It is a privilege getting advice from seasoned divers and I take that privilege very seriously. I do not want to come across as a student who does whatever he wants but I will tell you this: I can't just go out and start spending hundreds of dollars changing my setup and its not because I am pressed on cash but because I do not want to have 19,000 dollars worth of scuba gear in my house collecting dust.
You aren't the first novice diver to evolve into a less than optimal scuba configuration and certainly won't be the last. I made similar mistakes, when I was progressing through the 20-60 dive threshold. I added lots of extra gear to my set-up, lots of gadgets, lots of things on clips and lanyards - all of it, seemingly a necessity for my safety. I was wrong - and it nearly hurt me (see below).
I fully emphasize with your budget considerations. Several years ago I made the (crazy) decision to move to Asia and work as a professional scuba instructor - my income dwindled to a pitiful amount, and yet I still had to fund the purchase, maintenance and upgrade of both recreational and technical equipment. Through that experience, I learnt a lot about maximizing the efficiency, economy and functionality of the kit I selected.
Having a robust, effective and safe scuba configuration need not cost a fortune. Good initial selection is critical - and this where many inexperienced divers fall foul of scuba manufacturer marketing and a general compulsion to get more, more, more. It's hard to stomach the financial 'kick in the nuts' of realizing that you've fallen into that trap. I commiserate and, again, know what it feels like.
However, it's also ineffective to continue throwing good money after bad. All that kit you own has running costs - it needs maintenance, servicing and eventual replacement through wear-and-tear. The longer you hold onto it, the more the re-sale/second-hand value decreases. Decisive action at an early stage i
s financially prudent and will make a noticeable difference to the enjoyment of your diving.
What I did, when re-assessing my scuba configuration, was to make good use of the second-hand market. I sold on the stuff I didn't need/like... and replaced it with functional/efficient items also bought second-hand. You have a Spare Air... you don't need it. Sell it. Use that money to buy new hoses for your regs. That leaves you with some spare hoses (the old ones). Sell them. Use that money to convert your pony cylinder to DIN. You have a console on the Pony. Sell it. Use that money to buy a plain SPG. etc etc etc Ebay and Craigs List are your friends.
I should also point out that I am not in distress. I dove with this exact setup about err... 25 dives or so and... it has not impeded my swimming, filming, diving, hover abilities or otherwise. It is not the best but with tweaks (reason for my thread) I will make it work for me until I obtain better.
The main concerns that people have expressed about your configuration aren't primarily concerned with the swimming/filming/hovering abilities. They are concerned with a number of safety issues. Those safety issues are transparent until the occasion you find yourself impacted by them.
The issues specifically mentioned are; task-loading, entanglement and ease of operation. After (only) 25 dives, it's not surprising that you've not identified those hazardous factors yet - you won't until faced with an incident. What we (experienced divers) know is that
sooner or later, Murphy's Law will strike and you
will have to deal with an issue underwater. When you do, you will find your configuration to be an extreme liability.
As I mentioned earlier, at an early stage in my diving, I was
that 'Christmas tree diver'. I dove for several years like that, oblivious to the issues that my gear was causing for me. Where I found my gear clumsy, I put it down to inexperience. I felt 'better' as a diver because I had bunches of extra stuff...a drysuit, a pony cylinder, whistles, bells, hoses, gauges everywhere. "
hey look, I'm not a newbie any more!".
That continued until the day my regulator froze at 36m in the dark depths of an icy fresh-water lake. I was a Rescue Diver...with ~60 dives...I dealt with stress really well - a product of military officer training and operational experience...I considered myself a 'good' diver compared to my friends and peers.
Then I had a dramatic free-flow at depth, I had a less experienced buddy to watch out for, I had a tonne of kit and confusion to deal with. It was pitch black... so I had to hold a torch... there were bubbles everywhere... my buddy was wide-eyed and more panicked by the situation than me (maybe)... I had to grope around amongst various clips, lanyards and kit to find my LPI...my drysuit dump...my SPG.... everything took
so long to understand and achieve.
After a ludicrously long time spent doing particularly nothing effective to resolve the problem, I signaled an ascent.... breathing from the free-flow reg as I was taught. Doing so in cold water froze up my teeth, which added to my pain, panic and confusion. That problem ceased by ~40ft, because my main cylinder emptied. Then I had to access my pony. That was horrible... it took seemingly forever to locate it. Buoyancy was all over the place... it was still difficult to operate the LPI and drysuit valves with all the kit and hoses I was wrapped with. Too much buoyancy, ascending too fast. Dump from BCD and drysuit... Too little buoyancy...sinking back down. Have to orally inflate because my main cylinder was empty... no way to sort out my drysuit now... Over and over again...
I lost track of my buddy at some point in the ascent..and didn't have the surplus mental capacity to deal with that.. I was maxed out mentally and physically. I was on my pony, no back-gas, no buddy...lost track of time completely... scared because I didn't know how much gas I had remaining... I had tried and failed to locate the pony SPG.... too much to do...too much difficulty... too much confusion.
Discarded hoses and gauges were dangling everywhere. My big pistol-grip torch was floating buoyantly from the wrist lanyard...tangling in everything... my mask kept flooding...LPI and drysuit inflator not working...my computer still beeping frantically...no idea of my depth... no idea how much time had elapsed...no idea what air remained...
I got to the surface eventually - and I'm sure an observer would have seen that I was wide-eyed and hyper-ventilating at the time. My computer was beeping like crazy. I struggled to locate my LPI again and was kicking like mad whilst orally inflating my BCD. My buddy surfaced soon after... a big relief, I can tell you.. it was another big stress factor to have lost them. We began the long surface swim of several hundred meters back to the shore - I was exhausted, my kit was heavy and dragging in the water. My buddy was panicking more than me... I had to make contact and help them.
I began worrying about my computer... the beeping.... I began 'listening' to my body... wondering if I would get DCS. It was a truly horrible experience. We got to the shore and walked into the dive center office - they could tell we were agitated and scared. A hot coffee and time to relax. Then my buddy started scratching their wrist. It itched "inside". S$%t.... the O2 kit came out... and we spent the next 60 minutes sucking on the good stuff and worrying ourselves silly. Kit in the car...drive to the hospital. More O2 for my buddy... suspected DCS, but not requiring hyperbaric treatment..."oh good, no helicopter flight to London!". Went home...spent the night worrying, little sleep.. like a zombie at work the next day.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.... my kit was "all right" too... and I had the skills surely. I was proved very wrong... and there was a distinct element in luck that nobody got seriously hurt.
Luck, not judgement or skill.... and certainly not all the excess 'safety' kit I had.... was what got us out of the water without serious injury or worse.
Guess what.... most of that kit went under the stairs afterwards (no Ebay back then)... and stayed there in cobwebs. I started taking my configuration
seriously... from a safety perspective. That was my "wake up call"... and I didn't need a second one. Sadly, there was no Scubaboard back then either... so lessons had to be learned the hard way... by experience and involvement.
That story I share with you... because I recognize, from my own experience, the mindset and perspective you seem to be showing in this thread. Far from being critical, I do emphasize with you. That said, please heed the advice you're being given by people... it
is the right advice, but the value of that may not be apparent given your experience to date.
