Halcyon ACB weight system

[GreenDiverDown]

What size do you use?

 

[NineGill]

Stephen: Did you go back to a weight belt when you stopped using your ACB or did you end up with the weight somewhere else? Seems like the ACB would make for a simpler rig since you would have one less "thing" to lug around.

 

[Mo2vation]

What size do you use?

Was using the 20, when that was the smallest. I dive with a drysuit, a huge tank (e8-130) and a steel BP. I use 8 pounds of lead. I'll use 10 if I'm photographing.

---
Ken

 

[GreenDiverDown]

Stephen: Did you go back to a weight belt when you stopped using your ACB or did you end up with the weight somewhere else? Seems like the ACB would make for a simpler rig since you would have one less "thing" to lug around.

Ya, Dave...

I prefer a weight belt. When I'm in warm water I don't use anything. I use an aluminum BP, STA, and cannister light. If I don't plan on using the can light, I'll use a steel BP.

When I'm diving in Ken's backyard, I put on a drysuit and my weight requirements go up big time. Because of this, I'll switch to a heavy steel backplate and cam band trim weights or, for those dives where I use my twin Al 80s, a V-weight. In either case I add a weight belt with no more than 8 pounds...less if I'm using my cannister light.

The weight pockets are nice in that they are quick and easy to load and once they're set up the rig is pretty much ready to go. There's no looking around for your weight belt and having to put it on...or even better...there's no chance that you'll get rigged up and in the water and then realize that your weight belt is still on deck! Some folks like them because, in an emergency, they can ditch weight in small increments thereby lessening the chance of an uncontrolled ascent.

I still prefer not to use them...even though occasionally I'll put them on when friends want to use one of my rigs. Most of these guys are BC folk and they seem to like that familiar weight integration.

I find that my rig is much cleaner without the pockets. In my opinion they take up too much room on the harness. After all, one of the reasons that I switched to a BP/wing was for the slick, clean lines. I have no problem whatsoever with using a belt and it just seems to disappear as long as I keep it relatively light.

Another reason that I don't like to use the weight pockets has to do with the overall weight of the rig. By putting some of that weight on a separate belt the rig is lighter, easier to handle on deck (a huge advantage in my book) and easier to float on the surface with a small wing.

I like to use the smallest lift wing that I can get away with. For drysuit diving this means a 27 or 30 pound wing. My total weight requirement under these conditions comes very close to exceeding the lift of the wing. By splitting up the weight I'm able to keep my rig under that amount. Doing this insures that my rig won't sink should it be in the water for whatever reason, sans Stephen.

Also, I suspect that the pockets make using a cannister light difficult. I haven't actually tried this combination but it just doesn't appear that it would work very well...for me, that is. I know that guys like Ken have figured a way to do this but from the pics I've seen it looks like the cannister light would go on the inside of the waist belt...between the diver and the belt. That might be fine but I just don't think that I want to do it that way. Along those same lines... and again I have not tried this arrangement... it seems to me that they would be less than ideal to use when clipping off stages or deco bottles.

Lastly, I'm not a big believer in weight ditching so the ability to dump weights incrementally is not all that important to me and like many others around here, I put my weight belt under the crotch strap.