Buddy Inspiration

[Pierre Farrugia]

Can someone help me out with costs in running an Inspiration.
1) Cheapest cost of unit new and from where
2) Cost of training and from where
3) Normal running cost and maintinance and if possible every when, eg oxygen sensors, safolime , batteries and any other consumables.

Sorry if I am asking for too much info.

Thanks

[Dominic]

May be of interest:
The Dark Side

[Rob Evans]

Okay....
Cost new is £3850 - too much IMHO, so got mine secondhand.  You can get them for £2500+ that way, much better value for money. There isn't much that goes wrong on them with the exception of cells - which you should replace as a matter of course anyway.
Training for the Mod1 course is typically £500 in the UK- for instructors look at http://www.ambientpressurediving.com/Frmsetinstrs.html - there's even one in your neck of the woods.  I strongly recommend doing the course- you can't buy one new without it and if you buy one S/H without doing the course and you don't have your shit together and know EXACTLY how it works it will kill you, no question. Apart from anything else, a decent instructor will give you lots of hints and tips that aren't in the manuals (sadly deficient in some  respects as Ammers will be happy to tell you)
The physics and physiology is not rocket science, but the way it operates and how you dive it is very different from OC.

Cost wise, once you've got the thing it's swings and roundabouts. If you do lots and lots of extended duration dives 30m+, it works out a lot cheaper than OC to run ( if you dive trimix it's MASSIVELY cheaper) - my gas bills on a recent Scapa trip were less than half of the OC boys on the boat, and that was typically 35m-odd diving, but I was shelling out appx £7 per 3 hours in the water for sofnolime. This is based on APD's recommendations on scrubber life bearing in mind worst case scenarios in terms of temperature/workload etc. In warm water and with a low workload, scrubber life can be a lot more than 3hrs, but it's a judgement call as to whether you want to take the risk - I don't, it's only money & I've only got the one life.
Basically, it's not about cost. It is difficult to justify the considerable expenditure it costs to buy and get trained on the unit compared to OC purely on a financial basis.  However, the difference it makes to your diving (and enjoyment of same) is colossal. 1 hour at 30m?  No problem, tons of gas. Same at 40m. Same at 50m. The question is, how much deco do you want to do and how many bailout bottles are you prepared to carry in case you flood the loop? Want to see lots of life - up close? No problem.  Not having any bubbles to deafen them means the fish come right up to you, and you can sneak up on lobsters a treat.
Typically, I'm in the water for a minimum of 90mins including deco every dive, and max Diluent/O2 useage has been 80bar from each 3l. 80bar is actually quite a heavy consumption for one dive, but I like to practise drills when I'm down there which uses a bit more gas.
On-going costs - £55 per O2 cell, so multiply that by 3 + 1 spare.  They're supposed to last 18-24 months, but it is much less aggro to change them every 12 months. The spare will last longer if it's left in its sealed bag.
Batteries - £2.30 each and last for 35hrs on the Master controller and 70hrs on the slave, so negligible.
Gas - negligible, typically £10 for a hard weekend's diving.
Sofnolime - £50-odd for 20kg drum.
Servicing - negligible. It uses two Apeks first stages -  the O2 side has a lower IP than normal, but that's the only difference - so pretty much what you'd expect to pay on OC.
The rest of it you do yourself - O-rings, scrims etc - I don't have the prices handy, but they're also cheap.

Had mine just over a year now, 100+ dives on it 30-50m, can't see me ever diving OC again.

Rob

[Pierre Farrugia]

Thanks Rob, very good answer, an other question, how much does it weight above water, what software you use to calculate deco penalties? Do you had to add extra weight fro OC to CC?

