Northwest Dive Club

Whenever I talk to people about rebreathers, I used to give them that look and say something like, "Yeah, they look cool, but I'll dive them when the technology become a little more reliable..."

Now I'm kinda eying them and thinking that if I came across a little extra scratch... well you never know. Besides, the more tanks vs a compressor thread kinda got me wondering...

So my question, what have people seen as their startup costs and how much has it been costing t hemto actually dive their rebreathers? I'm wondering if I should invest into another trimix doubles set-up, or start saving for a CCR...

My KISS holds about 6lbs of scrubber that's good for 3 hours diving. figure about $2.50 a lb for scrubber that's $15.00 a fill or $5.00 per hour.

If you have 19's on the rebreather you'll have one with O2 and one with Air (trimix later). What's and airfill $5.00 and the O2 really shouldn't cost more than $10. The 19's if they are full should get you 3 hours of diving depending on how much you use your suit/BC. So for reality sake, lets say you get 2 hours out of them. That's $2.50 an hour for Air and $5.00 an hour for O2.

That makes the total per hour $12.50 and that's actual hours on the rebreather at any depth. Pretty close to Nitrox.

The other expense is the O2 sensors which should be replaced annually and run about $180 a set.

Dave

I'm heading over to the dark side this November. The daunting part of going closed circuit is the initial investment. No matter how I sliced it, between The unit, a CCR computer, Training, and a few other odds and ends, it's right around 10,000$, or 100 scuba units. After that, costs are pretty reasonable, especially Trimix fills, if you're into that kind of thing.

So another big investment that I will have to hide from my wife ](*,)

Nailer99 wrote:I'm heading over to the dark side this November. The daunting part of going closed circuit is the initial investment. No matter how I sliced it, between The unit, a CCR computer, Training, and a few other odds and ends, it's right around 10,000$, or 100 scuba units. After that, costs are pretty reasonable, especially Trimix fills, if you're into that kind of thing.

So, are you glad you spent the duckets on doubles first, or do you wish you'd applied all of that toward the CCR (meaning you'd have gone from diving OC singles straight to CCR)?

fishb0y wrote:So another big investment that I will have to hide from my wife ](*,)

Yeah, welcome to the club.....

Calvin wrote:

Nailer99 wrote:I'm heading over to the dark side this November. The daunting part of going closed circuit is the initial investment. No matter how I sliced it, between The unit, a CCR computer, Training, and a few other odds and ends, it's right around 10,000$, or 100 scuba units. After that, costs are pretty reasonable, especially Trimix fills, if you're into that kind of thing.

So, are you glad you spent the duckets on doubles first, or do you wish you'd applied all of that toward the CCR (meaning you'd have gone from diving OC singles straight to CCR)?

Yeah- I was slated for OC Trimix at the end of this month, and cancelled in order to apply the money to, well, all of the above. But I don't regret any of the time and money I invested into my doubles or the advanced Nitrox and Deco training I had- those are incredible classes, and they changed my perspective on diving quite a bit. And when you take CCR with me, you'll be taking the advanced Nitrox class concurrently while I concentrate on my new rebreather! Plus, some of the dives I've done since getting "the twins" and sticking my toes in the tech diving "kiddie pool" have been just awesome. Even when I drove down to Hoodsport just to do a "tech dive" w/ Maverick the other weekend- he'd just finished taking adv. eanx/ deco that morning, and I wanted to do his first "post class" deco dive with him- he had his tanks filled w/ 32%, so we decided on a max depth of 110 fsw- but we stayed down there for 30 minutes before we started our ascent. The site was really, really.....bleak. There was almost nothing to see there except for tons and tons of squat lobsters- they were just carpeted all over the bottom- thousands and thousands of them. We just slowly kicked along the 110' contour, watching the lobsters watch us.......and I loved every minute of that dive. I'd do it again right now, except for the two beers I just drank. I love diving, and I really love being below 100 feet, for some reason.
So, no- I don't regret twinning up and starting tech training, and if I had the time, and more importantly, the money, I'd probably go all the way through advanced trimix on OC just to do it, before I got my CCR, but since time and money are big factors for me, I just decided to skip over some of what would be redundant training for me, because I've already decided that Closed Circuit is how I want to dive.
For anyone who's new to this stuff- Rebreathers are NOT the sole domain of Tech divers, and there are recreational Rebreather divers out there- some of them have almost no experience with open circuit diving, as a matter of fact. But I'm headed into tech diving, and I firmly believe that CCRs are the best tool for that particular type of diving. But they're awesome tools for people who want to log tons of bottom time above 130', too!

