Halcyon's new cinch system

[TheDolphin]

Hi,

Recently the Cave Divers Association of Australia held their annual meeting and Casey McKinlay was invited to come to Oz. Thanks Casey for coming, and for Halcyon's donation of a 21Watt HID for the auction.

I had a chance to try on the new Infinity Cinch backplate system. This was on a table so I couldn’t help but check it out (after all I’d only heard rumours about it). I got a good impression and it looks like it’ll definitely fix the issue that I have when using my one harness system to fit better when switching between wetsuit and drysuit (with varying levels of undergarment thickness).

A couple of queries which I had afterward, and which other people might also be thinking:

1. To loosen the shoulder harness you pull the shoulder harness outwards (preferably downwards with your arms). When putting on the rig, does the tank weight cause the harness to loosen completely via the cinch?

2. Since I only tried on the backplate without tanks, I was wondering if the cinch system is hard to do up when the added weight of a twinset is on your back? I guess I might have to wiggle a bit to sort out the position of D-rings and sitting of the tanks on my back.

3. What size bolt does the bolt extender support? I have 5/16” (8mm) diameter 5" length bolts on my twinset.

For those of you wondering why I’m asking this. The cinch plate has ~1-2cm stubs near where the shoulder harness is fed through at the bottom of the backplate. When used with a twinset, the stub are designed to prevent the harness from being crushed and allowing the harness to move through the cinch. The added stub height may require slightly longer bolt(s) if you haven’t got much thread distance to attach to your backplate.

Obviously if the bolt extenders are designed for a 3/8” bolt (10mm), it won’t work with my current setup which uses 5/16” bolts (8mm). I called our local Australian Halcyon distributor and was told that upgrade kits may ship with custom lengthened tank bolts rather than bolt extenders.

I’m happy to clarify/explain things more if any of this doesn’t make sense, as it’s harder to visualise something that many people may not have seen before.

Thanks.

Joseph Tan

 

[HalcyonMFG]

Hello Joseph,
I will try to answer your questions.
1. To loosen the straps the weight of the cylinders must be off them. The straps are best pulled/pushed straight away from the body. Once the harness is adjusted the weight of the cylinders will not loosen the straps. You must adjust the harness with the weight of the tanks off of the straps. It is impossible(unless you are very strong) to pull the straps with weight on them. The weight of the cylinders lock the straps in place.
2 see above
3 The bolt extenders do come in 5/16"-18 imperial and 8mm metric threads. The distributor, as far as I know, is getting the 5/16 extenders. They do not come in 3/8" extenders.
I hope this helps.

Ken

 

[TheDolphin]

Thanks Ken.

It sounds like I would need to rest the gear on something or float it on water before tightening OR loosening the straps. I'm I on the right track?

 

[HalcyonMFG]

Yes you are correct. the weight of the tanks need to be off the straps.

 

[Fishpie]

Another Infinity question.

None of the pictures or videos I have seen spend any time on the quick adjust crotch strap.
How does it work (compared to the original tri-glide system).

 

[TheDolphin]

Hi Fishpie,

Yeah I when I had the crotch strap in my hand, I couldn't figure it out. I've attached a photo of it (it's not the best angle, sorry).

Casey did show me how to adjust it, but he did it so quick I still have a hard time figuring it out.

Cheers,
Joseph Tan

 

[Misa]

some pics with the cinch

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