Why the Meg?

STARDIVER

The Meg seems to be a VERY popular choice? Can anyone elaborate on why they chose this machine, and perhaps some of the unique benefits of it? It is among my top3 currently, and I need some input to make a decision. I am debating between the RB80, the Inspo/Evo, and the Meg. I wish to dive 250-350 with enough duration for necessary deco.

Mark Chase

The RB80 is a totaly different beast, mearly a gas extender and best suited to totaly horizontal dive position due to WOB (Work of breathing) issues. Even dedicated folowers of DIR have been known to describe it a sucking treakle through a straw if you get it wrong.

So the SCR stile RB80 just gives you a masive amount of back gas and you need seporate decompresion and travel gases to optomise the dive and posably a gas switching block.


Personaly i dont think they are optimal for OW diving and i would look at the KISS or the new CMF Meg if i was against electronics.

Evo/Classic is the worlds most popular CCR. The Classic has a very well documented fault history so its probably the most easy to run maintain and avoid problems withj. Cirtainly on our boat (Megs Visions and Classics) the Classic has had the least problems.

The Classic dosent have a HUD and i would strongly recommend one. I use the URI HUD which works well.

Megs are well built but not issue free and the new intigrated head the Apex3 is not yet on the market so it dosent have any field test data. The Meg is the best in terms of transportation logistics and flexabuility when in standard form.

Visions have been arround for about what 18months?? is it and most of the bugs have been dealt with. They are proving to be a solid unit but IMHO they need modifieing with a decent travel frame to make them transportable.

HTH

Mark Chase

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mverick

Reasons I liked the Meg. It's proven very durable. On boats and diving.

Haven't heard of any problems with the handsets of the Apecs 2. Or whatever it has now.

Heard problems with the Early Shearwaters. But, that was addressed and fixed. Sort of. Mine doesn't have problems. Some did. Who's fault the problem was is up in the air. I have my own ideas. But they are just my own.

Picked it over the Inspiration, there wasn't a evo at the time because of
1. Expandability
2. Durability
3. Travel
4. Machine quality

Didn't even consider a RB80 once I got into it. And already had IDA71 and IDA72. So no KISS for me. Although they are nice rigs.

schford

All Units have their pros and cons and there is no perfect machine.

IMHO you just can not compare a CCR and an SCR (RB80) I can totally see the DIR rational for an RB80 but unless you are die hard DIR then the pros of CCR far out way an SCR (IMHO)

I have a Meg and am happy to share with you what I think are the pros, along with a couple of cons....

It is very flexibile and user configurable and built like a brick shit house.

It is dead easy to transport and use various size cylinders at you destination.

It is a 'cool' unit to be seen diving - hehehe

It has been used down to silly depths by our very own Cedric.

But then if you couple an Inspiraiton with Phis Travel frame you get all that - not to mention much more functionally rich leccies with the VISION compared to the APECS. Though you can now buy Shearwater leccies agin direct from Bruce.

You know - my advice owuld be ignore the RB80 and go test dive / look at/ play with /talk to owners of a Meg and a vision Inspy (ideally with new frame)

geee I wasnt much help was i....

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Kevin.

Explorer

No complaints at all with the Meg. Ditto here with Stu's comments. Let's face it, it's 'COOLEST CCR out there'.

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ScubaDadMiami

My instructor, Tom Mount, dives the Meg. He prefers it because he says that he has traveling with it down to a "science." He can pack it so that it is small for traveling, and that is a big advantage for him.

I had it narrowed down to the Optima and the Meg when I was trying to sort this all out. Though I "Opted" in the end, I think that the Meg is very solidly built.

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Howard Packer
IANTD CCR Instructor
Miami Beach, Florida
CCRDiveTraining.com

tumbler

For what it's worth, I got a meg, and wrote up the reasons I chose it. I guess it really all depends on what you are looking for in a Rebreather, but I know of one GUE instructor that uses less gas on OC than his students do on the RB80.

Here are my reasons:

http://spiralbound.net/2005/12/29/re...uation-part-1/

I was looking at the the Inspiration, PRISM and Meg.

decoweenie

... which means nothing because:

• when doing a Rebreather, many simuilated "failures" happen so the students could learn to deal. All of these exercises cause a high usage of gas.
• when doing a course on a new unit, students are usually nervous and not relax. This consumes more gas than usual.

Why I know ? From personal experience of teaching lots of Rebreather courses...

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Steve

yup. Ditto.

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