what I was doing. I eventually sought out this same friend who was also a KISS rebreather instructor and did the training. Unfortunately I was still uncertified although properly trained to dive my unit with its modifications because no agency recognizes what is considered a homebuild.
Every rebreather starts out is someone's basement, garage, back room as a homebuild until the concept takes off and you sell a hundred of them and are able to convince a training agency to certify divers and instructors.
Since most units are based on similar principles this certification should be more generic. It is time that rebreather training become less specific and recognize the fact that a rebreather builder is probably more qualified to dive his unit than many trained off-the-shelf rebreather divers.
This unit specific attitude is akin to making an open circuit diver get a different c-card when they switch from apeks to scubapro regs. Is generic RB training is being rejected by agencies because they make less money off multiple certs? Is it the insurance companies who want a company with deep pockets to go after when a rebreather fails to support life.
I recently saw a guy on a forum trying to buy blank c-cards to address this problem. This just illustrates how desperate some people are to get certified on their home made rebreathers. I suggest anyone who can build one and dive it is probably qualified to hold a valid c-card.

As one who was involved back in days when all rebreathers came from the garage or the military, I'd say that anyone who builts a rebreather, survives testing it and has installed Photoshop on their comptuter should be certified to dive their homebuilt.