Moved into a single thread... Finally made the move to CCR. Chose a Revo unit after a lot of deliberation. --- My move to CCR's ended up with another 6 cylinders in the garage to complement the exiting 19! I'll be having a big sort out of all the tins once I've worked out which ones I need for banking and bailout (will need a couple or three bailouts with different fills). Want to keep my 8.5s for sidemount. Will then move the others on. Probably some of the backmount kit too. MOD1's next week at Vobbie. Have paid to extend the course to 7 days as I want to work on core CCR skills and have booked a sea dive on the final day for myself and the instructor. Hoping that this investment will be decent preparation for building practice hours - want 50hrs ASAP in order to venture to the normal coastal wrecks, but 100hrs is the target. Bit frustrated at NDAC's news as that's the preferred practice location for proper dives with moderately interesting things to play on, not to mention half-decent vis and depth.
Glad your venue isn’t affected. Enjoy. There will be times you think WTF , I’d be surprised if there isn’t. Extra time and sea dive will compound the learning, don’t be surprised to still feel in a tiz after it all. It’ll take some time to soak it up and make adjustments for the new style of diving. It’s a journey , enjoy it. 50 hours is a realistic target but you’ll get a feel for when your ready to progress diving. Very simplistically ccr Diving doesn’t charge much with depth the tricky bit is coming back to your shallow stop and be comfy / confident to hold it for a period of time.
Have only test breathed the unit in the garage thus far. Will still be a CCR virgin for the course. My main concern is definitely the buoyancy challenge, particularly in the ascents. Memories of playing around in NDAC in the early days of twinset/membrane drysuit diving and getting caught out by not dumping early enough. Definitely don't want to repeat that. Know that managing counterlungs will be a considerable learning experience.
When you got caught out before I’m guessing you were still quite new to diving. The difference going ccr is that you is know what in control , good B&T feels like. So you won’t master it in one go but you know where your working back to. The loop is one more gas space to manage. So if you already have a routine on ascent - dump wing - ascend- dump suit - ascend etc you’ve now got one more “round” in that process. maintaining minimum Loop volume throughout is key , not over dumping the loop on ascent , little and often checking loop volume as you go. Over dumping the loop leaves you little or nothing to breathe and worst ways negative. So you add volume - dil - which as ambient pressure reduces reduces PPO2 in turn. So now the unit needs more O2 and there goes buoyancy again. Your instructor will show you how to manage all this on your unit. For me closing the ADV once I’m settled at depth means no inadvertent gas addition and your using the unit optimally.
Was very new to diving when I did Fundies in Vobster. Was so naive I even did it in February. Hardly surprisingly it was a pretty miserable and frustrating experience where I just didn't have the core skills to do the skills. The great thing about Fundies was it set the standards bar very high. Five years and many hundreds of dives later including a couple of hundred deep or significant decompression dives, I'm hoping that my core skills are sufficient to ease the move into CCR. Sure, it'll be incredibly frustrating, but at least I won't need to worry about finning, drysuit dumping, etc. The Revo unit's going to be fun as it's slightly quirky compared with other more traditional rebreathers. For example the ADV can't be shut off (as far as I'm aware). All this instruction awaits for the MOD1 course. Thereafter it's a matter of arranging for as much time practising as possible.
The key to CCR buoyancy is thinking ahead, and anticipating buoyancy changes, rather than reacting. Also, it helps to avoid depth changes where possible. I suspect you'll soon develop a tendency to go round obstacles, rather than over them, and you will miss the ability to very depth of breath to rise and fall. For your 7 days are you getting an air ticket, or the recreational trimix version?
Am hoping that I'll be good enough to be signed off for the recreational trimix. At the moment that's just an aspiration; what I don't want is to fail! The course is 5 days, but I'm extending it by a day and also another day to do a sea dive. Just hoping that it doesn't go to ratshit!
The entry level scooter from Dive Xtras is much cheaper than the predecessors https://deep-ideas.co.uk/Store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=18_1&products_id=665 With a dive weight of only 11kg it's not such a big lump either. Here's a picture of newest members the Dive Xtras family
Thanks for that Dave. Been waiting to see some "real" photos of them for some time. From L to R: Standard 4 battery Piranha, which is augmented with the entry level Blacktip scooters: the base one in the middle and the "tech" scooter on the RHS? How many 'speeds' are there on the Blacktip scooters compared with the Piranha?
The Piranha has configurable firmware. You can have up to 10 speeds, each set from 0-100% power. There is also a tailorable acceleration ramp-up. The default starting gear is #3 out of 8 and this too is configurable to start in any speed. There is also a shitload of data that can be downloaded after a dive. I understand that the Blacktip has 8 speeds and starts in #3, although there is a memory function built-in that will maintain the current speed for a short period, counting back down (or up) to #3 at set intervals.
Any DeWalt-type pack, which are (mostly) travel-friendly. There are limits to travel with lithium packs and the friendly TSA guys are not always au-fait with the rules. I believe that currently one can travel with as many packs under 100Wh or two packs under 160Wh. As a 5Ah 18V DeWalt is 96Ah, you can travel with a full contingent for any of the above scoots. I'm pretty sure that the bigger capacity packs have a clever means to theoretically split them into 2 lower capacity packs by putting them into travel mode. They also have the benefit of being widely recognised, even by a bonehead airport security thug. Unlike most dive light packs, which are always a risk to travel with.
