Optima rebreather - fully sick or a total joke?

abowie

Now I've got your attention (sorry)

Has anyone seen one of these or actually used it? They must be just about available by now....

If so can you give us your objective opinion.

It took a bit of a caning from the couple of guys I spoke to who saw it at Oztek this year.

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Andrew Bowie

Rebreather-friendly Buddy

Pelagian

I logged 60 mins on the Optima at Inner Space a couple of weeks ago for part of my Instructor crossover, as well as going through the complete tear down with Jeff Gorley of Dive Rite.

Please ask me any questions and I'll do my best to answer them

Cheers

Seb

__________________
'Because... I was Inverted!'

caveseeker7

Yes!
According to Dive Rite Esxpress' website shipping is sheduled for mid-July.

Seb, how many minutes does the crossover take?
Do you have one of the O2ptimas yet?
How does it compare to the Inspo and Meg your dive?

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Cheers
Stefan



"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority,
and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media,
which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.!"

Drmike

schford

He does say part of guys!

Stuart

Crazyduck

It should be noted that Lamar Hines did have a problem diving the unit recently-

Cross Posted from another site- Dated 05.11.05

Dive Rite Rebreather Incident

Lamar, Dan Lins, and Jordan Carrivuex did a dive to the eol in the Lockwood tunnel (235ffw max.) for approx.:25 min...Lamar on the P2ptima w/02 and 50% He, Dan and Jordan on TX 15/50 or so. I was there diving downstream with Jerry and Matt from Dive Rite to the downstream tunnel below the Pit (293ffw). Strangely enough, there was not another vehicle, other than our four, there all day...on a beautiful 78 degree Sat?

Upon surfacing Lamar experienced lightheadedness and extreme fatigue, so was put on 02 and fluids and driven to Shands, where they did all neurological tests and found him to be EXTREMELY dehydrated (blood was like "sludge", according to the nurses), and treated in the chamber on table 6 as a precautionary measure, even though they weren't sure it was any kind of Type II DCS. They pumped over five bags of fluids into him IV, he drank fluids like a maniac, and was still dehydrated 12 hours later, but with no other symptoms.

Turns out, as he told me upon reflecting on his fluid intake previous to the dive, that he had altered workout and other habits that would drastically decrease his hydration rates over the past few weeks (moved into a new house, etc.)
He was home Sunday evening after 24 hours at Shands, and is completely OK.



While I am not interested in starting a fire- I think it was an important event. I am glad to hear that Lamar is doing well.

A lot of people seem to be describing it as a …semi prototype unit.

As Stefan has said it seems to be going into production in July- we’ll see.

Pelagian

ima If you're already a CCR instructor with over 50hrs on your first unit and 100hrs overall then each additional rebreather you wish to be certified on will require you to dive at least 25 additional hours on it, plus all the usual teaching demonstration requirments on real or mock students, plus a full presentation on the unit including complete tear down.

So essentially I've completed the training now I need to log another 24 hrs on it.

We just ordered, 2 Sport KISS, 1 Optima and 1 Evolution.

As I understand from Jeff Gorley the first 40 units are in production and are already sold.

As for the dive The breathing was great, the buoyancy was great and the elctronics are everything wwe've come to expect from the hammerhead, intuitive and user freidnly. The Hud has 2 modes, PPo2 mode with flashes similar to the meg or simple mode with Green for good and red for bad.

The breathing hoses on the unit are narrower than most standard bore sizes. This is permissable by the very short distance to the scrubber canister as it sits(very comfortably) right in the crease of your neck. This does however have a surprising decrease in buoyancy on the unit.

With the propreitary steel cylinders that come with the unit i found it to be very negatively buoyant. This coupled with the use of a trans pac with a fairly chunky lumbar pad essentially bananna'd my back for teh dive which I had intended to be 2 hours long, but had to cut short because I found teh resultant trim very painfull.

Given that we're in very warm water and don't wear that much exposure protection, I think I'll trade out the steels for a couple of 13 or 20 cft Aly tanks and switch to my 2lbs backplate and that should provide all the comfort and trim necessary. This isn't realy a critiscism of the units design, more some persional modifications neceassary to accomodate my smaller size and tendency to sink like a rock. i've made similar mods to my Meg and that is in factone of the reasons for me purchasing that unit as it's so customisable.

It's profile in the water is surprisingly low. Some where between My meg(which is lower than the Sport kiss with my mods) and the inspiration. The smooth curve of the canister at the front coupled with the round narrow mould of the shell makes it pretty easy to push through the water.

All in all I like the unit. I think it's main appeal will be for it's ease of use with RPC's instead of granular absorbent coupled with it's Sub $7000 price tag with fully loaded electronics.

Cheers

seb

__________________
'Because... I was Inverted!'

schford

Thanks for the feedback Seb have a blob...

Stuart

Pelagian

Thanks Stu the blob factor is what it's all about ;o)

Seb

__________________
'Because... I was Inverted!'

caveseeker7

Thanks for the detailed reply, Seb.
I'm quite curious how the O2ptima will do in the market.

Andrew, I agree that Lamar's accident was an important event - an important reminder to watch your hydration and make sure your body is up to speed when you go diving.
I seriously doubt that being on a rebreather or that particular unit had anything to do with it.
Actually it should have been helpful as it means hgh O2 percentage in shallow water and avalability of pure O2 (or almost pure) as of 6msw until medical attention could be given.

__________________
Cheers
Stefan



"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority,
and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media,
which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.!"