Inflating blob from exhaust bubbles- marvellous

[ray]

Originally Posted by Woz

Tried it for the first time last night in the pool. And what an utter piece of piss it is too. Even tried it blind with my mask off and it was a doddle. Although much easier with a side exhaust (Jetstream) than a standard reg (TX40).

You can take your Buddy DSMBCi's and stick them where the sun doesn't shine.

Swithland.

Keep yourself as far away from your DSMB as pos when you send the thing up, we have canabalised the fenzy bottles of old ABLJ's for some time, long before all this new fangled miniture bottles came along, you do not want to be going up from 40 metres plus, dangling on your DSMB, dangling on your reg, trying to get the thing back, thats just to much DANGLING for any one.
Its only a couple of puffs (no offence) of breath you will lose sending the thing up using your spare reg or air 2, and then you no you are reasonably safe and well away from the dreaded string, which takes on a life of its own underwater

PS my first try was SUCKED away from me and posted before this, spooky!

[Janos]

I must confess to also being a bit wary about exhaust bubbles. String seems to have a magic propery where it attaches to everything.

Laters,
Janos

[Angleseyskipper]

always used a seperate hose with " blow gun" end for filling lift bags and smbs when on OC found it more effective on the reduced end type blob ,and less to snag on

does the reg exhaust inflate give you a nice firm fully inflated blob ?

nothing worse than something resembling a stealth crisp packet

[Mark Chase]

Originally Posted by Janos

I must confess to also being a bit wary about exhaust bubbles. String seems to have a magic property where it attaches to everything.

Laters,
Janos

I used to do it this way, the secret is to inflate it so its just pulling hard against your grip then get it well away from the reg before letting go. I found a ratchet reel far better than a friction reel for this job; I kept the line fully retracted and the handhold loop tight against the line feed bar when filling. This kept the possibility of entanglement down to virtual zero. If you accidentally overfilled the bag and lost your grip all I had to do was hit the thumb release and the reel let it go up. With my friction reel I often found little entangley loops of line inadvertently coming down from the reel and causing problems, this was despite using my thumb to try and keep friction on the spool. Also on my CD reel the fiction knob could suddenly do its self up as the SMB shot off.... very annoying

As long as I was at say 25-30m the big filled no problem by the surface but shallow deployments often resulted in an under filled bag.

Then I got a crack bottle and put such problems behind me

ATB

Mark Chase

[Woz]

2 breaths. That is all my blob takes to fully inflate it from 20m. Even to fully inflate it at the surface I only need 5 breaths. And 2 breaths does not dramatically affect my buoyancy. So a little huff to unfurl then 2 full breaths. Hold the whole lot away from you then let it go. If you watch the bloke on the sfiring a blob from a spool video he does a similar thing. A little sqirt from his dry suit DF, holds it out then lets go

I think 1/2 the problems with incidents related to uncontrolled ascents happen when people try to over inflate them, they get tangled then whoops you're screwed. When you are huffing out you can control exactly the amount of air going into the thing. At 30m I only need just over 1 breath to deploy it. Like breathing in...

Still- I'll have another go from some decent depth then report back, either from my desk or the pot.

[Mark Davies]

I used to fill mine with the exhaled air from my side exhaust Oceanic Omegas. You do need to be very careful about not getting your reg caught - it has happened to me and it leaves you in a whole world of agro. The problem is that you just can't see where everything is - you're relying on touch so need to be very precise.

I now have a Buddy DSMBi and won't go back.

[wreckweasel]

Im just the opposite.... I went to a DSMBi, then went back to non bottle blobs. The bottle ones are just too bulky etc

Nowadays I use a NAS closed circuit blob and carry a couple of ADP's as spares.

PS. the ADP's dont have any loopy crap hanging down, just an eyelet that you attach your line too...

[Paul Beal]

I was a strong believer in inflating your blob from your exhaust bubbles and had a couple of quite heated discussions with a couple of the other Yorks region instructors about it. On Combined Nitrox Courses we demonstrate several methods, this NOT being one of them. I still use this method regularly when I am not teaching.

I however wonder how long the last statement will stay in the present tense after a dive at the weekend. On saturday I was in Ecclestone Delph doing a combined Nitrox retake for someone and then the BSAC DL skills review dive. The 2 Nitrox dives had gone very smoothly with a perfect demo of dSMB inflation on the first dive and then a faultless deployment on the second dive (from the octo). On the third dive of the day (with the trainee DLs) we had done 4 ascents from 15 to 6m doing AAS ascent and CBLs and so I decided it was prudent to have some time at 6m for safety. After the students had stabilised at 6 m and finished their last lift I settled them down and got my blob out. With them watching me I proceeded to make a tit of myself by (for the first time ever) getting the straps on my dSMB caught on my primary reg. It didn't come out of my mouth as I sorted it pretty quickly but was a bit of a shock as it is the first time it has ever happened.

Food for thought!!

Paul

[Woz]

Originally Posted by Paul Beal

getting the straps on my dSMB...

I use strapless ADP blobs (www.advanced-diving-products.co.uk). Nothing to get caught up apart from the reel string that I don't unwind until the reel/blob is at arms length. And with only 2 breaths it won't drag it out of your mouth.
The AP Valves blobs look ok but, in my opinion, that strap needs to go and be replaced with an eyelet. Also they are too large- the ADP blob takes only 5 breaths to fill completely (2 breaths at depth which won't drag you about) and gives plenty of buoyancy. However the AP blob takes much more than 5 breaths to fill fully and so needs much more air in it than 2 breaths at depth to be fully inflated at the surface.

However I wil report back when I've fired it a few more times and let you know. Probably from a pot.

[wreckweasel]

Originally Posted by Woz

I use strapless ADP blobs (www.advanced-diving-products.co.uk).

As your man says, this is what I've been doing for about 10 years.

I had a brief fling with a crack bottle blob and wouldnt go near them again

Personal choice, shocking isnt it!