Quote: (Originally Posted by
silent running)
No offense intended to the new folks, but IMHO promoting an integrated ECCR as being more safe than one that is not, is really a bad idea, especially for an entry level diver. I know it's a bit intimidating to some prospective divers that you're taking your life in your hands every time you dive CCR, but if you can't handle the idea that you're responsible for verifying your unit is working properly before the dive and responsible for frequent PO2 checks during the dive, you shouldn't be diving CCR.
very well said! I do have to say that for a prospective Rebreather diver looking into rebreathers, it is all too tempting to get sucked into the marketing. I don't know what it would take to get the prospective diver to really get that taking %100 responsibility is required either way, it's just that with eCCR there is an illusion of greater safety at least in the recreational realm. Also, though it's premature for me to say, it sounds like manual addition with CFO is just not nearly a gnarly as it sounded when I first started looking into the a year and a half ago.
Quote: (Originally Posted by
silent running)
I don't doubt this at all and actually, I think that to a degree, some bells and whistles are added to help justify the high price of integrated ECCRs. Not so bad if we're talking about adding a distance sensor to the rear bumper of a big pick-up truck. If it works, great, if it breaks, you can still back the thing up the hard way. But if we're talking about features on an ECCR that simultaneously promise more safety yet are unreliable and even limit/nanny your behavior, we have a potentially very dangerous situation, more so if the diver is a beginner. -Andy
I hate to admit it, but the danger issue has only been a driver of this pursuit on a theoritical level. The thing that has really hit home and actually become foremost is the desire to not miss a whole trip's worth of dives. I can handle the idea of bailing or missing a dive here and there, it's just comes with the territory of using relying on complex systems, but missing entire trips is totally unnacceptible.
I will always have a thing for the vision electronics, having used them for a year, it's a pretty amazing kit, it just needs redundancy to avoid the main pitfals of an all in one system that my wife experienced. I actually think this is best fulfilled by a third party, aftermarket modification, I'd prefer it to a second vision handset. this way it's left up to the user to have choice about total isolation vs shared cells and all. Using a system from a different manufacturer to cross check seems to have it's advantages (less likely to have the same vulnerabilities, etx). Aside from making the OTU supressible, adding a fourth cell threading to the head and an extra port for the addition of back up electronics would be cover most of what I found to be the shortcomming of the EVO. Again, it's what we'd be doing if we were sticking with eCCR's.
I do believe the vision has enough redundancy to get you safely out of a dive where you experience a malfunction. In that way I applaud the design. however it does not have enough redundancy to continue diving on repeat dives safely if an unresolvable problem occurs in the all in one system... redundancy is key for recreational divers to enjoy this unit fully, that is my ultimate point.