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Dear All, I've just been to the U.K. dive show where a number of rebreathers were on show. I thought I would post 'my' reasonably educated, hopeful end user view of what I saw. Cis-Lunar...... On its own stand, helpful sales/technical people. The unit looked as though it had been flown post-haste from Mexico, this being on of its main advantages in terms of sales, i.e. famous cave explorers using/designing them. As an exploration model it looked as it should, lots of back up gauges, all the fittings were either OEM (made by an equip. manufacturer) or solidly machined (possibly over engineered). The main advantage I could see over its rival (Oceanic) was the chest mounted counter lungs, which as well as positon seemed sturdy. Apparently the mk.5 will have better routed breathing hoses, better layout, smartened up box etc. (All the internal workings have been well covered in a number of books/articles so don't ask me) Oceanic........ My first (customer) thought on seeing it was 2 million spent and your using 4-D cell torches with a wire silicon set into it as battery packs!!!! It seems nickelrocketry lives everywhere. Bearing in mind these shows are designed to sell. The unit seems to be designed for ease of use over functionalty (contradiction), what I mean is that the counter lung is in the fibre glass back pack not on chest. This was confirmed by the sales man, everything else (scrubber etc.) seems well designed. Apparently the main benefit over cis-lunar is that the cis-lunar requires the operator to calibrate the O2 sensors, while the Oceanic doesn't. Also the Oceanic comes with one computer display (to be easier to use) no LEDs telling you the sensors work etc. Drager.....(semi) Nice looking model aimed at sport market, the main two problems I thought were the flimsy counter lungs, and the over-pressure valve which sits at the top of the back-pack and is supposed to be user adjustable based on breathing rate?? Firstly it would be difficult to adjust in water (apparantly adjustment is made pre and post dive based on experience/ size of user ) the second is that placed ther it would be easy to inadvertently break it. Everything else seemed well designed, different nitrox mixes require different flows or replenishing gas and there is a flow controller with fixed orifice sizes for various mixes. Prism.....(semi) Saw one hidden in a corner, seems to have died done in publicity lately. However it looks to have the best designed scrubber of the lot. And I would bet that Cochran are planning to upgrade it to fully closed. Perhaps a market exists for a semi-closed with an on-board real time deco calculator. (Benefits - computer doesn't need to control any gas flows, presumably easier more reliable as far as computer is concerned.) p.s. back to Draeger.... The other dodgy bit was the hose connections to breathing bag, some of which were quick! connect type while others were compression, all of which were fiddly and looked inadequate (saw a demonstration of how easy it is to remove and clean bag). p.s.2 All except the cis-lunar, had mouth piece shot offs (stops water entering the loop) that were badly designed. The un-dived version worked when you held both sides, while the dived versions (salt deposits) would have resulted in ripping the mouth pieces out. Not ideal really. has no ome thought to use some arrangement of mushroom type valves?? The cis-lunar version did work, and an engineer friend there also noted that it could be done better. So there you have it my opinion. yours jon. -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Jon Dann Christopher Ingold Laboratories Chemistry Department University College London e-mail: J.Dann@uc*.ac*.uk* 20 Gordon Street, WC1 HOAJ tel: 0171 387 7050 ext. 4651 -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
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