Quote: (Originally Posted by
jmurba)
I understand your point of view and respect it.
I personaly think that everything can be bettered or at least adapted to the personal requirement of a given diver.
also again paul and gordon have been home builders before building machines for others.
paul modified dolphins and ida's before designing his rebreather
I know quite a few revo diver who dive modified revo.
it does not means that draeger or paul did a bad job but simply that their rebreather has been designed for a standard diver and that non standar divers felt like adapting those re-breather to thier needs .
what I don't agree with is coming on a homebuilder section of the forum to say to a potential home builder, don't do it yourself , take a stock unit and dive it !
I could at least understand it if you are a home builder doubting of the capacities of doing a good job.
but are you a home builder ?
if you are not a home builder and if you have no certitude about this guy technical capacities I don't understand you advice him not to go on with his projet.
it is just my opinion .
as a home builder I try to share my experience with other home builders or future home builders.
this is the goal of such a forum.
respectfully yours
jean mi
well said jean
i totally agree, stock units can be modified, and will be modified due to various reasons.
However I dont think it is a particular clever idea to buy one stock unit (e.g. inspo or optima) only to modifie it straight away into something which looks like a rEvo.
If I had to buy a Rebreather now and did live in europe, i would give paul a call and pick up a hybrid rEvo form him.
However I do have an inspo, and I am happy without,
minus that it comes without HUD ( I do have an older classic), and minus that it is not a hybrid.
When I bought the unit some of these options were not available.
Agreeable I could flick it of possibly get NZ$7000, but by buying a new one would have to pay at least $NZ18000 plus training, plus getting to teh training etc.
therefore modifing the unit by means of homebuilding can be a very valid option.
However saying that i will still use the help of professionals to do some of teh jobs. John (narked@90) has a great design and engeneering service,
the same with Martin (Tecme). Yes parts appear expensive on the first sight, but all that stuff is custom build to a fanstastic standard, and at the end still much cheaper than flicking teh unit off and buying new.
E.g. to mod the inspo into a hybrid will cost me aprox $NZ1200, HUD $NZ1500, having to run 6 cells - well 450 per year in extra.
If i compare that to $NZ10.000 in upgrade costs, that is something like 15years to get to teh same cost.
On another note, if you homebuild something it becomes your baby - this can be very satisfying. For example I had my unit with teh new HUD in the pool yesterday and it performed floorless.
Ok only a short dive but still makes you feel good.
Yes spend several weeks working on the thing to get it to work as i wanted, did course quite a bit as had some shorting in the connectors, but hey sorted it out. Had to mod the DSV attachment as well, but now great to read even in strong backlight.