Miscellaneous Items
Condensation
Drying the Head
Joe Radomski's rig
Dave Thompson Designed
Case (The "DT Box")
Enrique Alvarez's Case
One of the criticism's of the Inspiration is the amount of
condensation in the head. I have insulated a lot of my hose and canister to
reduce the temperature difference and hopefully hence reduce the condensation
Here is a picture of the condensation in my head after a 45
metre dive with 50 mins run time. I have seen much more than this before
(Whoops this picture is corrupted, so now I'll have to go diving again to be
able to take another one!!!, unless one of you guys can provide a suitable
image)
Dives involving drills may produce a LOT more condensation
especially if diluent flushes are carried out. It is considered good practice to
dry the condensation and allow the unit to air dry when possible.
The condensation and moisture comes from two different sources
1) The cold O2 gas from the solenoid chilling the warm gas in
the head and forcing it to dump its moisture content and
2) The warm moist air condensing on the side of the inhale
scrubber exit hose and dropping back into the scrubber. Some people place object
into this hose to do this (very controversial mod as it can easily increase
inhalation resistance)
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Most people are agreed that one of the best things you can do to
prevent cell errors and corrosion of the solenoid and cell molex's is to remove
the condensate from the head as often as possible. There are several schools of
though on this. Some do it after every dive, some just open the head up at the
end of the day and allow it to air dry
My routine (and this seems to be the normal one) is that I don't
open the head between dives if I'm doing 2 or more dives in a day. But at the
end of a day (I normally change the scrubber after our normal 2 dives a day), I
do physically dry my head out.
There are 4 favoured methods to dry the head
1) Kitchen roll or other absorbent cloth, and physically
wipe out the moisture. This works very well. You can see exactly how dry you
have got the head and helps you to spot any corrosion problems. The disadvantage
is that you can disturb the connections (always check afterwards by switching on
a handset and making sure you don't get a cell failure) and you need the
absorbent. I use special absorbent material which is re-usable (see
Supplies). Its easier than carrying kitchen towel
which gets wet on a boat anyway.
2) Air stream drying. fairly common. If you have a spare
tank or know your getting your diluent refilled, use a blast of air to dry the
head out. This does work, but personally I find the 3 litre cylinder empties
before I gets it all out. Disadvantages, well none really other than it takes
longer to pump your tank and the noise. This should not disturb the connections
3) Forced air flow. Some ingenious folks use fans to blow
dry the head. I have seen the small computer muffin fans rigged to connect to an
Inspiration hose to circulate air through the system. I've even seen a battery
version. This should work and wont disturb any connections. The disadvantages is
that the air stream must be high to work and you need power
4) Natural Drying. Just leave the head open overnight.
This can work in a dry and warm environment (at home), but definitely doesn't
work on liveaboards. Personally I do this when I store the unit and still
do it on top of wiping or blowing just in case I missed anything
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Joe has completely remodelled his unit around a custom Titanium housing
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Dave Thompson has for ages been playing with running 2 x
7 litre onboards with 2 x 3 litre extra cylinders and we have tried to get
them successfully mounted several ways including Justin's large case. There
are several other solutions out there like Joe's box above and the Jan box but
they are either hard to get hold of, or not so suitable, so as usual Dave
designed his own and had it made up
The Prototype
was tested in Lanzarote and then modified and tidied up and the result is
below. I've been lucky enough to get one of the first 3 prototypes made so
will be testing mine soon. First impressions are very good and the quality of
the Stainless steel and welding is very high. This baby should be able to take
a lot of abuse
The design allows the use of 2 to 4
cylinders from sizes 1 litre to 12 litres, although 2 x 7's and 2 x 3's is
envisaged as its normal load. The scrubber is protected and a lifting handle
fitted. The base is wide and allows the unit to easily be self standing and
has enough space to store DSMB etc in. All the fittings needed to mount the
tank straps and the manifold are included. Mounts are the standard 11" spaced
bolts so the ordinary Inspiration harness or a SS backplate can be used. All
areas in contact with the Wing are rounded
Here's the great news, its also lighter than the original ABS or the newer
plastic standard shell, Stands upright on its own and offers less water
resistance. All internal fittings are visible to inspect for leaks as well
I'll put up some more photographs when I've fitted mine
out. If your interested drop Dave Thompson or me an email and we'll give you
the contact
And here are some pics of Dave's unit made up on the frame
Spot the new lung design and before you ask the Kiss like
plumbing is the O2 manual inject (as the lung is round the back now), The hose
runs to the exhale T
Price is around £250and you
can call the builder direct on 07930950146 (another Dave!!!)
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Dear Stephen:
Hi, It's Enrique Alvarez from Diving Equipment Specialties Corp.
I have seen your web-site a few times and found Joe's Titanium chassis that I
built for him and I thank you for posting it there.
I have made some major improvements to the unit that I would like to share
with you in a few JPG's that I have attached. The unit in the photos is
stainless steel, but I am also making them in Titanium, the stainless steel
unit is fitted with a Titanium 4 position adjustable height bottom cage to
compensate for different height divers. The backing plate can also be mounted
in 3 different positions. The unit is sold with a square brass manifold that
attaches to the inside of the chassis with marine grade VELCRO, this manifold
has more outlets than the one on the inspiration since no space is wasted for
the mounting screws. You will see two holes in the bottom of the chassis with
rubber grommets, these are for the hoses to run through the inside of the unit
and protect them from getting damaged.
The Stainless and Titanium models will be available with an under the arm
bottle mounting bracket as the one that Joe has, but the whole bracket will be
detachable when not needed.
Thank you again
Enrique Alvarez
Diving Equipment Specialties Corp.
909 Madison Ave.
Union, NJ 07083
Phone: (908) 810-0488
Fax: (908) 810-9790
www.techdivetools.com
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