Making the KISS recoverable

Ken

One of the negatives of the KISS Classic is the inability to easily clear the loop of water. Please find attached a very, very crude .jpg of what I think could be an easy answer. Some feel this is type of mod. is unnecessary. My thought is that it somewhat addresses the issue. Cheers. Ken

Attached Images

KISS.jpg (27.9 KB, 419 views)

decoweenie

That might work since it is similar to the Rebreather-80 OPV location. This discussion was brought up originally about 3 years ago on the KISS list.

However, I only have limited hours (~close to 400) on the KISS and yet found the need to purge water from it. So IMHO, I think it is the case of "if it doesn't break, don't **** with it", Ken.

Ken

Hi Phi,

I remember your original commentary. As techies we all experiment to one degree or another. For those who do **** up and flood the loop, say in a cave, having another option is always a welcome thing. Regardless of 400 non-flooding hours, people do flood their Kiss breathers. Personally, I’d like to cave with the KISS, but one of the negatives I see is the inability to purge the loop. I certainly like the Rebreather-80 for that designed ability.

My thought is engineering/adding a simple purge solution couldn’t hurt + it probably wouldn’t be too much in terms of a retrofit. I’ll run it by Jetsam.

EBT

A lot of people have been looking at this Ken

Let us know how you get on, to my mind it seems sensible, especially if its diver operated. One downside I see is that I'd struggle to reach this position though, its enough work getting to the valves with a drysuit, stages etc.

I seem to recall back on the kiss list that someone raised a valid objection to this position, but Im buggered if I can find it in the archive.

I did tinker with the idea of moving the OPV to my exhale lung, to achieve the same thing. The simple reality is that the internal architecture in the head is such that water will go into the scrubber in preference to the counterlung, so this one got scrapped.

Phi, I've had a flood that was reasonable enough to have warranted a water dump, granted it was a failure of the component that sits between the harness loops, but still.....



/Zak

__________________
Eagles May Soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!

RBW Terms of service

decoweenie

Sure guys, best of luck in your design and mod.

lizardland

Can you reach the OPV where it is? I'm guessing it is just a drysuit valve, if you closed it fully you could get enough pressure in the loop to open Ken's idea for a bottom dump to blow water out by exhaling?

As I recall it wasn't a water dump you were needing after diving with the flood

decoweenie

Stuart,

Both of the OPV's will have to have the DT-mod to them to close them *absolutely*, then the bottom one will have to be "open up" a bit (or pressed) when blowing the water out when in vertical position (against the higher ambient pressure). If the upper one is not DT-mod'ed, it will blow to release gas.

If blowing in horizontal position, then risk of wetting the sorb.

A while back, I decided (for myself) that it was too much hassle and adding an extra failure point to the loop so decided not to pursue. But I don't usually have water in my loop too much to worry, and have adequate OC-bail-out for the type of dive.

lizardland

Hi Phi,

I'm just thinking out loud and only have a superficial knowledge of the unit so excuse my being a muppet I was thinking more along the lines of a simple OPV as on BCD's, lift bags, etc., set to a higher pressure than the normal OPV in the head. If you could isolate the top valve somehow then you wouldn't need to reach the bottom one. And because of the higher working pressure than the top valve then the bottom valve would not normally blow. In reality I'd imagine it would need a new bottom lid with a concave interior surface. I remember Michael from STDE demonstrating the water dumping capability of the EDO-4 which also has a flat base. A lot of the water did get dumped but because of the flat surface, a lot was still left.

As both you and Zak have pointed out, mechanical failure causing a flood isn't likely and I don't imagine that diving within the rating of the scrubber that condensation will be massive either.

Only 15days until Classic #59 becomes mine... and I definitely don't intend f***ing with it Well, not for a while anyway...

Cheers,

Stuart

Ken

Hi Phi, Zak and Stuart,

Cheers. I've been looking at a number of options*, but I think it's best to run it by the Zen master himself. It seems simple enough, but as Phi mentioned it could easily be an unnecessary failure point.

One early option I see is to blank out the head mounted OPV and make the bottom purge the primary pressure relief...however, that could open up a can of worms.

Another is to put a tube mounted drain which routes to the diver and discretely gets tucked away.

Additionally, I've been through the KISS archives and all I found were Steve C's and Phi's views on the "fatboy" scrubber?

Ken


* a nice brain relaxer between bouts of administrative paperwork

Joseph Grech

In my home made breather, I just tapped a quick release valve ( fuel type ) at the bottom of my scrubber. When any water seeps in I just quick connect a small hand pump ( fuel type again ) and pump all the water out. When finished i quick disconnect the pump and no water goes throug the valve as it shuts off.