Dive Plans for the Summer

Evil Phil

Anybody got anything interesting planned?

Peace

Well I'm buying a rebreather (as soon as i stop hemoraging money in my new house), so I'm back to sensible depths for a while.

I might take the opportunity to take in a few sights I haven't seen before. Limerick/Sligo/Waterford. Hopefully boards people will put a few weekenders together, the one in Kerry was good fun, except for the weather and lack of diving... but the pub was good .

Nothing solid planned as of yet !

Evil Phil

Yeah we should try and get away, I'm obviously going to Cyprus and I might do my nitrox while I'm there. Didn't know you bought a house, I bought a flat last August.

Peace

Evil Phil wrote:

Yeah we should try and get away, I'm obviously going to Cyprus and I might do my nitrox while I'm there. Didn't know you bought a house, I bought a flat last August.

Ever see the movie Money Pitt with Tom Hanks?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091541/

I'm Tom Hanks. So can't say for certain when the rebreather will be bought.

Borzoi

Evil Phil wrote:

Anybody got anything interesting planned?

Changing jobs has fecked my holiday situation, so there'll be no dive holidays this year. On the plus side, the company car should make going down the West for weekends very attractive:)

daveg

No diving plans here either.

bigfeller

Peace wrote:

Well I'm buying a rebreather

B
a
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t
a
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d.

Which one are you thinking of getting? Had a look at the Evolution at LIDS - but must say if I won the Lotto I'd be eyeing up a 'boris.

Peace

bigfeller wrote:

B
a
s
t
a
r
d.

Which one are you thinking of getting? Had a look at the Evolution at LIDS - but must say if I won the Lotto I'd be eyeing up a 'boris.

Don't call me a bastard just yet! Its one thing planning to buy it and another handing over the eurons.

The evolutions scrubber limitations turn me off. 2 Hours isn't really long enough as some stuff I'd like to dive could give run times in about 3 hours. Even on CCR.

So now it boils down to Inspiration or Borris. I am very tempted to go for the Borris and just take a bank loan to cover it. Caution, meet wind. But reality soon takes over and the Inpiration is somewhat more afforable.

bigfeller

I thought the evolution scrubber life was 2.5 hours? I may be wrong. What I like about it is the size. Very easy to travel with and 2.5 hours (if that is right) would be enough for most dives. After that length my bladder would force me to come to the surface!

Think the Boris is about 3k more - but it's a damn sweet unit. There are second hand inspos floating (wakka-wakka!!) about for around the 3k mark at the moment - and can be upgraded with the vision electronics.

Peace

Yeah well scrubber life is not an exact science. It depends on depth, temperature, work rate and a couple of other factors such as moisture ingress to the lime.

[Don't do this at home kids]
I did the Inspiration Mod1 course over xmas - new year and while we were there i decide to see what a CO2 hit was actually like. on dry land ofcourse. So i removed stack from the unit and fired it up while sitting in the kitchen of the place we were staying. I'd say it took about 10minutes for the CO2 symptoms to start but after 13-15 minutes I had to come off the loop. Sweating, heart racing, breathing uncontrolable, slightly disorinated and my ability to form sentences was diminsihed (more than usual). If this happens underwater your chance of surviving will greatly diminish.

I hope I'll never push the scrubber to the point where it will bite me in the ass like that.

www.apdiving.co.uk wrote:

Absorbent duration (797)
(4°C, 40RMV, 1.6 lpm CO2): (Evolution)2 hours (Inspiration)3 hours

Those are AP's reccomendations. You often talk to people who get circa 5 hours from they scrubbers. But that would be warm water and non strenious diving. Here in cold water and strong current if you tried for 5hours you'd be nuts (IMHO).

I'm sure you could easily get 2.5 hours from the evo scrubber but would it be safe! I'd go as far as 3 hours with the inspo scrubber but the later of the run time would have to be on deco while relaxing ie. not generating much CO2.

Mick F

Peace wrote:

Yeah well scrubber life is not an exact science. It depends on depth, temperature, work rate and a couple of other factors such as moisture ingress to the lime.

[Don't do this at home kids]
I did the Inspiration Mod1 course over xmas - new year and while we were there i decide to see what a CO2 hit was actually like. on dry land ofcourse. So i removed stack from the unit and fired it up while sitting in the kitchen of the place we were staying. I'd say it took about 10minutes for the CO2 symptoms to start but after 13-15 minutes I had to come off the loop. Sweating, heart racing, breathing uncontrolable, slightly disorinated and my ability to form sentences was diminsihed (more than usual). If this happens underwater your chance of surviving will greatly diminish.

I hope I'll never push the scrubber to the point where it will bite me in the ass like that.



Those are AP's reccomendations. You often talk to people who get circa 5 hours from they scrubbers. But that would be warm water and non strenious diving. Here in cold water and strong current if you tried for 5hours you'd be nuts (IMHO).

I'm sure you could easily get 2.5 hours from the evo scrubber but would it be safe! I'd go as far as 3 hours with the inspo scrubber but the later of the run time would have to be on deco while relaxing ie. not generating much CO2.

Buy the scrubber monitor on the Evolution, then you can see exactly where the reaction front is. The CE limits on the AP products are at those exact parameters, the main one being sustained 1.6lpm CO2 production. This would take an oxygen consumption of ~2lpm. This is very high and I don't think you could actually sustain the necessary rate of breathing for two hours.

As an aside, people who are using the unit in UK/Irish waters are seeing the reaction front reach the 3/4 point after about 3 hours. This is of course depth dependent.

If you're intending on doing 3 hour runtimes then the best of luck to you. There isn't a dive in the world worth that amount of hangtime to me!

Of course I could always be talking b0ll0cks! (Wouldn't be the first time )

Peace

I'm not 100% familiar with the evolution scubber monitor but i get the distinct impression from what i read on the interweb that reliable scrubber monitor and CO2 detection are still not available on the market.

3 hours... its nappy territory alright. Sure the lusitania & minnehaha would be getting you close enough and i don't think they break 100m.

Its away in the future anyway... i've gone from 60's-70's OC to noob CCR. BAck to 10m dives for a bit.