admikar
Contributor
I fully expect pumps to help with WOB, AI predictions to help with maintaining pPO during ascent/descent.
Oh, and larger and larger controler screens.
Oh, and larger and larger controler screens.
Investment in R&D by rebreather manufacturers
- Thread starter Nico-ITA
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Brad_Horn
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Some of the most cost effective R&D still hits $ millions pretty quick, but enables significant evolution from minor things like enabling the lowest Work of Breathing and comes from actually conducting Test & Evaluation of the assumed basics:
Full FMECA at Deep Life Design Team: Design Submission for Open Revolution
And yes as disclosure we do sell or lease these test systems to the big industry players who actually do their own inhouse R&D...
Open Safety Equipment ----<
www.opensafetyglobal.com
You seem to produce a lot of paperwork but how come nobody buys one of your rebreathers? Are they available? Wasn't it your company that collected a bunch of money from people for a ccr that wasn't delivered? I don't know, I'm asking.
When a website is full 3d rendered pictures but virtually no actual pictures it makes it seem like a scam site.
happy-diver
Skindiver Just feelin it
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So I was going to leave my design ghetto as that was all I needed, working, reliable, 100m capability
but in order to sneak it onto commercial dive boats it had to look the part, it also had to be the part
Bought some bits, had some bits, had some bits made
but in order to sneak it onto commercial dive boats it had to look the part, it also had to be the part
Bought some bits, had some bits, had some bits made
happy-diver
Skindiver Just feelin it
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GF99/99
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Umm I dont know if these are really innovations. They are old technology and have been out for a while. Issue it do they really work... Lets see temp stick came out almost 20 years ago so why is no one else using them... SS cells well that it is a totally separate discussion and don't even get me started on Poseidon rebreathers (what a POS those are). My good friend and dive buddy was almost killed (she now has permanent cataract eye issues) by Poseidon SS sensors PM me for details. She has a good write up on the incident in the book "Close Calls"
Really the only actual innovations are companies coming out with more commercialized "specialized" units think sidewinders or all the chest mounted variants (DR, iQsub, Triton etc) or the sidemount variants (Liberty, SF2 etc.). And then you have others like XCCR, Divesoft doing things like redundant solenoids, He sensor, CO2 sensors, canister modularity, etc.
Spot on.
My personal opinion is actual innovations to keep on eye on would be more commercialized (and training to go with it) dual rebreather/BO rebreather applications, I know Divesoft is really pushing this. We are all looking to push the limits now. Everyone wants to do longer dives, push lines further, more bottom time at depth, etc. hence why many companies now offer larger radial scrubber options (and with DPV battery technology advancing so much) but the B/O logistics of some of these dives become crazy and having a redundant rebreather can potentially alleviate many of these issues. Personally I think this is where the innovation can be pushed. Having spent quite a few hours diving with a bail out rebreather configuration I can say that this really is something that I think will see more of in the future.
Yeah its nice to have some new fancy carbon fiber material that your rebreather is made out of, or the fact that is take standard 185650 batteries, or has a He sensor, or some little modular box to pull the sensors out of the head but I don't know if I would call those innovations. They are more just nice little upgrades to give the rebreather a selling point for the next season.
The other thing to keep and eye on (not so much a rebreather manufacturing thing but I think worth noting) that is innovative is Hydrogen based diving (yeah yeah I know this is old technology) but I'm talking from a viable regular everyday Joe in his garage user standpoint. I don't know if we will ever see it like this but... just saying I think this is an actual innovation. Look at what what the Wetmules are doing.
Brad_Horn
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R&D with actual T&E and certification requires the paperwork... There is no way to avoid it... DeepLife just opted to publish the background R&D done over the past 20+ years for the Open Safety units. There is a direct correlation with the amount of paperwork that can be published and the amount of actual formal R&D done.
The rebreather or UBA with the 'most' R&D done on it in terms of pure $ spend is the BioMarine Mk15/16 series. The Rubicon Repository used to publish all of this NEDU testing that was made public.
Yes Open Safety offered the Apoc Type IV CCR for US$995 and shipped all of these orders.
