Rebreather's

Just helped one of my friends unpack his new Prism rebreather.

He is a professional fish collector and intends to use it to get species from "down the wall" ( 300 ft plus ) - a pretty good reason for all the extra effort and cost involved.

It made wonder how many of the members are using / have used or intend to use one of these devices.

What brand rebreathers are more photographer or travel friendly ?

Are the results really worth the effort ?

As for me - I currently use my old Drager as a foot rest under my desk which I personally think is it's best purpose.

Peter

Used a Gates about a decade ago.

The mindset I was taught: to assume the box is trying to kill you all the time, so watch it like a hawk. Chatting with friends that are current YBOD and Meg pilots, they say it's still the same.

Since I find that running stages, deco gas, cut tables and having brain cells left over for creative image-making pretty much maxes my pea brain out, I will stick with OC for a while.

I can see advantages to a RB - quiet, no inspiration/exhalation bouyancy change, reduced obligation and way less money on helium. Just I'm not good enough.

"Man's gotta know his own limitations" - Harry Callahan

All the best, James

I dove and taught semi-closed rebreathers for several years (Drager Dolphin and OMG Azimuth) before moving to a Sport Kiss about a year ago. Personally, I love CCR diving for the usual reasons -- quiet, no bubbles, no "cotton mouth", over four hours of dive time on a 14 cu ft oxygen cylinder, longer no-deco limits, etc. The lack of bubbles is somewhat helpful for getting close to some marine life, but that benefit is probably overstated other than scalloped hammerheads, etc.

The Sport Kiss will easily pack in a Storm Case with the total weight (with cylinders) of less than 50lbs so it's very easy to travel with. It's also very intuitive to put together, break down, and maintain.

Have rebreathers helped my underwater photography? Probably not. But they are a heck of a lot of fun to dive!!!

Doug

I'm to lazy to do all the pre/post dive stuff...most times I wake up go outside and go ....gee I forget to clean me dive gear again I still have a leaky inflator connector and a hole in my BCD...get some new gear one day.

But more important, I use my breathing to control my shots all the time, so a rebreather would be not good. Beisdes if I want to get close to a subject...I just stop breathing.... but don't you kids go doing that out there. ....I'm a professional

As far as I know all the top filmakers are using or begining to use them..

I was a bit apprehensive at first but a friend of mine is making one, so Ill probably try that out. Its all down to costs again..

I agree with wags on the breath holding/ hold still thing if done carefully...

I have a faithfull old Mares BCD and its been good to me over the last 9 years.

Dive safe

DeanB

Prism topaz.

Why a prism?

-Very good price for it at the time

-Quite 'manual' for an eCCR, analogue secondary means I can shut down the electronics if they run haywire and fly manually.

-Work of Breathing is second to none at depth.

Travel friendly?

Prism isn't bad i guess, it's 47 pounds full loaded, including tanks and sorb, so probably 30 without either. It depends on whether you can get tanks at the other end. Something like an Inspo Evolution would probably be a better option, a fair bit smaller if I remember correctly.

Does it make a difference?

It does to me. I did it primarily for cost reasons doing deep stuff. Big difference, especially her in Aust.

But otherwise, sure, you can hold your breath for a shot, but can you sit there without bubbles for the 2-5 minutes it takes that timid little fish to come back? Or for that crab to actually come out to figure out what you are? There's a big difference in behaviour with a lot of animals, and a breath hold isn't going to alter it. It's pretty amazing just sitting on the bottom for a couple of minutes and watching everything return to 'normal' like you're not there at all. Having a look at wideangle shots between me on the breather and a friend on OC and there's a big difference in the life around us. Plus i'd have to hold my breath too long when shooting upwards in good vis

Is it worth the effort? For me, yes, I couldn't do 80+ dives without it (or at least as often). For shallow stuff? Line ball i think, it IS a lot of effort to maintain safely, especially compared to just throwing on a single tank and falling in the water. It all seems worth it when I get in the water though.

Like Doug, I used and taught SCRs for several years. They're not as flexible as CCRs, but suited my type of diving at the time.

As far as getting closer to marine life is concerned, there is just no comparison with holding your breath (besides the fact that you won't get a headache after the dive). :glare:

I have photos of myself emerging from a totally passive school of fish while diving a Dolphin, while the same school wouldn't even let me get close on OC.

