Submatix rebreathers

Rod Baverstock

I am looking to change to a rebreather because i am fed up with always being the first to surface - even if I leave it until I have 10 bars I'm still only in the middle of the group . i do a lot of underwater vidioing and I use that as my excuse .
I only dive in warm water and am looking at getting a Submatix semi -closed rebreather .
Does anyone have any info on them ?
I am not one who is very technical , all I want to do is go diving for longer than 40 minutes !!
My maximum depths would be 30 -35 meters .
Any help would be apreciated

ROB DAVIE

Rod,

Welcome to the best resource in the world for rebreather divers! There are at least several units that might fit the bill for you.

I would suggest that you read the stories in the "Articles" section. Read some of the user reports, and ask questions of our membership. They won't bite!

Welcome aboard!

Rob

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[SIZE=2]"CC Rebreathers will become a viable part of tech diving [U]WHEN PIGS FLY[/U]!!"--GI3[/SIZE]

Scuba_Vixen

If you told us a bit about your diving experience and such, it could be helpfull. As Rob said, there are some of the best Rebreather pilots to be found, here on Rebreather World.

It sounds as though your motivation for an Rebreather is based on your gas consumption rate. Experience and frequent diving usually are what improves that. A bigger tank may be an easier interim solution. While an RB certainly extends your time, it also requires regular use to keep the skills sharp. If you dive regularly, an Rb is a great tool, if only occasionally, it can be a great risk.


Give these guys a bit more to work with, and they'll have some excellent advice.



Darlene

nigelh

Contact the Submatics people in the UK and I'm sure they will put you onto somebody who will 'try dive' you on one. If all you want is a gas extender and you know about nitrox a semi is quite a good deal but getting one in the water will answer more questions than we can ever do here.

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nigelh

Rod Baverstock

I started diving two years ago and am qualified as a PADI Rescue Diver and I am 59 years old . I dive about 1 week a month from October until June , usually in warm waters , anywhere from Thialand to Maldives , and Cuba , but mainly in the Red Sea . I have about 120 logged dives . I have tried bigger tanks and yes I can stay down longer , but not much longer than an hour . The apeal to me was that with a re-breather I could extend my bottom time and get a good hours vidioing in , allowing me time to film at leasure .

schford

Rod - have you thought about a Sports Kiss?

Stuart

Simon A

Rod,
First of all. Have you seen any/all of the SCR/CCR units that are available?
If not then you may well want to look around at in alphabetical order:-
1) Dolphin SCR
2) Sport KISS MCCR
3) Submatix SCR


If you are not going to go deeper than 40m and know the dive depth in advance(the unit and the gas you use is set for the target depth) then a second hand dolphin is probably the cheapest way to do it. I'd recomend adding PPO2 monitoring to one, but it's easy to do.
A Submatix would do exactly the same for you.
A Sport KISS is in the same ball park pricewise as the Submatix , but requires more training and more consumables (a new set of sensors each year at approx £180 for the set) and also requires that you monitor the unit and react to what it's telling you during the dive. However once you have a KISS rigged it doesn't matter if it's a 45m or 4.5m dive. you don't set the unit up any differently.

However if the locations you dive in cant supply O2 but can supply Nitrox 40 easily then a SCR may be the way.

The other option you may want to consider is to transition to using a twinset, the outlay is much less and you can configure it so when you get to your destination you just cam-band two single cylinders onto your wing, put your regs on and dive. As has been mentioned rebreathers take effort and regular diving to stay current on, where as open circuit either gives you gas or it doesn't.

Hopefully this has given you a few things to think about.

HTH
Simon A

jondive

Hi Rod

Ive just sold a Submatix having dived it (happily) for year. My Sport Kiss came this week.

Its important to not only look at the diving you do now but also the diving you might want to do do later.

I know of know of a used Suby for sale and can put you in touch with other Submatix users. I'm sure Andy at Abyss would happily sell you a new one!

Pm me with any questions

RebreatherDave

I would recommend the Evolution with Vision electronics ...compact, lighter, has a scrubber monitor, etc....much better for travel then a larger SCR like the nice Sub unit.....I haven't tried a sport kiss but the guys who have them rave about them......never heard a guy say my sport kiss sucks....Prisms are smaller too and they have a cool heads up display.....all three great for travel.

SCR's will require nitrox blending, CCR's will not require such but you will need pure 02.

Now Scuba-Vixen may have the best advice yet....Beauchat has a steel 15 liter tank that holds 232 bars......

Faber makes steel cylinders up to 10 liters that are rated to 300 bars....either might make a huge bottom time difference and be a helluvalot less expensive than a CCR.

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Nad

Darlene and RebreatherDave,
I think many of us (at least me) began to dive rebreather because of the gas needed at depth or for long dives. Why do I have to wear a large tank or more when I can do the same with a SCR/CCR? Question of money and yes as you said time to use it then.

Anyway the point is that I don't see many other reasons to go for a rebreather.

Best,

Nad

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