Hollis Explorer Rebreather

[dreamdive]

The new Explorers are coming with a black cover. We could play star wars: Good Stormtrooper/Bad Stormtrooper.......

 

[glassbottom]

The new Explorers are coming with a black cover. We could play star wars: Good Stormtrooper/Bad Stormtrooper.......

Don't get me wrong, im not a huge star wars buff, but I thought the storm troopers were the faceless bad guys...

 

[REVAN]

I really hope that divers are not picking gear simply because it looks like a storm trooper pack. Personally, I don't care for the Explorer. I'm not a fan of the layout of the machine with canisters and cylinders orthogonal to the swimming direction. It seems there should be a better setup for a rebreather like this. I do like the fact that you don't have to deal with O2, only nitrox. If you can't use it at your travel destination, it's not very useful, and a lot of destinations don't have the infrastructure to support CCRs.

Where I dive in Mexico, even nitrox is scarce, but it is available for a price if you know where to go. In the end, something like an Explorer is not worth it to me (not at this point in time anyway). I'd rather find ways to get more out of OC, than take on the risk and cost of a rebreather. If I can get a little more for less complexity, why would I opt for getting a little more for a lot more complexity and risk?

I prefer to use OC and optimize my rig for hydrodynamics and use efficient diving fins to get more out of a tank of air. To me that makes more sense than adding the complexity of the Explorer to get a little more economy out of the gas and then booger up the hydrodynamics with a poor layout. I hope the engineers at Hollis will see the error in their ways and do something about this in their next generation of recreational rebreathers.

 

[muzikbiz22]

I really hope that divers are not picking gear simply because it looks like a storm trooper pack. Personally, I don't care for the Explorer. I'm not a fan of the layout of the machine with canisters and cylinders orthogonal to the swimming direction. It seems there should be a better setup for a rebreather like this. I do like the fact that you don't have to deal with O2, only nitrox. If you can't use it at your travel destination, it's not very useful, and a lot of destinations don't have the infrastructure to support CCRs.

Where I dive in Mexico, even nitrox is scarce, but it is available for a price if you know where to go. In the end, something like an Explorer is not worth it to me (not at this point in time anyway). I'd rather find ways to get more out of OC, than take on the risk and cost of a rebreather. If I can get a little more for less complexity, why would I opt for getting a little more for a lot more complexity and risk?

I prefer to use OC and optimize my rig for hydrodynamics and use efficient diving fins to get more out of a tank of air. To me that makes more sense than adding the complexity of the Explorer to get a little more economy out of the gas and then booger up the hydrodynamics with a poor layout. I hope the engineers at Hollis will see the error in their ways and do something about this in their next generation of recreational rebreathers.

The word "complexity" is used 3 times. The Explorer is NOT complex.

"Orthogonal mounting of tanks" - Non-Issue, not "an error" on the engineers part of Hollis, my opinion.

"a little more economy out of the gas" - I've gotten 3 hours of dives with a single 40cft of 40%EAN with the Explorer, DCP set to 10 to 15. (Higher mix, manual mode with low DCP setting gets you more gas economy, and even far less bubbles). That's basically $5 to 10 of nitrox, and $5 to 7 worth of scrubber. Compare that to 3 tanks/fills (AL80 or other) of Nitrox, not to mention if you dive doubles, then throw Helium (if applicable) in the mix, plus stage/bailouts. A serious dive can run you $200 of gas ? Yes, that's getting into more Tech, I know. Just sayin'.

"use efficient diving fins" - That won't get you warm, moist air, silence and closer/better interaction with life.

The Explorer has brought a ton of awareness & exposure to Recreational Rebreather Diving. I dive the unit all the time, and have never had issues with it. For an Underwater Photog that dives a lot and travels a lot, such as myself, it's very worth it.

I'm a fan of the Explorer for a couple of reasons;
1 - Simple gas, Nitrox. Don't have to worry about taking an O2 hit or running all over town trying to find O2.
2 - The CO2 monitor. Don't have to worry about "that" either.
3 - Assembles in 10 minutes, not complex.
4 - BOV
5 - You can "fly" in Auto or Manual.
6 - There's a great & growing community of Explorer divers worldwide, as well as "Explorer friendly resorts & dive ops".
7 - Aesthetics. It's clean looking and doesn't resemble a high school science project.
8 - Warm, moist air
9 - Moist, warm air
10 - Interaction with sea life, great for photography.

 

[kwinter]

The Hollis Explorer rebreather should be avoided at ALL COSTS.....it is trash....it gives you few if any REAL advantages of a rebreather yet it increases the risks you assume while diving.

I'm sorry to be so blunt and don't take it personally, I do know a little bit about rebreathers.

As your training allows I'd look at the "tried and true" rebreather list: REVO, Dive Rite Optima, JJ, Megaladon and Hammerhead.

As far as computers go there are just 3 computers to look at when it comes to tech diving:

1) Shearwater
2) Shearwater
3) Shearwater

Your Atomic is a good computer.....the shearwater is THE standard for tech diving with good reason.

If you PM me I'd be happy to discuss this with you, I'm not an instructor and I have no interest in the dive business so take that for what its worth.

Unbiased and tactful as always.

As Claudia and Tom pointed out, SCR is a viable alternative for certain types of diving. It is NOT a substitute for CCR when closed circuit is called for. I happen to agree that the Explorer is an expensive piece of junk. But as I have stated elsewhere, the GEM provides many of the benefits of rebreather diving at substantially lower cost and simplicity. Most notable, for travel to places where boosted oxygen is not available, but nitrox is. The Sidekick mentioned by Peter was developed from the GEM and was originally SCR. It did not work well as SCR in sidemount, so it was changed to CCR. It is impressive in that regard, but still much more costly and complex than the GEM.

You are correct that Shearwater is the standard bearer, at least for now.

 

[REVAN]

The word "complexity" is used 3 times. The Explorer is NOT complex....

Compared to OC the Explorer is quite a bit more complex, and that is what I was comparing it to when I used that terminology. Like I stated previously, the Explorer is a popular unit for underwater photography specifically due to the reduced bubbles. I'm not doing photography. I also don't need to have 2 or 3 hours of bottom time. Something like an Explorer doesn't make sense for me. I can do what I need to do either on OC scuba or freediving.

 

[tbone1004]

even compared to OC, the unit isn't that much more complex.... They put a bunch of electronics in there, but it's still just a sorb cartridge with a breathing loop. Not a lot to go wrong, they just put the electronics in there to idiot proof it

 

[Superlyte27]

Not sure if they fixed it, but even instructors were having issues with it flooding.

 

[muddiver]

It seems to me that the OP really has no clue as to the difference between an FO2 based open circuit dive computer and the PO2 closed circuit rebreather computer system. It's apples and coconuts. His old dive computer will spaz out and probably go into some sort of lock-out or "Your gonna die!" Mode if it's subjected to the dive profile of either an SCR or a CCR. I would caution the OP to do more research on what rebreather diving really is, research to difference between partial pressure gas theory is vs. fraction of gas theory dive physiology is before buying any type of rebreather.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[tbone1004]

wait what? If he's diving an SCR which is a fixed FO2 scenario, same as nitrox, why would the computer give a damn whether he is on OC or SCR?