Just ordered an Inspiration with the New Vision electronics package... I've always been a die-hard OC fan and loved to run the CCR guys down about their death-traps, until I decided to do a course and get informed. What an amazing machine!

Almost unlimited gas supply

Better mix at all depths, so less deco obligation

No bubbles, better interactions

Warm & moist gas so no dry mouth

Better offgassing curves, less chance of ICD hits

It does however require better buoyancy skills (something a lot of photogs could do with) and contant PPo2 monitoring. For the deeper photogs you have that much more time to get your shot...

Jean.

I have an Inspiration on order that should be here anyday. Also to get species "down the wall" but for scientific purposes. Why Inspiration? It is the only one authorized by the University of Hawaii for scientific diving (don't ask me why!).

I am very excited about it and will post more on the subject when I actually start diving with it.

Luiz

I have used CCRs extensively but remember you are still a big animal. It does not give you Harry Potter's Cloak of Invisibility. That said, I lay in a cleaning station at Cocos and, provided I kept completely still, I could photograph the hammerheads that bounced off my dome port. The CCR gives you time - that is its most important aspect for phootography.

The "advantages" of closed circuit rebreathers are largely exaggerated by the rebreather crowd.

Some of my favorite whoppers are you can get right up on marine life.....Last time I checked, big stuff underwater doesn't get big by letting things even bigger swim right up to it. Listening to rebreather divers, you'd think all fish are blind. Schooling fish, probably, as bubbles are used to corall them.

Ah, the warm moist gas whopper.....

True, the gas is 102 degrees and warm and moist, "eliminating dry mouth", but.....I dove for 20 years with an Oceanic Omega that STILL works just as good as the day I bought it....never had a minute of dry mouth. As far as the gas being warm, well, if I am diving in Southern Calif, I am diving with a drysuit anyway, so who cares!?

You need to spend 30 minutes to an hour of prep between dives.....

Oh brother, these are gear heads who want to make their rig sound overly complex so women will want to have sex with them.

After turning off my unit after a dive, to get ready for the next dive, I turn it back on, don't calibrate it, check my gas supply and eyeball my battery life, press all my various inflator buttons, and 3 minutes later I am good to go..if my unit has been sitting for a couple of hours, I will prebreath the scrubber 5 mins to reheat it.

"Bouyancy is easier with a rebreather"

That is the biggest whopper of them all. Bouyancy is more demanding on a closed circuit rebreather. It requries you have greater skills, as you've completely lost your mini-hands free BC-your lungs.

Most people try to sell the units they trained on as the best....I looked at different manufacturers...I was set on a Cis-Lunar MkVP till they went belly up. FYI, Cis is back in biz and will be coming out with a CCR made in Sweden under Bill Stone's watch with consults by Bishop.

AP seemed to have a production unit affordably priced with a company with comparatively substantial assests compared to others. Now that I have an Inspo, I upgraded to Vision electronics for the added safety factors via additional monitoring and the HUD it has.

As far as travel, you can run a DT box so you can use cylinders of any size, or get an Evolution.

But the biggest advantage is better no deco limits, longer profiles if needed that are safer and reduced possibility of DCS when using recreation profiles. Even greater financial advantages are seen if doing trimix. CCR's are essentially real time nitrox mixers always giving you the highest 02 does that is safe for any particular depth.

By the way, with my scrubber monitor, I can get 6-9 hours of scrubber time in tropical temps, making it about $2 a dive hour of sofnolime costs. With the heads up display showing I am within p02 setpoint, I look at my wrist controller maybe every 3-5 minutes.

Traveling with a CCR is a pain in the rear when you can just take your BC, reg, wetsuit and stuff which weighs sooo much less and just use the resorts tanks.

Oh brother, these are gear heads who want to make their rig sound overly complex so women will want to have sex with them.

LOL! Rebreathers and my Subal housing, a perfect chick magnet!

I also heard from friends at the Museum that Cis is coming back, and I wanted one, but UH will only authorize the Inspiration or Evolution...

ou need to spend 30 minutes to an hour of prep between dives.....

 

Oh brother, these are gear heads who want to make their rig sound overly complex so women will want to have sex with them.

 

After turning off my unit after a dive, to get ready for the next dive, I turn it back on, don't calibrate it, check my gas supply and eyeball my battery life, press all my various inflator buttons, and 3 minutes later I am good to go..if my unit has been sitting for a couple of hours, I will prebreather the scrubber 5 mins to reheat it.