Steve, depending on how you go about it and your style of diving there is quite a range in costs. A full eCCR is more expensive. To trick out any style rebreather for the redundancy I prefer for extended expeditions adds a few thousand. For training and gear my first rebreather venture cost about 12.5 K for an eCCR with trimix capability (the Evolution). After a year of diving, i've developed a hankering for doing some of my own modifications so I'm transitioning to a manual rebreather and adding redunant electronics to it according to my specific needs and desires (the copis meg.) My configuration added up to about 9 K. Once your are set up with whatever you end up choosing, the costs come way down.

I buy my sorb in bulk, costing me about $2.5 an hour, I buy my o2 in bulk and transfill from Al 80's..., less than a dollar an hour, for dilluent I also transfill from Al 80's...less than a dollar an hour. I'm diving for less than the cost of nitrox per hour.

with some rebreathers and po2 computers you will incure annual costs for maintenance and upgrades once the warrenty runs out.

Some brands encrorage more independence and self maintenance, helping to lower the running costs. You kind of have to feel it out to determine what you needs are and wieght the pros and cons of each as there is no one rebreather for everyone.

As for making such a large purchase under the raider, I'd recommend just getting her on board and buying one for each of you...that's what we did...put off buying a house a little while longer. She has words with me periodically about it though

Looking back at the date of my first post I guess it is proper for me to announce my turn to the darkside now. I just sent Curt my order for a Hybrid rEvo III. I'm not sure how am going to wait until the end of August to do my course with Mel in Florida (besides reading all the course matial of course).

fishb0y wrote:Looking back at the date of my first post I guess it is proper for me to announce my turn to the darkside now. I just sent Curt my order for a Hybrid rEvo III. I'm not sure how am going to wait until the end of August to do my course with Mel in Florida (besides reading all the course matial of course).

Congratulations! And welcome to the dark side! Yeah, the waiting phase really sucks.

Been thinking "I've been waiting 4 years... whats a couple months now?... a long time"

fishb0y wrote:Been thinking "I've been waiting 4 years... whats a couple months now?... a long time"

Hey, I had to stare at my Meg sitting in my office (without a breathing loop) for 6 weeks before my class. I feel your pain.

Nice welcome to the dark side and the darker rEvo side

sea2summit wrote:Nice welcome to the dark side and the darker rEvo side

Meh. It just doesn't sound as "Darth Vader" when you have a yellow rebreather, somehow.

Joshua Smith wrote:

sea2summit wrote:Nice welcome to the dark side and the darker rEvo side

Meh. It just doesn't sound as "Darth Vader" when you have a yellow rebreather, somehow.

Nice!

So Josh (S2S - Josh) When's Paul going to do something about that awful yellow? People are paying thousands for the units then multiple hundreds $$$ to cover up the case! Maybe digital camo or heck I don't know um BLACK?


Back on Topic! Welcome to the Darkside! You won't regret it other then the years you missed diving oc!

Dmitchell wrote:So Josh (S2S - Josh) When's Paul going to do something about that awful yellow? People are paying thousands for the units then multiple hundreds $$$ to cover up the case! Maybe digital camo or heck I don't know um BLACK?

How would I know? I'm a Meg guy; and besides, everyone knows Belgians are weird.

Dmitchell wrote:

Joshua Smith wrote:

sea2summit wrote:Nice welcome to the dark side and the darker rEvo side

Meh. It just doesn't sound as "Darth Vader" when you have a yellow rebreather, somehow.

Nice!

So Josh (S2S - Josh) When's Paul going to do something about that awful yellow? People are paying thousands for the units then multiple hundreds $$$ to cover up the case! Maybe digital camo or heck I don't know um BLACK?


Back on Topic! Welcome to the Darkside! You won't regret it other then the years you missed diving oc!

Tell you what Dave, grab one up and I'll change the color for you

Besides, functionality/efficiency of sorb use/ease of setup/size beat color any day

It was a hard choice between the Meg or the rEvo, but in the end I don't think I could dive with a piece of dive gear named after the daughter from Family Guy.

fishb0y wrote:It was a hard choice between the Meg or the rEvo, but in the end I don't think I could dive with a piece of dive gear named after the daughter from Family Guy.

Rofl! I just try and think of Meg Ryan, circa 1990. Or Mila Kunis, who does the voice of Meg on Family guy.