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Originally Posted by QRQ 30
I never could see a practical use for closed circuit rigs. Your depth is restricted as well as physical activity. It was possible to out swim the unit resulting in anoxia. Can't work hard, can't swim long or fast and can't dive deep. -- Not to mention malfunctions! I am sure today's equipment is better but I still wonder if it is really practical.
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The CCR 1000/Mk 15 was to fix all that. I'm no commercial diver, only got in the water when I had to and was never one of the guys that worked in the SCUBA lockers but I'll throw out the low level view of the new rig.
As I understand it's background, it was developed as a commercial diving rig and then picked up by the Navy for use in their underwater minnie subs. With the Emerson rig going tits-up the Army started looking into the rig and picked up a number of them and gave them to the ACE Board.
The ACE board took a Flight Doc, some of their people and about 15 of us divers from 3/5th. We all when down to Key West for 2 1/2 months. The big shots were getting $20 per day and us divers were getting $2.50 a day. The joke was that we were getting $17.50 worth of sunshine.
The big thing about the Mk 15 was that it was heavy on the electronics and was a mixed gas rig. It worked off the partial pressure of O2. It had two gas bottles, one held the O2 and the other held regular air if you were only diving to 130' or so. If you used an inert gas instead of air you could go as deep as you wanted. The sensor system maintained the right partial pressure.
Combine that with the closed curcuit set up and it was a fairly good rig. The only problem was cost. The sucker was far to expensive to maintain in the groups. The groups did get a few and it was the C/C rig I was tested on in the CDS school in 1982 but they were all quickly replaced by the Draeger Lar-5 (sp?) system.
When we were testing it in Key West we were spending up to 6 hours under water at a time with it. The book said it could last 6 hours and the ACE board wanted to see if it would. We killed tons of time underwater all around Key West. We even had our own Mike Boat to haul us around.
We'd go out to Sand Key early in the morning and just go under. The civilian dive boat would come out and get ready to put their divers and swimmers in the water. The Mk 15 was a rebreather, no bubbles, and had a T-valve hook up for two breathing hoses. For grins a bunch of the guys from the Mike Boat would be swimming near the civilians before they got in the water. They'd all take a breath and go under, never coming up. It would drive the civilians crazy. Where did they go? They just free dived down to us and would grab the second mouthpiece. You'd get a low alarm light for a minute or two before the rig caught up again. It could handle two people, no problem.
We had a big chalk board on the boat and the guys would write "Sloppy Joe's 8:00PM" and wave it at the girls. Danged if it didn't work.
Pete