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Hi Dave
I've got an OMS 100lb bungied single bladder with IQ harness (inc ali BP). I'm reasonably happy with it but also not adverse to being objective about it:
Not particualry impressed with the dump valves, seem a bit slow for my liking, similarly the inflate is slow but I believe that is a safety feature in case of valves jamming open.
For maintenance purposes I think these fittings are a pain in the butt to disassemble, I had to make a special tool (two small nails and a piece of wood) to seperate the outer and inner dump valve assemblies. On Sunday I broke my uppermost pull dump and without a vice and the "special tool" couldn't disassemble it for repair, if you're far afield those things could be a problem
Once, on land, the bladder inflator jammed open but I sorted that by turning the button a few degrees, haven't yet took that apart to look for the reason. Material-wise, I'm happy that it is robust enough to give a good long life.
Lift-wise I'm more than happy with it, especially after hefting a trainees 30-odd pound weightbelt back to shore this sunday.
Re the bungee argument, I regularly orally inflate my bladder (oo-er missus) for a bit of practice and don't find it too difficult.
Re the double inflate, I'm assuming you're going for this option to do warm water deep stuff - Pierre in Malta may have some input on this as I believe that's his setup, don't know if he uses OMS or not though.
HTH
Steve
(Edited by Steve W at 3:16 pm on Feb. 24, 2003)  |