Lamar and Doug McKenna from Micropore talk about the invention of the O2ptima, the choice of the Micropore Extend Air cartridge and some of the latest O2ptima features at DEMA 2007.This video was originally shared on blip.tv by Dive Rite with a Public Domain license.
While test diving our new Classic 360 Wing the other night I experienced some roll and immediately thought I was having air shift in the bladder. Then I realized I needed to make some adjustments. The TransPac I was wearing was last worn with a single tank, plus I am used to diving the O2ptima or sidemount. I hadn’t had a set of heavy, steel doubles on my back for over a year. All I needed to do was tighten up my harness to support the gear I was now wearing.
As I thought about the roll issue I thought about what my ski instructor had told me over the holidays. You adjust the boots and bindings for the type of skiing you do; the more aggressive you ski the tighter the boots and bindings should be. Technical divers need to look at adjustments the same way. Variations in drysuit and wetsuit selection can change the way your harness fits, changing cylinder sizes like heavy steels at home to aluminum 80s in Mexico changes the way your wing handles the cylinder weight and your trim.
I see more and more divers these days wearing loose waist belts and shoulder straps on their harnesses. If you ever see experienced cave divers doing long swims they wear their harness with a tight fit at the beginning of the dive and sometimes will tighten it more as they get to depth. The diver is suspended by a harness with a wing sandwiched between him and the doubles. It’s like you are a sky diver; how many sky divers would jump from a plane with a loose harness? You want to make sure the harness is tight when diving doubles so any change in buoyancy or body movement happen together and not a cascade event, when you point your body down to swim under a ledge and the cylinders join you a second later. This may not seem like a big deal, but it can cause you to get out of trim quickly and the moments it takes to recover can mean loss of control. A skier needs to know that when he moves his feet inside the boots that the boots attached to the bindings and skis react immediately or he may fall or loss control.
I have watched divers very loosely fasten the waist belt on the harness. I even had one person tell me he didn’t like any pressure on his stomach. Control is having your equipment move when you do and not a few seconds later. Look at your adjustments and check them again underwater and make sure your equipment is secure. I am confident you will have a more enjoyable dive.
Lamar
The back lighting is finally here. We are ordering the final components and gearing up for a beta production run of 100 units. If all goes well, these beta units will be ready in 30-45 days. After we go through the first beta production run we should be in regular production 30-45 days after that. All is well with the project, but a couple of vendors created delays that slowed the project considerably. Now that we are over that hurdle we should be moving at a much faster pace.
Lamar
The manned dives on the NiTek X are moving along without any glitches. We are now into the military testing on case integrity with extreme heat and cold testing along with interval pressure checking. We are still waiting on the back lighting to complete the production beta units. We are pushing the vendor to give us a delivery date. More information on the intuitive decompression model: The NiTek X gas list is for the dive, just like the older NiTek HE you program in the gasses for the dive. The NiTek X assumes you will use all these gases for the dive with change points of 1.6 PO2. This allows the computer to look forward on the decompression schedule and predict your decompression. This was a feature I had asked for so I could have some real information when 2000 feet back in a cave at over 200 feet in depth. The decompression schedule shown on the NiTek HE would lead you to think you would never get out of decompression because it only looked at the current breathing gas when computing total decompression time. The NiTek X will look forward and show you a more realistic schedule. If you don’t use all the gases programmed it doesn’t affect the decompression schedule, you just don’t get accurate total ascent time information. Jerry experienced this on a dive last week when 95% was programmed in for a deco gas but he didn’t have it with him. The real decompression time was accurate but the total time was telling him he could get out earlier if he would make the gas change.
We have been asked by some customers if we will handle service repairs on the NiTek X in-house. The answer is yes. We have computer technicians dedicated to servicing the NiTek X and will offer service in the same time frame as most of our products - 72 hours turn around.
Lamar
Rose Sink Cave System, FL
Feb 11, 2008
My dive required using CCR so I ran the Nitek X in CC mode and compared the decompression schedules between the Hammerhead and Nitek X. I ran a set point of 1.2 and programmed my diluent as air. I had to survey the cave out from maximum point of penetration: 4800-feet to my last station from a previous dive. The display on the NiTek X made the survey work easier because of the large depth display, plus the depth reading to a tenth of a foot.
