The Ouroboros Rebreather

CCR Research Ouroboros Rebreather - 2004 Prototype
By Ron Micjan

Originally published at my homepages - www.tmishop.com

One of the benefits of dive trips is exposure to other divers and seeing their gear. My recent trip to Grand Cayman was no exception. The trip, actually more of an event, was called Zero Gravity and it was put on by Sunset House dive resort in Georgetown, Grand Cayman. The folks there, most notably Reg Creighton and Erika Leigh-Haley, did an awesome job of putting this all together. Sponsored by IANTD, ISC, Jetsam, Delta P, Advanced Diver magazine, Dive Rite, and Sunset House, the trip was a showcase of Rebreather diving. I will be writing a short article on the trip itself and posting it later, so look for that on the site. One component of ZG is the technical seminars, put on by the sponsors, and the first one was a description/show and tell of the new Ouroboros Rebreather being developed by Delta P Technologies and Kevin Gurr. Naturally, I was present, in the front row, with my trusty Canon D-60 and a notepad. Here is what I learned.



This unit is the military prototype, the consumer unit will be 4 inches shorter and minus the back cover. The backup display, powered by one AA battery and is backlit, which reads PPO2 or millivolt output of the 3 Teledyne R-17 oxygen sensors, is the highest, most right display in the picture, it has 3 individual digital displays and the Rebreather may be run in manual using only these readouts, the output of the sensors are isolated and sent here and also to the setpoint controller. The display on Kevin’s right hand is the main display, and incorporates a fully functional VR3 dive computer with additional menus for the RB controls.

At first glance, the unit is quite large, but when placed along with all the other units being dived here at ZG, it really is not overly big. One thing about the prototype that might need to be addressed is that it won’t sit vertical on its own. The prototype is quite heavy but will be weight trimmed for production units, no specific production weight numbers yet. The machining work inside this unit is super clean and neat, its obvious that many hours were spent making the unit elegant, and some very neat engineering went into this Rebreather. This unit has been in development for about 5 years, there are currently 6 units in trials and two of these were here at ZG, Kevin was diving one and Gary the other.

Some of the features are labelled in the picture below, such as


Snap in mounts for the gas cylinders, this is a great idea, the body of the cylinder snaps in to the top (labelled) mounts and the neck of the cylinder snaps into the lower mount, no fumbling with hose clamps, Velcro or cam bands. The regulators, which are both Poseidon X-Streams and are fitted with overpressure relief valves, are in the base of the snap mounts and high-pressure SS braided lines connect to the DIN valves of the cylinders, keeping the regs well protected.

The central round pod is the setpoint electronics, on the top is a set of wet contacts that will turn the unit on when they hit the water, the unit will also automatically turn on at 1.5 meters as measured by the depth sensor, there is no master power switch, so no jumping in with the unit turned off, of course you must crack the valve for the oxygen, but there is a pre-dive menu that covers that, more on that later. Also on the electronics pod is a buddy display with a PPO2 readout in large digits, great if your buddy is above or behind you, but not much use if you are diving side by side. The pod also has two Fischer ports, one will allow connection of a stainless steel depth transducer, required for saturation diving, and another port for data download or telemetry to send Rebreather health info to the surface or a diver tender.

The unit is provided with an ADV shutoff, reachable through a cut-out in the shell, see illustration.

The solenoid is mounted in its own enclosure, not in the breathing loop and is user replaceable.

The surrounding philosophy that Kevin has in his design is “no tools required”. The time he has spent in very far away places working on rebreathers has ingrained this important point into this Rebreather. He dismantled the unit to its components with his bare hands, all hoses are threaded to their connections, the scrubber has clips that allow its removal, and batteries can be changed easily. All connections requiring a seal are done with double O-rings. One exception to that is the DSV/mouth piece, which is designed without O-rings and also comes apart easily, the DSV is similar to the Draeger DSV and has a post you rotate toward your chin, or away from it for open or close. The breathing hose attachments are designed to swivel allowing easy adjustment anytime. The breathing hoses are armoured for crush resistance and have a smooth internal bore, similar to the Mk 15/16 series of RBs.

Ron Micjan


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