It offered, took deposits but has not yet shipped its recreational iCCR - an mCCR with auto-bailout BOV - that if the loop was unsafe to breath from either high/low PPO2 or high end-tidal CO2 would self trigger bailout. These deposits were either refunded in full where requested. Remainder of orders are still on the books and when shipped extant customers will end up paying less than 20% of the units value. Looooong process but unavoidable from a safety perspective. The decision certainly cost the company many $ million but we've also significantly improved the unit and not at the cost to the customer; of either needing to keep coming back and buying upgrades or ending up on the accident list as a statistic.
Where there has been a Functional Safety upgrade identified - which by itself takes a significant R&D spend - Open Safety have provided free of cost to the end-user.
3D renders are typically deliberate in the documentation. The originally published documents usually only had pictures and they don't display issue or improvements clearly. From an R&D perspective, the 3D lip seal that prevents the ALVBOV diaphragm imploding if you descend with the feed gas isolated is a case in point.
If you want pics of Open Safety units be they Commercial, Military or Recreational that have been shipped see Open Safety Equipment Ltd
GF99/99
Contributor
Some of the most cost effective R&D still hits $ millions pretty quick, but enables significant evolution from minor things like enabling the lowest Work of Breathing and comes from actually conducting Test & Evaluation of the assumed basics:
Full FMECA at Deep Life Design Team: Design Submission for Open Revolution
And yes as disclosure we do sell or lease these test systems to the big industry players who actually do their own inhouse R&D...
Open Safety Equipment ----<
Sorry not to sound rude but I am pretty sure the OP was more referring to rebreathers that just the normal average everyday Joe would be buying. Yeah im sure in the commercial/professional/military world lots of R&D and money is spent but that does not really translate well to the recreational weekend warrior. I'm sure you can brag about all the millions spent but that does not mean it will be an innovative unit for divers like us on this board.
I have spent alot of time on and around Drager BG 4 units (and have seen the six digit PO's go out for the annual support and parts for them) and im sure Drager has spent more money on R&D for rebreathers for military/professional use than probably all the "recreational" rebreather companies combined and yeah for what the units are being used for in the professional world they work but honestly I would never consider buying one. And I own 3 rebreather.
Knowing nothing about Open Safety Global and just the brief browsing on the web seems these are very much a commercial marketed unit. Yeah is great you have all this R&D and paperwork but that is just a selling point to huge companies with massive corporate safety departments that audit you befor buying products and also so the companies buying them are covered but SIL rated rebreathers, really?????? come on what has the world come to??? I cant even image the headaches and frustrations a regular recreational diver would have with this. This is just not practical for the average divers like us on this board.
Honestly things like that are actually the reverse of innovation for a single user diver. Yeah if your a giant oil & gas or mining mega company with several million dollar safety budget and can afford to have a $15,000 a month service contract with the vendor for 24/7 support and you have FS Engineers/technicians on standby for troubleshooting that's great. But that is just not practical for the average diver. Poseidon is a perfect example, and they look like walk in the park compared to Open Safety Global units.
I will take a tried true and proven simple JJ any day over a fancy experimental box with 82 different safety ratings that is just a ticking time bomb waiting to have some sort of fault or error that requires a PhD to troubleshoot.
Perfect example I am doing a 160m dive on my very simple JJ. Onboard gas is a 6/75 super deep BO is matched 6/75, deep BO a 12/60, intermediate BO 17/42, deep deco BO 50%, shallow BO 80%, and last stop O2.
Now how in the heck does your autobailout mode work if I have to bailout at 21m????
Does it even recognize that at 21m I would actually get an IBCD hit if I went to the 50%????
Not to mention do you have to keep plugging all your BO into the BOV and how does the unit know what gas is plugged in??
What if you purposely spike the O2 and don't want it to autobailout like at 6m with an O2 flush???
How does it work with team BO procedures???
Can you plug offboard gasses into the unit??
Can you fly the unit manually??
Can you do setpoint switch with the unit??
Can you do dil switches with the unit??
Can you service every part of the unit yourself??
Can you do software updates yourself??
What computers and decompression modeling does it use?? Can the user select the conservatism they want to dive at??
Is there depth and time limitations on the unit??
I am guessing with a FS unit there is no way it will allow any of these things but these are things that regular diver uses (well at least me) on every dive. Having completed about 4-5 different Exida or TUV Rheinland courses for work and spending time with SIL2 and SIL3 systems I can with 100% confidence say that this is not something for the regular average CCR diver and for sure not an innovation. This is just WAY overcomplicating things.
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