The first deco stop was at seventy feet after 110 minutes of bottom time. Usually this is where I avoid looking at the total deco time on the Hammer Head CCR Electronics or the NiTek HE because they always show more deco time than actual deco until you get to the shallower stops. Yesterday, the Hammer Head was showing 134 minutes of deco, yet the NiTek X was showing 74 minutes. I had asked the NiTek X designers to build in some type of intuitive deco stop time. I wanted to have a real deco check at depth and penetration so I knew when it was time to come home. It works in CC mode and is being checked on a similar dive today in OC mode.
The deco countdown went like clockwork following the 74 minute schedule. I watched the CNS clock on the left of the display climb. The CNS tracking is on the left side of the screen, the 9 pixel display fills up in partial pixel display so you get a more accurate measure of the CNS clock. The NiTek He would jump a full pixel on the display for every 12.5% of use. After seven pixels on the CNS clock the eighth pixel came to life as just a line, but this pushed the CNS clock to 80% and the display started flashing. The Hammer Head deco began accelerating the total deco time and matched the Nitek X at the 30-foot stop. Both the Nitek X and Hammer Head cleared within one minute of each other.
The testing is going well. A few more tech dives are needed to verify some of the alarm features. The only way to really know if the NiTek X is performing properly is to do the dives.
I guess I need to go diving again. Lamar.
Friday, Feb 8, 2008
Devil’s Cave System, Florida
Last Friday, I dived a NiTek X beta for the first time in awhile. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any place of note to go diving so I dropped in at our local standby; Devil’s Eye Spring. Using a conservancy factor 2 (30/75 gradient), I swam a 55 minute circuit between 90 and 100 feet of depth. The computer is easy to use; gas switches worked just as they should have. The deco matched the HE almost to the second except the NiTek X spread it between 20 and 10 ft stops where the HE merely had a 10 ft stop. So far I am quite happy with it.
Jerry Murphy
Product Manager
I know everyone wants it now. These projects take time and we are diligently working on it. The major delay is the custom backlighting. The vendor had machine problems delaying production. We are one of the first production runs to go on the new machine, but that will be at least one more week. In the meantime we have another beta without the backlighting and power management system to continue the testing and validation. The software for the logbook function is finished so we can begin testing that as soon as the Fischer connectors come in. Test dive results to be posted soon.
Lamar
A couple of weeks ago, one of our Ambassadors was in town for an O2ptima crossover. A filmmaker, he works a lot in freezing cold temperatures and mentioned that his feet are frozen after several hours on the boat looking for the wildlife he is going to film.
We gave him a 905 drysuit that comes standard with neoprene boots and I explained to him the principles behind proper insulation. That is, you have to give room for air to move inside the boot. If you stuff your feet into a boot, the insulating sock will compress and lose its ability to keep your feet warm. A proper fitting boot will allow for air to move in the boot so the loft of the sock can maintain its form and your feet will stay insulated. The same principle works for undergarments on the torso.
It got me thinking, so I wrote an article about drysuits and undergarments. It is published in the download section of our 905 drysuits, Polartec and Primaloft undergarments. Article: Selecting Drysuits and Undergarments
Our Ambassador was impressed with the suit and is now wearing a 905 drysuit and Primaloft socks. Dive Rite Ambassadors
Lamar
On January 1st, 2008, the Transportation Security Administration released new restrictions on traveling with lithium batteries. Dive Rite light batteries do not contain lithium, so our customers need not be concerned when traveling with Dive Rite NiMH (Nickle Metal Hydride) batteries.
However, lithium batteries are used in camera equipment. Photographers should take note of the new rules, which can be found here: Lithium Battery Travel Guidelines
Lamar
Light emitting diodes (LED) is the latest in lighting technology. As with any new technology it is growing at a rapid pace. The last time I saw technology growing like this was with computer processor chips. The fastest computer today is outdated in six months and we are seeing the same in the LED market. It makes sense because of the combination of electronics that are making the advances, including the LED, drivers and heat sinking combinations.
The first high output LED for Dive Rite was the 300 lumen flashlight that we released in the summer of 2007. Now we can power it to get 500 lumens … who knows where it will be later this year. Kind of like the 1 gig processor being replaced by the 1.6 and then the 2 gig processor all in about 12 months. We plan to keep up with the technology and give you the best we can within our design parameters. So now the LED 300 is a LED 500. Sorry if what you buy today is outdated in a few months, however we believe in progress and our customers expect us to deliver the best technology available. Don’t wait to purchase an LED now because the lumens will be higher in the future because I can’t tell when the next increase in output is going to occur. Our engineers send the latest to us as they get it developed.
Lamar
