Personally I don't see a lot of advantage.
It would only work in tropical situations, i.e. with only a thin shorty.
Even with a normal sort of wetsuit (even if only a 5 mm overall; I dive all summer with a wetsuit; I hate drysuits, think they are a necesary evil on cold waters) you easily loose 1-2 kilo's of weight due to suit compression on depth - even as shallow as 20 meters or so.
Also, you need to cater for buoyancy increase in case of e.g. OC bailout. Even if you only use an inboard 3 liter dil as bailout, and empty it during an OC ascent, this represents 600 liters, or almost a kilo in weight. If you also use your O@ cylinders: 1200 liters, or almost 1.5 kilo. The last thing you want in an emergency is to fight negative buoancy in the shallows, as there is no good/comfortable way to do that.
If there is one thing I hate more than being too heavy, it is being too light at the end of my dive: you're tired, on the ascent line, having to swim with your fins up, wasting lots of energy (and gas!) and the risk of making an uncontrolled ascent in the most dangerous pressure range (0-10 meters).
I use a 1 liter steel 200 bar cylinder on top of my inspo, replacing the topweight. This "fuels" either my drysuit or my wing (when diving wetsuit). Depending on the dive, I remove it, and just use the inboard dil to fuel my wing (on easy wetsuit dives).
In both cases the (normal length) LP hose goes under the arm and under the (left) CL, so no clutter there as well. Should be standard IMHO anyway, as an over-the-CL hose is asking for problems for various reasons.
As to clutter reduction: my config is not more cluttered to carry around than 2 small cylinders: it is either 1 x 1 liter behind my head (with a very small low-flow 1st stage on it) versus "your" 2 x 0,3 liter, or even just a single extra LP hose versus "your" 2 x 0.3 liter.
I agree with you that being too heavy is very likely a major accident reason for Rebreather (AND OC!) divers, and divers (and instructors!) should pay more attention to it, but forcing it on them by limiting their options is IMHO not a good approach.
Ciao,
Tino.
Quote: (Originally Posted by
AD_ward9)
Wacky idea ... test area. Well, actually already a bit more than just an idea, but still a test area ...
What do divers think of the idea of removing BCD gas feeds, manual BCD inflator, and all the associated junk?
That is, instead of a feed from the dil or whatever to the BCD, there is a dual wing with a wee 0.3 litre cylinder on left, and same on right just above waist level. BCD is either inflated, or it is not. You get two shots, after that it is time to clonk the guy below with a weight belt.
The Rebreather looks nice and clean as a result.
I am not thinking of using this just for my unit for my own personal diving ... for dry suit diving for now, but this spring for diving in just my shorts, and putting it on the O.R. SCUBA unit as standard for wider use.
It does mean people have to get their weight right, so forces people with a new Rebreather to have some pool and sea checks before taking it diving. The unit is weighted to be perfectly horizontal in the water, so long as the diver does not put on ankle weights or has a lot of fat near his poles.
I plan to keep the dumps in case the valve is turned on at depth, but just get rid of the manual inflate and all it involves.
Alex