Started RB diving (Kind of)

[Dave1w]

Well it isn't an inspiration, or a KISS or megladooberry whatsit, but I guess it is actually a rebreather. I bought a Drager Ray because as it came at about £500 quid complete and brand new, it is a good way to get the foot through the door, and check out whether I could be bothered with the hassle of cleaning it and packing the scrubber and so on. if I decided to hate it I would not have a couple or more grand sitting in the back of a cupboard.
We I did the course in a wetsuit (which I haven't used for about 400 dives) and seemed to get on OK with it, (even though the course was in French), and our Lass did the course as well. (something about justifying the cost....)
I dived the Ray and Dolphin on the course, and yes the dolphin was nicer and looked cooler, but the ray worked OK, and is a 3rd the price.......

Everyone seemed to want about 4-500 quid for a secondhand Ray, but I found a shop chain in France selling them at 975 euros (about 650 quid). Discount here, bit off there, another discount, came out with the ray and a diverite wing I fancied for a bit less than the listed 975 euros.

So then I am at a point where I have it, a shop at the other end of the lake carries all the bits and bobs and cheap fills and sorb, only drawback is a 150 odd KM round trip (it's a bl**dy big lake).

So yesterday afternoon, we went down to the lake and got it all set up and went for a dive. Easy as that.
I was concerned because the ray isn't the biggest thing in the world and has itself totally integrated with a Stab, which isn't too brilliant. It was I think designed for nice tropical diving in a wetsuit, so as well, I had to figure out using it in the bulkier drysuit.
Some fiddling with an old pony and some clips, and I had a small stage as bailout and drysuit inflation (the 4l bottle on the ray wouldn't last long if running a suit). A guesstimate of the weight to get it to go down and I was away.

It's not the biggest thing in the world so it kinda just strapped on there behind, me and the lungy things came round over my shoulders. I found it best to keep the shoulder straps loosish and the waist tight to avoid squeezing the lungs.
I was over weighted and needed a bit of air in the stab (from the mix bottle) but managed OK with the suit. Bimbled down and around to about 14 m max, and found you do have to work a bit to get the buoyancy working. Not a problem, just more work than OC. in the shallows, it seemed to have loads of bubbles from the op valves, but obviously this got better a little deeper. As it is quite quiet, it is hard to tell when you do dump where it is your suit, the ray or the wing, but it will come in time. For the first dive, I was quite happy though.
She had a quick go, but it was all set up for me and we had only quickly swapped in the shallows. After that I removed some lead and took it down to about 5 or so metres and found it had just about right buoyancy.

It was OK, nothing special, but it's nice to have something different. As standard, 50% and 20m, with bits from Drager, 30m, 40m?.

Next step is to get something O2 measurement wise, then once I have some experience get the dosage for deeper. Sortout a better way to control bouyancy, something like a wing, and further down the line, if I fancy a CCR get one, or adjust this to suit.

For now though, I don't recall seeing to many posts about SCR's which is interesting, I guess like everything else you need a good reason to buy one, which I think I did have.


Dave

[NotDeadYet]

Hi Dave,

I think the Ray is under-rated, it breathes better than the Dolphin and the scrubber is easier to pack. Downsides as you say the lungs are integrated with the jacket. It is also quite a small scrubber, I used a Ray scrubber in a homebuild and was getting breakthrough a lot sooner than I was expecting in cold water. They are well made bits of kit though, especially the DSV -- it would be better if it opened and closed a bit more smoothly but you can't have everything.

Definitely get some form of O2 monitor, I think diving an active SCR is dangerous without one. Active SCRs don't have any overt signs that there is a problem. You can still breathe them right up until you pass out if there is something wrong. A clogged orifice will still allow gas through but not at a rate to maintain the loop ppo2, you can overbreathe a properly functioning one, the IP of the reg may have drifted, etc. None of these give you any signs and having an ADV makes it worse because you may never notice any loss of loop volume.

On the Ray, I think the p-port on the bottom of the scrubber is where the Oxygauge is meant to plug in. Personally I'd say this was the worst possible place as you get a lot of moisture here, I wouldn't want a sensor there. On my Ray scrubber I drilled a hole in the lid, fitted a watertight cable gland and put the sensor in the top of the scrubber, cable through the gland and running to a handset. What might be easier for you is fitting a p-port into the counterlung and plugging it in there.

Once you start making mods to it though... next thing will be a KISS valve, some more sensors... soon you'll be on the darkside with a home made fully closed circuit Ray!!!

My geography isn't great so I'm not sure how far Geneva will be, but there is a dive shop in Neuchatel that I use when I dive in the Jura which sells Draeger bits and lime. Really nice shop and friendly staff. Also www.danshop.com and www.tecme.de, both in Germany, sell Draeger spares mail order.

I think why you don't get many postings on SCR is because I don't think they are all that useful (especially in the UK) apart from as you mention, a kind of taster RB to see if you can be bothered with them. With a 70min (I take that with a pinch of salt) life of the scrubber and a max depth of 20-odd metres, I'd reckon you could do the same diving safer and cheaper on a 12l bottle. I'm not a big fan of SCR though, I bought the guts of a Ray purely to convert to CCR.

Cheers,

Stuart

[Dave1w]

I think it would be an ideal plaything to start modifying once I really get into it properly. I really don't like the jacket, and I am already thinking of how I can get rid of the BCD bladder, cut it down until it is enough to hold the lungs and scrubber and then mount it on a backplate so it could come on and off as easily as a twinset. I was thinking, a couple of the stndard 4 litres cylinders would go quite well if one were to go CCR on it. Original plan a couple of years ago was to build one myself, but that money went on bike racing. This way, i think I would be half way there towards making a CCR and eventually will probably try and have some fun with mods to make it more suitable for more than 20m.
After a PPO2, would come an 8 litre with H-valve I have priced up, then maybe the 40% dosage head.
With the talk of specialised courses for homebuilts that some instructors run, I wonder would one be enough to satisfy life insurance and what not?
Eventually a proper made CCR woud be on the cards if and when I decide it would be worth it.
Dave

[NotDeadYet]

If you want to see how I rigged the lungs on mine have a look at www.lizardland.co.uk/RB/rb_views.htm

Not sure how well you can see it but I put two water bags beneath the cylinders and made a t connection off the loop to them. I'm sure if you put a p-port in then you could fit the dosage head easily to one of the lungs.

Personally, I wouldn't waste my time on a generic course. I did one 8 or 9 years ago with Kevin Gurr and all he said on it whenever anyone asked a question was "you'll find out on a full user course, I can't tell you that now" and 10min on the Cis Lunar in the pool. Cheers. £100 down the drain, ten people on the course so he made about £1000 that afternoon for bugger all. Still, I got a nice purple card I can show if anyone ever hassles me. Not sure about insurance. Better yet, make sure you don't die.

Cheers,

Stuart