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Once again, read the part about balancing your rig. If you have 80's and a
drysuit, you have to ad weight to the rig to offset the drysuit insulation.
We use shell suits, not neoprene, so the suit itself has no variation in
buoyancy and neither does the insulation.
I realize this is a difficult concept for some of you to grasp, but as
always it is dirt simple. Your rig needs to be such that you can stay down
at 10 feet with little or no backgas, and still swim up easily from depth
with full backgas by dropping something, like the canister light or the
weightbelt. Anything other than that is ridiculously stupid for about fifty
different reasons.
-----Original Message-----
From: H. Preston Hobbie [mailto:hphobbie@at*.ne*]
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2002 7:23 PM
To: techdiver@aquanaut.com
Subject: RE: neutral AL 80's
What about using these as doubles for drysuit divers? Does this do some or
all of the things that steels do? And use standard alum for a stage ....
H. Preston Hobbie
Phone and FAX: 317-891-8072
-----Original Message-----
From: Lee Bell [mailto:leebell@ix*.ne*.co*]
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 11:56 AM
To: LouisianaLegal@ao*.co*; techdiver@aquanaut.com
Subject: Re: neutral AL 80's
Susan wrote:
> Does anyone have any experiences or comments on the Luxfer "neutral" 80
cubic
> foot AL tanks?
Luxfer is not on my list of favorite companies. Their handling of bad alloy
tanks they previously made and the cost of the Visual Plus device they
developed to address their problem at my expense left a very bad taste in my
mouth. I own only one Luxfer (not a neutral buoyant tank) but have 6
Catalina Compact 80 tanks which are also neutral (and have been around
longer than Luxfer's offering).
I like three things about my Compact 80s:
1. They are just a bit shorter than a standard 80. At my height (5'8") the
slight difference in height means I can carry them with straight arms versus
the bent arm required for standard 80s. The Luxfers are not shorter.
2. The neutral buoyancy when empty means I take 4 lbs off my weight belt
without adding anything anywhere else. This is the primary reason most
people like the tanks and particularly important to me. That 4 lbs just
happens to make me perfectly weighted with my stainless plate. I don't have
to wear any lead, anywhere when diving warm water, which is what I do almost
exclusively.
3. The trim on the Catalinas is good. They're nicely balanced from top to
bottom. I believe the Luxfers are a bit bottom heavy, but don't take my
word for it.
|> I was wondering if these would make good stage bottles and/or double tank
> sets for the ocean. Does anyone know what the working pressure is on these
> cylinders?
I'm not sure these tanks are the best choice for everyone. If you dive wet,
I don't think they are any better than some steel tanks. Presumably, your
tanks will never be comletely empty and, therefore, will always be at least
partly negative. When you twin them up and,. even worse, add stages, you're
accepting a lot of non ditchable negative buoyancy. If you are scootering,
they're not going to tow as nicely as the less negative standartd 80s do.
For most, I don't think it's a real good idea.
While I recommend people diving single tanks at least try out the neutral
buoyant models, I think buoyant tanks would be a better choice for mutli
tank diving, particularly for open water stages. They represent less
negative buoyancy and, in a pinch, could actually be a source of positive
buoyancy. While it's not a primary issue, it's also nice to know that if I
ever had to ditch one, I don't necessarily have to lose it. Open the valve
and drop the tank and, sooner or later, it will return to the surface on its
own. If you do this, however, please recover your tank from the surface.
I'm not at all fond of the idea of hitting a floating tank with my boat.
Lee
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