[Rob Evans]

Aaaargh, now you've got me. I don't have the exact weight to hand, but fully loaded I'd say it's about the same as an OC 15l+pony rig.  You can carry it around on one arm with ease. It sits very comfortably on your back and balance is excellent.
My software of choice is Proplanner, though I'm experimenting with Decoweenie (for Palmtops) at the moment.  DDplan is very popular amongst other box users I know - have a look at Madmole's site - http://www.btinternet.com/~madmole/divemole.htm
I carry quite a bit more weight than my old OC twinset rig, currently I've got 10kg on board, but that's compensating for a drysuit, lots of layers and plenty of air in the suit.  It's coooold here right now.  The extra weight is cos the thing is so much lighter than the twinset, and you've got a lungful + breathing loop of gas circulating round the whole time. Bear in mind that during the course of the dive it gets only fractionally more bouyant as you go along, cos you're using very little gas. There's a big difference between the weight of twins/stages from when they're full to when they've been breathed down to 50 bar, so you start the dive very heavy and end the dive neutral. On CC it's not such an issue.
HTH
Rob

[Angleseyskipper]

hi rob tell me your getting ya sensors from somewhere other that ap vavles ive had mine over 2 years and have never had a sensor/sensors last more 6 months!
I do a lot of diving but am beginning to think its a scam to extract as much money out of me as they can.
Surely i can't be the only one who is this unlucky?
The only thing that we do different is that most of me dives i'm working hard on a bit of salvage so i'm wondering if constant chuffing  hard is doing them in.
who knows?

[DiverMole]

Send em back to APD, they have a 1 year warrantee

I've had 3 out of 6 cells replaced now before 6 month intervals. All replaced very quickly and with no hassle, free of charge by APD

[Angleseyskipper]

cheers me ol mole i'll try that in future ,never thought of tackling AP vavles about it, i can remember someone having a go ages ago and getting no were.looks like things have changed, there must have been a lot of problems with batches of them, or people have been kicking up a fuss.

some one told me that AP have sold over 5000 boxes .
Don't know if thats true but a few sensors ain't gonna break APs fat wallet!!!!
all the best elfyn

[Pierre Farrugia]

Hello,
A friend of mine got a yellow box as well, I talked with him about it as he even uses it for trimix diving. He told me he would have a cylinder with oxygen and other with trimix. Diving this way how one can calculate deco penalties, as this way trimix blend will change all way throught the dive?

[Rob Evans]

.Hi Pierre,
it's like this - on OC, your PPO2, PPN2 and PPHe all rise at a constant rate as you descend, and lower at a constant rate on ascent.  On CC, your PPN2 and PPHe rise at a _changing_ rate, because the PPO2 stays static.
For example
For a mix of (for rough example) 20/30 at 10m intervals on OC and CC;

              OC                       CC
        PPO2  PPNHe PPN2         PPO2  PPHe  PPN2
10m       .4    .6    1.0            1.3    .26    0.44
20m       .6    .9    1.5            1.3    .64    1.06
40m       1.0  1.5   2.5            1.3    1.39   2.31
55m       1.3  1.95  3.25          1.3    1.95   3.25
To take the 40m example, you're at a total of 5bar. 1.3 of this is O2, so using Daltons the FO2 is 26%.  The remaining 74% of inert gas is 30parts He and 50 parts N2.  So a bit of messing about with a calculator later and lots of Dalton's law we get to the above (like I said, a rough example). I'm not going to go too deeply into the maths. Boring.
It is the PPHe and PPN2 that govern decompression obligations, so for dive planning on CCR we're just using a different set of calculations to work them out than on OC.
As you may gather from the above, our ENDs are also worked out differently...

Butty box - sorry I didn't reply to your post - I must've missed it ignoramus that I am.
The flap that went around last year was over a coating on the circuit board in the cell glooping up a pressure relief hole as I recall, lots of cells went back, including one of my own.  Apparently all that was required was to poke a hole in the coating to uncover the hole, but APD played it safe - people who sent their cells back got new ones.  I did have one cell go randomly duff middle of last year, replaced by APD no fuss. I'm with the vast majority of other insp divers I suspect - replace the cells after 12months whether they look like they need it or not.

(Edited by Rob Evans at 10:28 am on Feb. 22, 2003)