Dear Alex,
At the risk of ending up in yet another very lengthy and boring THEORETICAL discussion with you, I'll simply point you out what my problem is. You are pointing it finely out yourself. All you have as proof is paper & designs & some maybe working demo-kit. I stress "maybe working", because no indenpendant divers (i.e. guys not belonging to your fanclub) have been able to test in REAL LIFe if it REALLY works as designed. Foto's are cheap, and always work. you keep stressing: point to errors in the design. I say: that is what the guys at NASA said about their spaceshuttle, and still two of them blew up. As you may know, all theories about independant design by two different companies had been applied there, and still...
There is only one real proof it will in fact work, and that is stress-testing in the flesh. I don't care about "proof" on paper. That is a classical engineering error: starting to belief blindly in your design. It is called being blinkered. As I pointed out in another post, this is why Boeing still does thousands of flying hours, by expereinced pilots, AFTER they were "sure" there design was perfect - and in that period they find that many assumptions were wrong, at least in details, or that real-life circumstances can throw many situations at you that you didn't anticipate during your design. And even after that, the airplanes being already sold on the market, they keep finding errors in the category of "wow! I didn't anticipate on that!".
In your case that can be silly things like an O-ring that is too thin, of not anticipating that a normal user opens or closes an element of your system in another way that you anticipated. In my professional life (I'm a senior IT infrastructure architect for a big bank) I have seen far too many situations were the designers and developers said "whow! the user is not supposed to do that...!". Microsoft applies things like modelbench-testing, automated design verifiers and 4-eyes-principles/sign-off, and still their stuff keeps showing weak spots in the field - even despite rigorous and broad alpha and beta testing by many "experts" in the field. That is what you do as well: exposing your designs, asking people to go through it & report back to you. Good approach, but doesn't garantee AT ALL that all problems get picked out. Real life is more creative & harsh.
Your following defense about nuclear reactors again proves my point: you declare two that failed as being wrongly designed (probably you are correct there; I'm not an expert), and next decalre another one, the CANDU, as safe - because nothing went wrong for 13 years. Thu!?!?! Nothing went wrong for a long time in 3 Miles island and Chernobyl as well, and nothing still doesn't go wrong in many reactors worldwide that you probably still deem unsafe. Probaly pure luck, something with MTBF (I won't go there: I don't know shit about MTBF, but you are seemingly the expert there, although Genesis disagrees).
Last point: you say: "I have pointed out serious safety deficiencies publically, only after a manufacturer has let years go by after being advised in writing of these and done nothing." Again very arrogant: you assume that only because you pointed out what YOU consider errors, will blindly be followed up by that manufacturer. This assumes in the first place that that manufacturer (AP Valves in this case; let's cut the secrecy) agrees with everything you pointed out. I can tell you firsthand that they did not. Will you in the future BLINDLY change anything in your ORB when a user "proves" there is something wrong with it, even if you don't agree? do you have a reply back from APD that says:" Dear mr. Deas, we agree with all your findings, they were all correct, and we confirm these are all indeed errors"..?
I'll leave the discussion here, as it is already boring enough. I'll return to my first lines, and also prime subject of my previous mail: I'm only interested in a real, working rebreather, testing by multiple independent divers not related to DeepLife, as proof that is REALLY works. Before that, any paper stuff and ideas are at best interesting (and I mean that seriously: some of your thoughts are indeed interesting, but some others scare the living hell out of me, because I can see many of your mechanical designparts easy fail in harsh real-life conditions; the stepper-motors in your BOV mouthpiece design to mention one) - but not more than that.
Parting note: APD realised also that there is a limit to the amount of paper and computer design & testing you can do. So a few years ago they invested for a fortune in what is still the world's biggest and best live CCR testing rig: a custom-made ANSTI rig where a complete working CCR unit can be taken to 200 meters, in real water, cold & salt, in any position, at any breathing rate, with measurement at the mouthpiece. I've seen you do some "proof" on an Inspiration scrubber canister, about breaktrough, on a workbench, with some analysers attached. It made we very sad, and shows exactly my problem with your sort of "proof".
For those who want to see the testing rig I am talking about, go see the Ambient Pressure Diving website, follow the links to technology, R&D and "tour the ANSTI testing facility".
And still the Vision is not perfect, although pretty good. It probably never will be perfect, as yours will never be perfect. Perfect doesn't exist, no matter how much we would like to. You should start acknowledging that you will not find out what your ORB is really worth, untill many divers will be diving it. Reach that phase, and we'll talk further. Before that time, I consider slagging off the competition (and only a very selective part of the competition; why..?) as just pre-emptively leveling the playing field for if & when your unit shows up. It's called marketing in normal words.
Ciao,
Tino.
Quote: (Originally Posted by
AD_ward9)
Tino De Rijk:
What happened in a few years? Just have a look at the gallery and the stuff we have been testing in the flesh (not CAD). We did a lot and continue to do so. On is complete publication of the hardware and verification. This gives you all the ammo you need to point out our errors.
On the other points, just have a look and you will find the answers.
As regards nuclear experience, British reactors have not had the accidents so far that befell some others, but they could in future, because at the end of the day, apart from the Canadian CANDU design, reactors adopt designs intended to create military material when required rather than safety first, even when they are civil reactors. This makes them inherently more dangerous. The incidents in New York State and Chernobyl 1986 are good examples of when safety systems are incomplete, allowing operators to do dangerous practices, including switching the safety system off. Processing plants have more accidents than the reactor itself.
The safest reactor is the Canadian CANDU design, but even then one of the first four of these, Pickering A, had an accident in 1994. The safety systems were then reviewed and installed to meet SIL 4 objectives, including a control, signalling and management as well as a system that can shut down the entire reactor in 2 seconds: there has not been an accident since on that reactor design.
You mention "slagging off". Please find the fault in the designs we have published, and the test plans we are publishing. Then please point out the error. I have pointed out serious safety deficiencies publically, only after a manufacturer has let years go by after being advised in writing of these and done nothing. I promise you, if you find errors or weaknesses in any design we do, not a week will go by without response and action.
Alex