Diablo(Offline)

graham_hk(Offline)

go for the buddy - they are the best in my opinion

TobyFish(Offline)

Closed circuit.
This is an elegant sollution, but I would only recomend it for drysuit diving. the drysuit hose is much more convenient than wing hose for smb inflation on top of which if you are diving in a wetsuit and try to use the wing hose to inflate YOU ARE DISCONNECTING YOUR ONLY BUOYANCY

open-bottom bags can deflate at the surface so get one with s baffle. The other concern people have about these bags is the perceived risk of free-flow when you press the purge. This shouldn't happen in theory if you treat it gently and don't create more airflow than you would when breathing the same reg. This is one (very small) area where DIR cofig has a disadvantage over PADI style. because your longest hose is on your highest performing reg... so the one you inflate with is the most likely one to freeflow - oh well. Of course you can inflate these bags from your exhaust - but personally I think the risk of getting hooked isn't worth it

oral inflate is possible with the halcyon bags so you don't have to choose between oral and halcyon-style. Tobin's 1m oral-only bag works a charm but is not widely regarded as large enough for a primary bag for rough seas. very smll pack size though so consider it for your back-up

steve_cooper71(Offline)

Today I was practising with my H cc bag, it worked no prob, however when I went to reconnect the feed to my dry suit it wouldn't go. Not sure what had jammed or stuck. There was no freeflow of air, haven't had a good look at it yet but I'm not sure I'm totally convinced on this method yet. I can imagine it might be tricky in really cold water with thick gloves trying to disconnect and reconnect a feed. And maybe it introduces a potential problem, I have heard of feeds being caused to freeflow. I don't have much personal experience with these so I'd like to hear what others think, who have.

With so much standardisation with kit within DIR one might expect some sort of guide line on which type of DSMBs should be used. Clearly whether one disconnects feeds, purges regs, exhales or orally inflates will mean a different set of potential problems.

If I was being really cynical I'd think that GUE haven't ruled out the cc bags yet because H have a load to sell.

best,
steve.

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floater(Offline)

For the primary I prefer an orange or red, semi-closed bag. Semi-closed are just quicker and more convenient to shoot than oral-only bags.

For backup I use an oral-only bag that's small enough to fit in my left thigh pocket along with the backup mask. Oral-only is enough because I almost never use it, and I prefer yellow so that it can be used for signalling. i.e. I'll tell the surface support that if they see a yellow bag it means a problem and they should drop down an O2 bottle, send someone to check on us or whatever else we agree on. In some countries yellow is in fact used to signal a problem or an emergency.

I want both bags to be well made with OPV having seen several cheepo bags break during use.

TobyFish(Offline)

These issues are real and they are part of the reaon i haven't bought a CC bag yet. However, if you think reconnecting a feed is likely to be tough, you should practice it like you have been and if it's tough, work out wether you can mprove things with technique or kit selection

freeflowing hoses are often fixed by inserting the male part of a valve into them. Halcyon have included such a male-fitting on their lovely new knife a sreviewed so scathingly on this forum. So does anyone other than Halcyon think that connecting an air hose to an edged weapon is a good idea?

steve_cooper71(Offline)

probably with a little more modification you could have a harpoon of sorts as the new Halcyon knife has a nice pointy blade. Could be handy in waters where man-eating sharks are a possibility.

But seriously... I'm not one who would profess to say what's DIR or not... but.. when you have to start redesigning knives to account for a potential problem caused by an 'innovation' that was done without for years (i.e. suit feed charged valves on DSMBs) then maybe things are straying a bit. For years a sawn of kitchen knife was DIR!

I bought my cc bag believing naively, at the time, that if its Halcyon it must be DIR, is it really?

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Rob Dobson(Offline)

4'5" Halcyon as a primary and a 1m Halcyon as a backup.

I tried several cheaper alternatives before finally accepting that Halcyon do actually make the best dSMBs. I don't do the whole blindly buy Halcyon kit thing but credit where credit's due their dSMBs are very well designed and very well made.

Agir-Brokk make the better spools though

floater(Offline)

What's your opinion on Carter bags?

Rob Dobson(Offline)

Don't have an opinion - never heard of them.

Subtle elements of the design and manufacturing quality can make a huge difference to what is in theory a very simple bit of kit.

I had 7 different dSMBs before finally going with the Halcyons...