Sidemount Gear Set Advice

[Arioc]

So had a bit of a diving accident and lost all my gear and its time to buy some new stuff. I've been looking around a lot of used regulators and this is what I've found so far (just to note that I dont live in the US so its a little bit more difficult finding some used gear).

Apeks ds4 + xtx50, think I can easily get a hold of these. Most people seem to use them for stage tanks, wondering if anyone knows how they perform as sidemount regs?

Apeks dst + xtx50, Only managed to find one of these so far, I guess I could pair it with a ds4 but seems a little odd to use different first stages.

Poseidon 3960 + Jetstream, Seems like a solid reg choice for me, easy to service since I live in Sweden. Might be a little bit difficult to find a second set though.

Personally it doesnt feel worth it for me to buy new regs since most of the hold up quite well, I'll take them for a service and will most likely need new hoses with different lengths anyway.

For the BCD I've been thinking of either getting the Sms 100 or just buying a Diverite Transpac XT harness with Nomad buttplate and slap a wing on it. Its important that I can still dive singles since I work in diving. Gear also needs to be easy to travel with.

If anyone has any advice or experience with some of the equipment please let me know your thoughts, always so hard to choose.

 

[guruboy]

Having a swivel is nice.

 

[RainPilot]

Are you diving wet or dry, steel or aluminium tanks?

Check this for a European alternative to Hollis and DR:
Sopras Sub Sidemount Systems | New Release for DEMA 2015

There are some eBay deals at the moment for Poseidon regs worth having a look at, as well as Sopras Sub, might be worth contacting them and seeing what you can get.

What is your toal budget for harness and 2 x regs? That might help narrow things down a bit.

 

[Arioc]

Are you diving wet or dry, steel or aluminium tanks?

Check this for a European alternative to Hollis and DR:
Sopras Sub Sidemount Systems | New Release for DEMA 2015

There are some eBay deals at the moment for Poseidon regs worth having a look at, as well as Sopras Sub, might be worth contacting them and seeing what you can get.

What is your toal budget for harness and 2 x regs? That might help narrow things down a bit.

Wet and Aluminium.

For regs I figured I could get by spending around 550 Euro, thinking of a similar price for the Harness.

 

[RainPilot]

The Hollis and DR harnesses aren't great for aluminium tanks as they are really designed around steels, the rails are a pain to get the tanks trimmed.

Ok so you need 2 x FULL reg sets i.e. SPG, hoses etc, starting from scratch?

Go have a look at scubaeverything.com and download their price list. A sidemount harness like the DR around 330 USD new and regs really cheap. They are selling the IST line, Ive used some of their stuff before and was quite happy.

 

[Remy B.]

the APEKS DS4 works fine for my setup, but I have a custom made sidemount harness so they work fine for me, APEKS has as well TEK-3 1st stage regulators those are dedicated sidemount regulators, I will not change my sidemount system for anything that is in the market, so be very picky on what you will get, if you can test/rent them first much better, take a friend with you and have him take some pictures of you so you can see how it trims out, play with the tanks position and look at the pictures and make your own decision.

You are from Sweden I guess you dive a lot with steel tanks but don't limit your self with that setup, if you travel to tropical waters you will find only AL-80 Aluminium Tanks, so take 2 tanks of them as well when you will test/rent the sidemount system you are interested in.

You will find out that the position of the AL-80 is completely different and behavior as well than the steel tanks, but you can find a common point setup that will work for both Steel and AL tanks

Take some bungee cord with you and a AL40 and see how you can clip them on in off.

I have Tec D-ring ( if you can call them like that ) , so you can find them easier and they don't move away or around when you are trying to find them and clip the bottle on, my D-rings don't move, and are fixed up-right ( have not seen them in any sidemount they sell now in the market ), if you are from Sweden you dive with thick gloves, the Tec D-rings you will find a lot easier with thick gloves than those thin floppy D-ring that are in all what I have seen in the market so far.

If you are interested in a Custom made Sidemount system, I can send you pictures of what I have and if you like them I give you the contact person here in Nederland that makes them, ( I don't know if he have made a batch recently, but you can ask him )

 

[runsongas]

tek3 is for backmount. the apeks sm reg set is based off a pair of xtx50/dst.

Sidemount Regulator Kit

the xdeep classic, apeks wsx, and hollis katana are better at dealing with aluminum tanks. the sms75 is the more popular of the sms line because it has a good amount of lift for steel tanks without being overly large like the sms100.

if you are using al80s, you can just dive single tank sm.

 

[Arioc]

the APEKS DS4 works fine for my setup, but I have a custom made sidemount harness so they work fine for me, APEKS has as well TEK-3 1st stage regulators those are dedicated sidemount regulators, I will not change my sidemount system for anything that is in the market, so be very picky on what you will get, if you can test/rent them first much better, take a friend with you and have him take some pictures of you so you can see how it trims out, play with the tanks position and look at the pictures and make your own decision.

You are from Sweden I guess you dive a lot with steel tanks but don't limit your self with that setup, if you travel to tropical waters you will find only AL-80 Aluminium Tanks, so take 2 tanks of them as well when you will test/rent the sidemount system you are interested in.

You will find out that the position of the AL-80 is completely different and behavior as well than the steel tanks, but you can find a common point setup that will work for both Steel and AL tanks

Take some bungee cord with you and a AL40 and see how you can clip them on in off.

I have Tec D-ring ( if you can call them like that ) , so you can find them easier and they don't move away or around when you are trying to find them and clip the bottle on, my D-rings don't move, and are fixed up-right ( have not seen them in any sidemount they sell now in the market ), if you are from Sweden you dive with thick gloves, the Tec D-rings you will find a lot easier with thick gloves than those thin floppy D-ring that are in all what I have seen in the market so far.

If you are interested in a Custom made Sidemount system, I can send you pictures of what I have and if you like them I give you the contact person here in Nederland that makes them, ( I don't know if he have made a batch recently, but you can ask him )

I actually only have 1 dive in Sweden and dive almost exclusively in tropical countries. Its important for me to be able to switch between both Sidemount and a normal Single tank Setup. I will probably not dive with steel at all so as long as I can configure it for Alu tanks that will be fine.

 

[Arioc]

tek3 is for backmount. the apeks sm reg set is based off a pair of xtx50/dst.

Sidemount Regulator Kit

the xdeep classic, apeks wsx, and hollis katana are better at dealing with aluminum tanks. the sms75 is the more popular of the sms line because it has a good amount of lift for steel tanks without being overly large like the sms100.

if you are using al80s, you can just dive single tank sm.

Well I need a harness that I can configure to run singles back mounted. Hard to teach people how to dive with Sidemount.

 

[Arioc]

The Hollis and DR harnesses aren't great for aluminium tanks as they are really designed around steels, the rails are a pain to get the tanks trimmed.

Ok so you need 2 x FULL reg sets i.e. SPG, hoses etc, starting from scratch?

Go have a look at scubaeverything.com and download their price list. A sidemount harness like the DR around 330 USD new and regs really cheap. They are selling the IST line, Ive used some of their stuff before and was quite happy.

Even at Leisurepro you have the DR Harness for 280 so its not too bad. When it comes to a system that I can use for both Sidemount and Backmount I dont really seem to have many choices. Hardest thing is to choose the regulators. I'm leaning more towards the Poseidon than the Apeks but from what I've ready they are both great regulators.