Photoshoot with the G1 rebreather.
The G1 rebreather is my homebuild which features many ideas, some good, some cumbersome, some not so good. One claim to fame is the use of four socks to keep the scrubber chemical in place while the breathing gas flows through it; for more details see its main page on solocavediver.com. Here we have a few underwater photos taken by my open-water diving buddy Bernice Constantin, plus some photos taken at the surface by Joerg Hess.
And here we have "Socks In Action".
Bernice and I have dived Troy Spring, a little crowded because it's a public holiday (Labor Day), and now I have stepped back into the water wearing the rebreather, which Bernice has kindly agreed to photograph.
I have made some notes on what is going on in the annotated version:
A little while later we catch the diver injecting a puff of O2:
Here is the annotated version:
And here we have a close up, which emphasises a problem: the mouthpiece assembly hangs rather vertical because it's quite heavy. Best solution is to redesign things so it's much lighter in the G2 version. Feels quite comfortable though.
Here we have me and Bernice before the dive: Bernice getting kitted up, followed by me kitted up for sidemount diving but not yet in the rebreather.
And here we have the end of the dive: my buddy swimming off and enjoying himself, work done. Many thanks!
But back in rebreatherworld, one awkward question remains: how easy is it to get into this wonder-gadget? The answer is provided by an all-too-revealing sequence of photos by Joerg.
These are taken at Telford Spring, Florida.
Diver with kinked harness tries to attach scrubber to harness.
Having attached the scrubber and hoses, the diver tries to clip the counterlungs (and the tube that gives him his (extra) reserve buoyancy) to his waistbelt.
Drat it, why won't it clip?
I'm sure that clip is down there somewhere!
Let's tip the whole thing over and see if we can find it!
Success!!! Now to attach the mouthpiece assembly.
The plastic fittings get cross-threaded quite easily.
So it's nice to have some help from Joerg's lady friend.
I won't even try to do the other one.
OK that's what we have been aiming for.
Joerg feels he'd like some evidence that this thing can really be breathed.
Side view.
Telford Spring, where the real action is now about to happen.
And after that, I had quite a nice dive!! As of this writing the G1 has done about 25 dives of depths to 80 feet and durations to 70 minutes.
One final point. The photos don't make clear how all those motor cycle inner tubes are arranged. It's like this: there's an upstream counterlung over my left shoulder, a downstream counterlung over the right shoulder and a reserve buoyancy tube (complete with inflator hose) round my neck:
