Unusual Rebreathers

[KISSer]

Originally Posted by Pierre Farrugia

Hello,

This is from a to be an inspiration breather diver, I prefer to do a course, and learn as much as I can from it and then sit down and try to think about what I learned. I already read a lot about it and also read the manual which seems quite comprehensive. Then Intend to do a lot or shallow work with it until I feel confident with the unit.
Pierre

Pierre - a perfect guinea pig (no offence ). Just for the sake of discussion, what would you do if there wasn't a course available for the Inspiration? Assuming you would still have bought one, what would be different about the way you went about your early diving with the unit?

Should a course make any difference to the answer?

[Padowan]

Originally Posted by KISSer

Pierre - a perfect guinea pig (no offence ). Just for the sake of discussion, what would you do if there wasn't a course available for the Inspiration? Assuming you would still have bought one, what would be different about the way you went about your early diving with the unit?

Should a course make any difference to the answer?

I am in a similar situation to Pierre, and I'm doing my course in 3 weeks. Here's my perspective on the question above...

I would take things very slowly and carefully if I had to teach myself to use the thing. I've already read the manual, twice, along with just about everything else that there is on the web about rebreathers and RB theory, and feel like I have a good understanding on the THEORY - but I have only ever tried one in a shallow pool and have no real experience of it, so am still a total novice (infact if I could think of a word that meant less qualified than a novice I'd use it here - neophyte, perhaps). I've spoken to RB divers and instructors about elements of their diving and will use this information along with the instructors input when I actually start uning it.

Not that I'm gonna be all gung-ho and do silly things after the course, quite the opposite. I've basically written off next seasons diving to building up experience in the shallow stuff, before moving on to the kind of diving I'm doing on OC now, and eventually progressing even further than I am now (the main reason I want the RB in the first place)

I think this is a similar analogy - when you buy an Inspiration it's pretty much ready to go - when you buy a KISS you assemble the thing yourself. Which unit should you have more confidence in? The one you buy ready made, or the one you built yourself. It all comes down to whether you have confidence in your ability to build it right, or do you want to rely on someone else to have done it right. The same applies to training, I remember doing my TDI adv nitrox and Deco course, and the instructor seemed to know less about the subject than I did, and he was terrible in the water - but should I bow to his experience, just because the ticket says he's an instructor??

If you ever look at the statistics of deaths on rebreathers I don't think that there has been a single death on a HOMEMADE unit, because the people who make them know the limits of their ability and the equipments limits and only progress things as slowly as they are safe to do so. With an external source of instruction/progression, you may be pushed forward faster than you might like... just a thought.

[Pierre Farrugia]

Hello,

Probably I am wrong but want to clear something up. I don't think that who builds a rebreather has only basic knowledge on RB nor I think it's the first time using one! If you are able to build a working unit, then you must know every thing about it and more likely to solve problems underwater!

So you are suggesting that one has to buy a unit and then jump in shallow water and try to learn from it? Why one has to risk and do errors already paid, even by their life, of divers before us. This is like some of EKPP dives, of which we nearly judge as suicide but they work and get the job done, but I cannot compare my knowledge to them and their experience but if you find the correct inst. (altought Malta has only one) and the course is right it can make you aware many errors that other divers paid by their lifes. I think doing a course about RB is a good thing, then not everyone has some kowledge!

Regards

Pierre

[db8us]

Pierre, a good instructor with experience would of course provide good knowledge.
Still, i think that some instructors are "Turbo-made" and do not have any experience.
Also i agree with the homebuilder, but "copiers" are different. They often have no clue abou the specific parts and why part x is made out of material y and so on.
They never even have done a user-course, often borrowed the machine from someone and then they copy it cheaply, yet claim they improved it.
How should they provide training ? From what experience ?
http://www.deep-access.com/
is also selling them without training....

To me, that is scary, but this is a free country and it is their business.
Also it is the free will of the buyer....
Experienced divers will have no problems, but a newbie might think:
"Hey, this a RB80-clone, so it is safe...." which is of course nonsens, since no breather is safe, just maybe one is a bit more "forgiving", espescially with training and experience...

