Disposable CO2 and O2 sensors

paulraymaekers

seems very difficult to me: the $995 should include all mechanics: wing, harness, first stages, pressur gauges, rebreather housing, scrubberhousing, breathing hose and mouthpiece, all tubing, tanks,

where is the R&D cost situated, and what margin is left for the manufacturer, sales organisation, to do decent aftersales service?

I can't even buy the 'buy-in' parts on the rEvo for that price...

paul

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www.rEvo-rebreathers.com

.... the earth is flat, Elvis is alive, and radial scrubbers give longer dwell time than axials...

Even Dykkeladd

Hi!

I just wonder; has many of the sponsors got the benefits of using these units yet?

Like, can you tell if f.eks. StaoilHydro and their (Norways) saturation divers have started using/training on the units?

Just recently I was happy to see a newly made education film sponsored by StatoilHydro, but the unit was not mentioned, although it was mainly a movie about hasards and diving physiology though..

Even

MichaelS.

It is a wonderful thing to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have been watching this project, it feels like since the beginning. I can not wait to see all products come out. One thing can you give an idea to how much more the eCCR will be? Just cant believe the mCCR starts at under 1000 bucks wow.

AD_ward9

That is because you don't injection mould them.

Small and medium sized mouldings in a sports unit are cheap: a decent plastic costs $7/kg. Most other parts are inexpensive: wings (welded PU in welded Cordura), you know the price of a rebreather first stage (astonishingly low), pressure gauges are separate: it is the sender in the electronics pack, rebreather housing is a moulding, scrubber housing is four injection mouldings, breathing hose is just two, all the P Port parts are injection mouldings apart from the spring, the mouthpiece is where the cost is. Hardly any tubing. Tanks are another major lump, as is the shipping box. Harness is a DIR type with the unit, with option for a body hugging harness as a separate item.

Rebreather housing acts instead of a standard backplate so people can fit whatever harness they like if they don't like the harness it comes with.

What costs a lot is development, and tooling. But without that, there is never going to be a market of any volume. By reducing costs we hope volumes will grow and that creates a business model for other companies taking the unit and adding on to it, providing different configurations using the same parts etc. Hopefully the larger volume provides space for many companies. The sports unit is not an eCCR, it is mCCR, and I can imagine some companies making eCCR conversions.

Alex

AD_ward9

There is another film with these rebreathers in it, and material presented by Technip at the Annual Bergen Dive Seminar last November. If you PM me with an email address, we can follow up offline.

The sat rebreather itself, the novel stuff like the PPCO2 monitoring, fail-safe injectors and O2 cell management, as well as all the topside monitoring, has worked well throughout the numerous manned underwater trials with different sat divers, but we are using a couple of months to change connectors over from a Fischer type to Birns full wet mateable because we kept on having flooded cables, flooded connectors etc on the peripheral items. As you know, in commercial diving if the microphone does not work because the cable is flooded, then the whole lot is down and the dive is aborted. We have asked for proper operational use to wait on these new connectors, despite a lot of pressure on training schedules and the client having 5 units already.

This connector issue is specific to the sat diving eCCR/eSCR: there are connectors everywhere all driven from and multiplexed in the sat rebreather - two dive lights, two high res cameras, visor heater, four zone suit heating, helmet speakers, helmet mics, helmet display and helmet voice annunciation, helmet diver alert switch, helmet open monitor, diver excursion umbilical, link to main umbilical, top side connectors etc. All have to work 24/7 365 days a year, with serious abuse. Changing connectors over involves a surprising amount of work because they are linked with a stab plate that allows a diver to connect almost everything in one go, in a few seconds, and the connectors themselves need protecting by shells.

The commercial diving eCCR/eSCR has very little in common with a sports rebreather. None of the above is present on a sports unit. There are no connectors to start with. We have had the parts for the sports rebreather tested and then sitting about for some time. It was recent events that caused us to decide to shake it off, clean up the odd bits that we would like to improve and release it. It would have sat about much longer otherwise, as sports rebreathers are a lot of risk for a business no matter how carefully and thoroughly they do things simply from the number of sports divers in poor shape. A contrast to saturation and professional diving, where people are highly trained, highly monitored and fit enough to pass a Cat 5 diving medical.

MichaelS: Thanks for your support. Good design, like good cooking takes a lot longer. Testing takes a long time to do thoroughly, especially with the design change cycles that result. In engineering if something has not been tested, then that means it does not work.

Alex

UWSojourner

Whoo-hooo! I'm in.

Soren Thomsen

Can't wait....

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- Giraffes were created when Chuck Norris uppercutted a horse -

MichaelS.

Ok I am almost convinced about this mCCR. It sounds perfect for me and dive partner(wifey)for puttin around most rec depth sites, but I still want that no holds barred eCCR you keep taunting us with.

AD_ward9

We are still planning an eCCR version, and recently got a grant to assist in its development (news of which is on the DL web site).

It is just that in the sports area, it really has to handle the worst things divers can do (including smash it as one person did deliberately to their Rebreather and then dive it, or not do anything about maintenance, rubbish buoyancy control), and still keep the diver in there. For the commercial divers we can do that, as there is umbilical bail out etc and constant monitoring, but we still have some way to go for the sports diver.

What Gill has been saying all along is supported by the accident studies we have done: a rebreather has to be at one extreme end of the spectrum or the other - nothing in between. One end is mCCR with good monitoring, and the other is eCCR with complete monitoring and command of the diver and his environment. We can do the former easily. The latter still requires some innovations.

Alex

paulraymaekers

that is indeed a strange business model: by not calculating the development and tooling cost, and taking no margin in parts you buy from third-parties...

and still there is quality control, end control, (final checks..)

still need to perform after sales service.. or will this also be free of charge?

paul

__________________
www.rEvo-rebreathers.com

.... the earth is flat, Elvis is alive, and radial scrubbers give longer dwell time than axials...