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I (A.Appleyard) enquired about cost of running an automatic mixture rebreather compared with cost of the same amount of aqualung diving. Richard Pyle <deepreef@bi*.bi*.Ha*.Or*> replied:- >> When considering costs of *ALL* expendables/replaceables ... approximately >> US$10-12 (retail prices) per hour of use.... I replied:- >That $till $ound$ expen$ive ... Carl Heinzl <heinzl@sw*.st*.co*> replied:- > $10-12 PER HOUR sound expensive??? ... a single tank runs $3.50 US here in > the Northeast [of the USA] ... ... it's not uncommon to spend $75 on gas for > a tri-mix dive and that dive certainly isn't a 6 hour dive!!! Sorry, I was thinking of the sort of diving that the majority still do, namely for an hour or two on air without getting into long decompression. If I bought a 12-hour-dive automatic rebreather and used each refilling of it for several short dives, it (or a spare scrubber and a spare set of gas cylinders for it) would take up much less space than 12 hours diving's worth of spare aqualung cylinders; but how would it compare in running costs in that case? The first of the recent wave of automatic mixture rebreathers that I heard of was the SMS2000 made by Carmellan in England; its makers spoke of military sets with a 24-hour duration. How heavy and bulky would an automatic mixture rebreather have to be for it to have that duration? Would it be a practical proposition? I wouldn't want to stay underwater for 24 hours at a stretch; but, as hereinabove, it would be useful for several short dives without having to carry infinity spare aqualung cylinders about or to have to fiddle about in diving site conditions or on a small boat changing cylinders and scrubbers.
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