Rebreather World - View Single Post - Our compact plate for PRISM head and basket

silent running · 9th April 2007, 21:23

Hello all, just wanted to report on my 14 day trip to Ambon Indonesia with a prototype of the compact SS Prism plate. The plate worked great, it gave me the best trim I've ever had with just 2 x 1 kilo weights attached with pipe clamps to the top of the cyls. This was with a .5mm wetsuit and a web belt harness with the velcro tabs from the stock harness sewn onto the top slots of a Deep Sea Supply plastic travel harness plate.

As you can see from the pictures at the begining of this thread, the SS plate has a trim shape barely wider than the head, which makes mounting weight btw the wing, up high on the cylinders very easy. The trim shape also allows you to see more of the bucket seals, almost all the way around, a nice reassuring feature. The hour glass cutouts on the side also allow for easy routing of hoses btw the cyls and plate.

My fiberglass cowling fit on the unit very tightly, tight enough that I didn't need the bungees to hold it on. In the future, I will probably do as James has and drill a small hole in the bottom on each side of the cowling and bungee only the bottom part to the tank valves as fit at the top of the unit is very tight. With the unit asembled, cowling on, it sat upright perfectly, very stable and much easier to secure on the boat or anywhere else.

Because of it's trim size, I was able to fit the SS plate with the head attached and the loop inside a small wheeled carry on bag under the 46 inch limit on Singapore Airlines, which I think is the smallest carry-on dimension of the international carriers when I last checked. Only the harness, wing and cyls went in the checked baggage.

I didn't weigh the wheeled carry on bag, but then again neither did the airline. Joe Radomski was very right, they rarely do.

The only things I would like to see changed are:

-Make one in Aly for us warm water types so it's lighter and and allow one to keep as much weight as we like up top on the cyls. With the SS plate, 2 kilos and 30 cuft. OC BO, I was overweighted. I don't think they make .5 kilo weights.

-Find a good place for a webbing style plastic covered handle. Maybe it could be mounted from the top tank tabs, back away from the cables coming out of the head. As it stands now, I will not let any boat crew handle my unit for fear they will accidentally grab the cables coming from the head. Anything that solves this problem would allow me to doff the unit in the water and have the crew pull it up into the boat, saving me from humping up the ladder back into the boat in full gear, which is nearly impossible to do in a RIB. I'm sure all Prism divers will be gratetfull to anybody who can solve this problem once and for all.

-I would like to see if there's anyway to mount g-snaps to the tank tabs as the tanks did slip very slightly and allowed some weight to be put on my 1st stages and the swivels, not optimal for those of us with the old style valves without the rubber ball extentions. Gnaps also would allow for quicker cyl removal and make cutting/scraping up my soft, saltwater soaked skin less likely. One of my least favorite things about long trips is how beat up my hands get from all the equipment handling...

That's about it, I will post some pix of the new set-up with the 37lb Zeagle wing and plastic harness plate soon. Thanks very much to James and co. for lending me the plate to try. -Andy

9th April 2007, 21:23	#46 (permalink)
silent running Mature mouth breather Current Rebreather/s: Prism Topaz Other Rebreather/s: Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: U.S.A. Brooklyn, New York Posts: 1,832	Re: Our compact plate for PRISM head and basket Hello all, just wanted to report on my 14 day trip to Ambon Indonesia with a prototype of the compact SS Prism plate. The plate worked great, it gave me the best trim I've ever had with just 2 x 1 kilo weights attached with pipe clamps to the top of the cyls. This was with a .5mm wetsuit and a web belt harness with the velcro tabs from the stock harness sewn onto the top slots of a Deep Sea Supply plastic travel harness plate. As you can see from the pictures at the begining of this thread, the SS plate has a trim shape barely wider than the head, which makes mounting weight btw the wing, up high on the cylinders very easy. The trim shape also allows you to see more of the bucket seals, almost all the way around, a nice reassuring feature. The hour glass cutouts on the side also allow for easy routing of hoses btw the cyls and plate. My fiberglass cowling fit on the unit very tightly, tight enough that I didn't need the bungees to hold it on. In the future, I will probably do as James has and drill a small hole in the bottom on each side of the cowling and bungee only the bottom part to the tank valves as fit at the top of the unit is very tight. With the unit asembled, cowling on, it sat upright perfectly, very stable and much easier to secure on the boat or anywhere else. Because of it's trim size, I was able to fit the SS plate with the head attached and the loop inside a small wheeled carry on bag under the 46 inch limit on Singapore Airlines, which I think is the smallest carry-on dimension of the international carriers when I last checked. Only the harness, wing and cyls went in the checked baggage. I didn't weigh the wheeled carry on bag, but then again neither did the airline. Joe Radomski was very right, they rarely do. The only things I would like to see changed are: -Make one in Aly for us warm water types so it's lighter and and allow one to keep as much weight as we like up top on the cyls. With the SS plate, 2 kilos and 30 cuft. OC BO, I was overweighted. I don't think they make .5 kilo weights. -Find a good place for a webbing style plastic covered handle. Maybe it could be mounted from the top tank tabs, back away from the cables coming out of the head. As it stands now, I will not let any boat crew handle my unit for fear they will accidentally grab the cables coming from the head. Anything that solves this problem would allow me to doff the unit in the water and have the crew pull it up into the boat, saving me from humping up the ladder back into the boat in full gear, which is nearly impossible to do in a RIB. I'm sure all Prism divers will be gratetfull to anybody who can solve this problem once and for all. -I would like to see if there's anyway to mount g-snaps to the tank tabs as the tanks did slip very slightly and allowed some weight to be put on my 1st stages and the swivels, not optimal for those of us with the old style valves without the rubber ball extentions. Gnaps also would allow for quicker cyl removal and make cutting/scraping up my soft, saltwater soaked skin less likely. One of my least favorite things about long trips is how beat up my hands get from all the equipment handling... That's about it, I will post some pix of the new set-up with the 37lb Zeagle wing and plastic harness plate soon. Thanks very much to James and co. for lending me the plate to try. -Andy Last edited by silent running : 9th April 2007 at 21:41. Reason: Piss poor spelling...
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