I'm happy to jump into the water without prepping for a no-deco bimble, but it does take about an hour of prep to repack scrubber, analyse gas, tear down and rebuild the unit for a big dive. Even for the bimble you have to do all this at some point. Doing a 4 hour dive on an unanalysed unit with old sorb is not the wisest move imho. Doing the same dive on OC there is about half the prep time, if not less.

Oh, and if you can find a woman who finds me more attractive because I'm outside playing with gear instead of inside drinking beer, send her my way

The "advantages" of closed circuit rebreathers are largely exaggerated by the rebreather crowd.

 

Some of my favorite whoppers are you can get right up on marine life.....Last time I checked, big stuff underwater doesn't get big by letting things even bigger swim right up to it. Listening to rebreather divers, you'd think all fish are blind. Schooling fish, probably, as bubbles are used to coral them.

 

Traveling with a CCR is a pain in the rear when you can just take your BC, reg, wetsuit and stuff which weighs sooo much less and just use the resorts tanks.

Well Dave I gotta disagree with you on that. Fish have a comfort zone otherwise they'd never live on a reef. With a rebreather, you get closer to that zone. I'm sure you've done the hammerhead dives in Galapagos or Cocos. Big stuff also don't like OC. Cetaceans don't either. Much closer encounters with marine life can be had with rebreathers, sometimes the only way.

Travel is a pain. Right now I'm limited to one airline who doesn't question my baggage weight but once I go local or another airline, it's wallet emptying.

Been diving the Inspiration Vision for about 18 months or so and I've got to say its absolutely the dogs bollocks, no more shots of fishes bums you have to physically push shoalfish out of the way to get that W/A wreck shot.

Bottom time seems endless. Gas lasts ages and ages.

But a word of advice to all who have recently got or are thinking of getting any CCR "No matter how many OC dives you've done, no matter how good you think you are, You're starting from scratch on these babies, don't try to sprint before you can crawl when you get your arse bitten on CCR it really really hurts".

Having said all that it really is a babe magnet.

Nige

See, us Americans are missing out on all the good British slang.....I didn't realize my rig was equivalent in value to canine testicals...lol

I remember watching a guy with a Steam Machines Prism. He said he spends about 6-8 hours each dive day completely tearing it all the way down and putting it all back together. That's nuts. I looked at his scrubber cannister, and I saw more silicone grease in the scrubber interior surface than I might use in equivalent Christo-lube in 10 years.

A pre-dive trip once over takes me 30 mins tops to repack the scrubber, check the cells via calibration, and to do a pos and negative pressure check once it is all set and standing by itself unattended. If it is just a scrubber changeout once the sorb is used up, that takes me about 12-15 minutes average.

I think the rebreather community gets a huge kick out of claiming that everything one knows about open circuit needs to be forgotten and training starts all over again. Reminds me of other dramatic agrandizements like "flying" the unit. My desktop computer is way more complicated, and yet I don't "fly" it, I use or operate it. Well, on second thought, one of my original computer did fly.....I plugged in a Mac, came to a fast realization the OS never hangs up, and I never reload software as it never gets corrupted, and I then threw my old PC running Windoze out the window and boy, did it "fly".

Just about everything that applies to open circuit applies to closed circuit as a base starting point, and then from their you add gas mixing/dosing physiology (nitrox) and unit specific operating info.

Having said all that it really is a babe magnet.

 

Nige

Well Nige,

Next time we share a room, I'll show you a real babe magnet!

...and don't start on about hoses!

(here's a photo I took of Nige on his way to work before he discovered his more masculine side)

[Edited by Moderator for inappropriate content.]

Are you Americans, what strange morailty you have! You don't worry about the women and children you kill with precision bombing but you faint at the sight of a woman's breast. Don't visit a European art gallery will you. It's full of porn!

I use an Inspiration and my wife will get her unit next week.

- No bubbles

- 3 hours bottom time

Hey JB

That shot was taken after our week in Taba.

How do I know?

My helmets never been redder!!!!

Hope the D200 stays dry

Nige

Cronix,

If you are getting the Insp with Vision electronics, you should be getting WAY more than 3 hours on your scrubber.

Like the rest of us I ran my scrubber at least 4 hours until I got the temp stick......now in tropical I get 6.5-9 hours when seeing how long I can go....6.5 was the shortest, 9 the longest. Don't try any of that without a temp stick, and of course, the lawyers will require I tell you to stick to the manufacturers ratings.....