Housing Lanyard

Has anyone got suggestions on how to attach a lanyard to a Subal ND2 housing? Interested to hear about things that have worked ... and what not to do too!

cheers

Lndr

Interesting question!

On a Subal D10 I run a length of line through the fabric grip fitted handle. This then loops back and I clip the line to itself with a caribiner. This seems to work and I figure the fabric - and Subal bolts - are sufficient to hold the weight of the system when submerged. The other end clips on to my BC.

On my housing there is a little metal eye on the right hand flash arm mounting shoe. That is a good place to attach your lanyard.

You can see it top left in this picture:

Alex

Rather than a lanyard, I'm a strong believer in big suicide clips - but only on camera housings!

Mine are lashed with 4 mm braidline to the strobe arms, one on each side, with a couple of inches of slack.

Pluses?

- The big suicide clips go quickly on to the chest d-rings on my harness after I hit the water or the camera is handed down to me. (The extra slack makes them easy to attach and remove.

- One clip is more than enough to hold the housing securely, but with both clips, the housing rides easily on my chest and stomach, and I can hold the housing (arms folded) in close to my body for up-current work. (In strong currents, if there is any danger of hitting or scraping anything, I flip the rig around so that the dome port faces my stomach.

- Using both clips also keeps the housing stable in one place if I need both hands, for example to send up an SMB (I don't have to worry about the line for the SMB getting fouled on the housing) or to assist anothe diver.

Frogfish

Hey Robert

I'm sure I should know this, but what's a suicide clip? Same as a Fastex? Or something else?

I use Fastex clips to do the same thing you do - two of them to clip my housing (via the ULCS arms) to my BC D-rings. It does indeed work well.

The quick answer:

http://www.gue.com/equipment/attachment6.html

in DIR terminology, all clips that will eat line are called suicide clips

Cerianthus has it right - the ones I use are identical to the one shown at the top of the illustration showing two clips on the GUE site he listed.

I tried using DIR-legit gate clips for this for awhile, but I kept having trouble clipping off or unclipping the housing to chest d-rings on the surface in waves or chop, esp. in cold water wearing gloves. Sometimes I'd have to redescend a few meters to still water in order to unclip, then re-ascend. Finally I gave up and switched to a couple of big suicide clips, which I've never had any trouble with at all. The suicide clip can be easily attached and detached each clip with one hand. If the clip somehow became fouled on a line (which seems unlikely), I would just cut the 4 mm line, or undo the knot (it's a non-jamming zeppelin bend, for that reason.)

I'm not a DIR diver, though my gear configuration is at least 90% DIR. I don't do wreck or cave penetrations - any overhead environments 0 either, but I'm enough of a believer that I still wouldn't put a suicide clip anywhere on my harness. But this seems an acceptable application to me.

Frogfish

On my housing there is a little metal eye on the right hand flash arm mounting shoe. That is a good place to attach your lanyard.

Alex - Dave (uwphototech) pointed this out. It just looked a little on the slight side for hanging my rig off while I'm entering / exiting the water. Am I just being paranoid??

Rather than a  lanyard, I'm a strong believer in big suicide clips - but only on camera housings!

 

Mine are lashed with 4 mm braidline to the strobe arms, one on each side, with a couple of inches of slack. 

Frgfish - I use these clips too. For my old housing I had a 10mm bungee lanyard which was an arm lengths long. I attached this to the "T" where my arms attached to the bottom of my Subal housing. When hanging the camera on the gear line (braided line, 900kg breaking strain) I would attach a clipto the lanyard AND also ULCS strobe arms.

was considering using my old metal handles on the ND2 and drilling some holes

I removed the metal eye from under the mounting shoe on the ND2 (and previous FS2) housings - it's shown in the photo at the top of the thread.

If you leave this on, it's impossible to mount a ULCS adaptor base plate in the right direction (for me) with the ball angled out.

I've been using a tray and handles with the FS2, but want to try using the Subal handles (again) and arms mounted on top with the ND2 housing. I'm hoping that the extended body of this housing and greater weight of the camera might change the axis of rotation and somehow make the wrist torque problem (when using big dome with a 50 mm extension ring) less of a problem than it was with the FS2.

Frogfish

- edit -

ooops wrong thread