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igotoofar · 03-28-2003, 01:23 PM,

I have seen the Aragon/Air topic tossed around a little bit. Now that I am waiting for my Dry Suit to come in, how about some opinions Wink

Those of you who dive dry, do you use Aragon or Air, and why?

Freedive WI · 03-28-2003, 01:38 PM,

Yes,

It's way warmer than air.
It's mandatory for cold water trimix diving.

I have used many differnet sizes of bottles for argon, but have finally decided on using a little 6 cuft one that straps onto the left side of my wasit strap very nicley- it get's bungied up against my back plate per. DIR.
I know that this may not work for everyone, but we have booster pumps in the shops down here to boost the argon up to 3,000+ psi so I get the full 6 cuft.

Some friends of mine have opted for the lp aluminum bottles that hold around 15 cuft. strapped to the left side of their doubles.

For ice diving we just use the argon bottle on the surface adn run the hose along with our ice line. This keeps things simpler and easier to manage with a big group- we'll run 20 ice diving student's through on a weekend course- not including other who come to dive for fun while were set up. Here is a shot of what it looks like. The red hose is the argon line and the yellow is the rope.

Jon

tcjtn0 · 03-28-2003, 01:59 PM,

One question??? Any problems with line tending a setup like that??? I.E. Do you run one line from the argon source and then split it off to multiple divers -or- one ice/argon line per diver???

Tanx...Jean

Freedive WI · 03-28-2003, 02:50 PM,

There are no extra problems for the tender because the hose and ice line are attached all of the way down to the end. At the end of the line the divers are attached by a "Y-line" to the rope and the drysuit hoses are attached to a splittling "block" that goes into the hose. The argon tank is on the surface where it is kept in a heated ice shanty. This allows for warm gas to be pumped into your suit and you can use every last psi out of the tank- well down to the 80psi that the regulator is set to anyhow. Wink

Jon

igotoofar · (This post was last modified: 03-28-2003, 03:00 PM by igotoofar.)

I am surprised that you pump enough air into the suit that you get the benefit of the heated tank. Do you vent air (Aragon) from the suit to allow new/warm Aragon in?

That is a really cool picture. It doesn't look like their is much snow on top of the ice. Was it shoveled off or was this early in the season?

Freedive WI · 03-28-2003, 03:02 PM,

It always helps to purge your suit before you enter the water.

I like to fill my suit up with argon and then squat down to squeeze it out of the arm valve. I do this 2-3 times before I dive and then I am sure that I have a nice and toasty suit. 8)

We didn't have that much snow down here this year. A lot of cold weather, but not a lot of snow.