How to make Solo Rebreather diving safer?

Underwaterbear

Glad you made it back steve.


I'm getting the stuff together for this at the moment. Preliminary thoughts are: Torch canister with a 3 cell harness through the old gland, a BC nipple and a BC hose threaded into the lid. The nipple for attaching a reg to, and the hose for clipping onto an IP guage. I'll use AIR at 10Bar to test the cells once a month.

Mike

Bear - let us know when you are about to test this, I'll bring some beers and a deck chair to watch from across the road...

Mike

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Underwaterbear

Coward.

Okidiver

[quote=SteveL]I thought a steam ship was going over head I had this loud drumming in my head and it was LOUD just like a big ship going over

Wow, thx 4 sharing...and welcome back!
Rick

Mdemon

Blimey! Very interesting, and glad you got away with it.

The loud noise - reckon this is the "Wah Wah" effect the deep air guys talked about?

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lizardland

When I used to do a lot of deep air diving years ago I had a similar incident at 90m, only I heard something more like the ringing of a church bell. I also had a very strong metallic taste in my mouth and visual disturbances, I'm pretty convinced this wasn't narcosis but oxygen. If anything, the narcosis felt under control (bullshit I know), this feeling was something else entirely that I'd never experienced. It scared me far more than being narc'd did.

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SteveL

Thanks guys,

Yep the wah wah sound would describe it pretty well - its if you can hear the blood going through you ears and head - "like doppler'

The tingling in my fingers was more like a warm feeling - i remember thinking that despite having fairly thin cotton gloves my hands were remarkably warm!

I didnt get a metallic taste that I can remember this time but do remember getting this many years ago on OC when diving a "hot" nitrox mix -

Today I jury rigged a cell (r22) connected to the vr3 through one of the hose ports and sealed it up with tape. Oh i calibrated it on 02 befor doing this .

Then flushed the loop until it registed that the loop was completely filled with 02 - then I recalibrated the breather cells on the trim pots and waited.

After about 20 minutes the r22 was still pumping out 0.98 - 1.00 and the cells in the breather were down to .92, .85 and .83 respectivly

Came back in an hour and the r22 was still powering on but the Rebreather cells were down to .23, .42 and .64 !!!

OH - when I first flushed I scrolled throught the setpoiont controller and all the leds went from high to low so this seems to be working as it should.

So it seems pretty obvious that the problem was from dead cells -

Will post a few pics of the pot when it is finished but so far I have got a new smaller diameter compression gland and run some CAT 5 computer cable through it - convieniently has 3 pairs of wire so I can test all 3 cells at the same time. I have thought about making an 'extension cable' that then plugs back into the breather so you could calibrate the breather with a definate 02 in the loop then verify immediatly with higher pressure.

I will make the canister so I can pump in 02 this way I only need very low pressures - the pot will only really be for low P. Not 10 bar !! - the deck chair on the side of the road sounds good for this bear - not hard to make a HP pot but dont really need it.

Biggest problem I see is getting an accurate guage for such low pressures. Only want something that goes to 3 or 4 bar

Anyway will keep you posted - just happy Im here to tell the tale-

Regards,

Steve L

Dutchy

Steve,

Despite it being obvious I just thought I'd warn you about the testing three cells at once....
Only test three cells to positively validate that all cells are OK...

Don't draw conclusions from one bad cell reading. But retest one by one and dispose of it immediately. Mixing them up is easy to do. It happened to me once with pressure transducers, but that was harmless.....

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MADDOG

One Thing It Is Great To Dive With Somone You Know Is Self Sufficient Able To Provide Bubble Checks Etc And Likes Doing Similar Dive Profiles But Somtimes You Like To Be Able Just To Pick Up The Phone On A Day Off And Go Diving More Than Likly Not
Knowing Any One On The Boat [quite Often Your On A Boat Full Of Like Minded People] Stealing That Extra Bit Of Good Vis Or New Mark And Being Able To Do It On Your Own Makes It Happen
But Diving Without A Trusted Buddy I Dive More Defencivly
And Would Binn It Early If Things Are Not Going 100% To Plan
Where Somtimes You May Be Pushing Your Buddise Out Of There Cumfort Zone Or Your Own To Stay Together And Run Your Full Bt

satansma

Uuurgh! Punctuation, my good man, please!