how did you break it??

hamrhed42

hello to all ive been thumbing around in the differant forums in a search for a rebreather for me to step get started with. I have almostly compleatly made up my mind on the meg for some good reasons, it can be ran as mCCR or eCCR, dual displays, 3 oxy cells, and most importantly the fact that i can buy this now as a first unit and with proper care let it grow with my experance in to trimix,caving and so in. most inportantly is the durability of the unit, so this leads me to the question i have looked around and not really found any problem areas the meg has as far as breaking points. Of those of you that have had something bust that caused your meg to go hard down what was it? was it a pain to get fixed/moddified? and how was customer service and parts service? i dont plan on beating it around but teh fact that its built like a tank is always good assurance of a wise investment. any pointers??

mempilot

Welcome, and good choice. There are a lot of good reasons to buy many of the RBs on the market. They all have their strong points, and their weaknesses. I believe the Meg is a tough contender.

Besides the obvious difference between the COPIS and the Standard Meg, the Standard Meg can be run manually with an automatic electronic Alpha Floor protection. In other words, manually add O2, and if you get distracted and forget, the solenoid can save you. While I wouldn't rely on this in place of diligence, I run this way on certain dives to keep my scan up.

This represents most CCR's and isn't solely a Meg thing, but it is important.

What, a Meg owner divulge a weakness in their unit??? Blasphemy!!!!

The Meg is tough. That is a reason many end up choosing it. It has redundancy. Another reason. Leon built it to take abuse, and this has been tested.

That being said, my unit hasn't had anything physically break. I've had batteries crap out, and the water trap get stuck open, but nothing 'crack'.

The water trap is removed on most Megs. I just make sure I check it before every dive and pull it apart and clean it once a month. New Megs don't have this anymore.

The batteries, while easy to get and make, are a PITA when you think about other units where you just pop in a single AA before each dive. No soldering or constant ordering. Small thing IMHO, but I own a box of them to start with.

Many Meg owners modify their units. Look in the Meg subforum. There is an ongoing thread there about useful Mods. One more popular mod is plugging the manual O2 injection into the exhalation CL for better premixing prior to inhaling.

You can't go wrong with a Meg, but you can't go wrong with a lot of modern RBs. The Meg is tough, versatile, and easily modified. It works well with Hogarthian setups as well.

Like I said, it depends on what you want to do and how as to which unit will be the best for you. That being said, the Meg does most everything very well.

Good luck with your purchase and training.

Eric

__________________
MEM "Da Pilot"

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

"If at first you don't succeed, don't dive silent."

"Would you mind not shooting at the thermo-nuclear weapons." ~ Vic Deakins

"Donkey's kill more people annually than plane crashes."

moley

This unit is 'sold' on the basis of being bomb proof...it is indeed very robust with not an ounce of Tupperware in sight.

Just to be sure of this and to make sure Innerspace were not telling me porky's I have reversed my landrover Discovery over both of my units just to see if I could break the Landrover.

So far I have not, but I will keep trying of course!!!

__________________
You think I know nothing.....and I do!!!

hamrhed42

i've herd the patteries are a pain but you cant have your cake and eat it too. im a hands on tipe of guy so a little soderign would not be bad at all. i would enjoy the pride of diving my own work.

mempilot

Cool. I haven't had to actually make any yet, but someday, I'll have a box full of the molex connectors. The SEC batteries last longer than the PRI, since the PRI fires the solenoid. When the PRI batteries get down to around 6v, I swap them to the SEC and bring the SEC up to the PRI. This seems to maximize the life, as a 6v SEC will work for quite some time.

There are some alternative battery mods as well for the Meg. There is a whole thread on that in here as well, so I won't get into it.

__________________
MEM "Da Pilot"

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

"If at first you don't succeed, don't dive silent."

"Would you mind not shooting at the thermo-nuclear weapons." ~ Vic Deakins

"Donkey's kill more people annually than plane crashes."

woody

I am surprised that drover had enough power to get over the meg! Did you empty the ash tray?

mempilot

Now that's funny! I owned a '98 Disco until I got rid of it in '05. She was a rugged but slow bitch!

__________________
MEM "Da Pilot"

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

"If at first you don't succeed, don't dive silent."

"Would you mind not shooting at the thermo-nuclear weapons." ~ Vic Deakins

"Donkey's kill more people annually than plane crashes."

wedivebc

If you are prone to butterfingers don't lift your scubber out over hard concrete or asphalt. I dropped one and cracked it another developed cracks near the upper spacer tabs. ISC replaced the cracked one but not the dropped one. It was easy to repair with epoxy though.

__________________
Cheers,

Dave....

Man is the only animal burdened with the knowledge he will eventually die

mempilot

Put a loop of cave line between two of the top screws on the axial scrubber. This gives an easy place to loop a finger and not drop it on the entry and exit.

__________________
MEM "Da Pilot"

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

"If at first you don't succeed, don't dive silent."

"Would you mind not shooting at the thermo-nuclear weapons." ~ Vic Deakins

"Donkey's kill more people annually than plane crashes."

Gilles

I had a baggage handler in Manila drop the bag from about 2m (in a soft bag), head first onto concrete floor, resulting in a broken O2 feed, and the feed itself twisted back, just on arrival to a diving trip.

Had a bit of high blood pressure.

Continued on with trip, got to Liveaboard, put some O2 in the tank, and pressure still held.

Same trip, another handler taking it from RIB to liveaboard in rough sea, slipped, and crash onto the steel floor, with the handler lying on top of it to boot.

This in addition to another 1.5x circumferences around the globe, it getting lost, not getting it in the cabin, numerous baggage inspection, and not repacked properly,.......

Other than some incidents with cells, the unit has never let me down...yet.

__________________
Gilles
http://www.dirrebreather.com