Pierre, what dives of the EKPP do you mean ? :-)
We just did the Gourneyras again in July:
http://www.ekpp.de/projects/gourneyras04_07/index.html

[Pierre Farrugia]

Hello Michael,

Last time we discussed one of the profiles here, that compared to our deco prog, (proplanner and Deco planner) toatlly different with a lot of less deco!
I think it was this dive http://www.ekpp.de/training/030810-ressel.html at the end what works works !

Also that site EPKK apart from excellent info, this time also made me hungry

Excellent job.

Regards

Pierre

[db8us]

Hmmm during the conference this weekend in Italy i realized that the most complicated thing on our dives is to agree on the menu and to prepare the meals and bring them to the habitat hot :-)

[NotDeadYet]

Hi Michael,

Originally Posted by db8us

Hi Stuart,
About the Aluminium, i did not mean the housing, but the Plate were the injectors are mounted to...
I can hear my unit inject clearly and venting also.
If it is not venting, it is not injecting.
Only when you descend.
The guy who died, might have heard the injecting since he descended rapidly.
The he ascendes pretty fast too, so gas was dumped.
When he relaxed, he died, since he either paid no attention to the sound or he did not know (which i think was the case)

We train all our divers approx every 6 Months. This includes theory, pool, open water and cave environment.
Of course we can do this, since it is not commercial.... and still i think breathers are killers...

Michael

yes you are right, the bulkhead plate is delrin. I suppose equally you can argue the other way round, if it is not injecting then it is not dumping, on the EDO4 the injectors are very clearly heard and felt.

Wasn't there also a problem with his gas choice in the fatality? That I think is one of the fundamental issues with passive scr and some explanation is essential to users.

As for homebuilders, yes we do know kind of what to expect. But when a hose blows and sends a stainless steel valve into the back of your head it still comes as a surprise. My attitude when test diving my homebuild RBs, is any problem then OC straight away. The RB80 seems a simple design but as you say you cannot copy it without knowing why part 'x' is made the way it is. For a homebuilder it is actually a complex unit.

My RB diving has been veeeeerrrrrry timid. They are not forgiving and should not be a comforter or crutch. Just my viewpoint.

[db8us]

Lets say, he used they gas he was "trained" at, so yes it was shitty.
We allow the first dives only on Nitrox 50.
He used 36 in one tank and 37 in the other (we have them manifolded).

The guy dying was purely unnecessary and completly avoidable...

[Pierre Farrugia]

Michael can you elaborate om the 50% mix and on what incident are you speaking?

Reagrds

Pierre

[NotDeadYet]

Hi Pierre,

on passive SCRs the ppO2 can be quite variable. Michael will probably correct me but EAN50 is the weakest gas you can use and still ascend to the surface. With anything with less O2 then the ppO2 will drop to a point on the ascent where a second gas must be plugged into the RB. Gas planning on such RBs makes them logistically unsuitable for open water diving and a lot of cave diving too.

The incident involved a diver on (IIRC) a double RB setup. From memory (please excuse me if I get this wrong) he had used hot water to clean the unit and the mushroom valve which is part of the dumping system warped. This meant the bellows didn't dump gas so it didn't inject new gas either so he kept breathing until passing out and drowning. He was doubly screwed because his drive gas would have given a ppO2 too low to do a safe ascent anyway without flushing the loop a few times.

He died because he had no training on the unit. If he had then he would have noticed the gas wasn't dumping (a gurgling sound on the EDO4), he should have noticed no gas being injected on each breath (a very, very clear feeling on the EDO4, there is no mistaking it), he had the wrong drive gas and he did not fully understand the way that ppO2 behaves with the unit. If he had done a basic check that takes 30s to do he would have seen the failed valve. And he broke the prime rule of rebreather diving, always know your ppO2.

Rightly or wrongly, the EDO4 is sold without training. So is the KISS, so are most Mk15 (and derivatives) that you can get hold of. So are all regulators and cylinders (in the UK at least). I think this is where Michael & I will disagree, my own belief is that we are ultimately responsible for our own actions and the onus lies on us to make sure we understand they way our systems work.

Again, I may be wrong but haven't all the Inspiration fatalaties been formally trained divers?