Talk:Scuba set

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This article is part of WikiProject SCUBA, an effort to create, expand, organize, and improve Scuba diving-related articles to a feature-quality standard.

If an image belongs with a paragraph, I put the image description line before the paragraph's title line so that the image comes as high as possible within the paragraph, to cut down the amount that the image intrudes into the next paragraph. Anthony Appleyard 07:33, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • I think that concise style implies, that images and text belong under a heading, in fact, no content in a structured article should be outside hierarchically nested headings.
    By the way -- why is the title of this article in plural? AtonX 10:31, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry to keep re-editing the text, but:-
Both types of scuba sets consist of

i) a breathing gas supply stored in a high pressure diving cylinder,
Not true with potassium superoxide rebreathers. Arguably not true with liquid-air scuba.

ii) a diving regulator attached to the diving cylinder
Not true with constant-flow open-circuit sets or with some rebreathers. We must cover old sets as well as modern sets.

Rebreathers also employ advanced electronics to monitor and regulate the composition of the breathing gas.
Not all rebreathers, and not old-type rebreathers. I have been in scuba diving from before divers' lifejackets were heard of.
Pony cylinders and stage cylinders are an important feature and should be mentioned.
Anthony Appleyard 00:00, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Cylinders, regulators and stages

  1. Firstly, in potassium superoxide rebreathers the scrubber filling also produces oxygen, but these rebreathers, too, contain a high pressure cylinder to top up the loop with breathing gas, which gets compressed with the depth! In liquid air scuba, the liquified breathing gas is also stored in a high-pressure cylinder.
    Thus, I argue, a high pressure cylinder is a general part of both types of scuba sets - aqualungs and rebreathers.
  2. Secondly, old constant-flow open-circuit sets as well as some rebreathers contain a constant flow regulator (more correctly - a constant mass flow regulator), whereas the aqualungs and the rest of the rebreathers contain a constant pressure regulator. Hence, generally it is a regulator which is a general part of scuba sets.
    The term demand regulator is -- in my opinion -- highly misleading. It is technically a constant gas pressure regulator combined with a demand valve.
  3. Thirdly, pony cylinders and stage cylinders are an important feature of a diver's equipment, I agree. However, they are just independent aqualung-type scuba sets attached to the diver to enhance his/her safety or gas supply, they are not parts of what this article describes - a scuba set. Logically, you can't say a scuba set is a part of a scuba set. They belong to articles on diving equipment or configuring cylinders, otherwise it is just duplicate information in the encyclopaedia.
    Similarly, wings and/or jackets are not a part of the breathing apparatus. They are attached to the harness, but so is the knife, the light canister, the weights etc. Here, they are misplaced - for the sake of logic and clarity, they belong to different articles! AtonX

Whether we call pony cylinders part of the same set or another set, is a matter of definition. Anthony Appleyard 23:35, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Duplicate sections

An edit note: there were sections of this page that were exact duplicates of previous sections. A copy-n-paste gone wrong? I'm not sure. In any case, I've removed them. Thayvian 19:57, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spearfishing?

Should we be encouraging spearfishing (by including it in the links) amongst scuba divers, esp given how many organisations dissaprove of it.

  • I agree with you that some divers oppose spear fishing (personally, it's not something I do, and I prefer it not be done when I'm near it in the water), but I don't think it belongs as an italicized comment to the link. My suggestion would be to add a spear fishing segment to SCUBA to bring it up there and cite concerns. It just doesn't belong as a comment on the link. Wikibofh 6 July 2005 21:04 (UTC)
  • Perhaps instead we should be linking to the spear-fishing article and debates about ethics could be brought up there? Justin 16:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nitrox

Would a bit about nitrox be ok here? Justin 17:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not put it in Enriched_Air_Nitrox? Mark.murphy 19:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

"Captain Trevor Hampton in the 1950's or 1960's designed an early single-hose aqualung with a fullface mask with a circular window which was a very big and thus very sensitive demand regulator diaphragm."

Did the circular window somehow act as the diaphragm? --Gbleem 06:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I've removed all external links, as none of them were appropriate for this article. This is an article on scuba equipment, and only links providing further information on equipment are appropriate. That means that links to commercial websites, local diving websites and training organisations shouldn't be there. Please read WP:EL and WP:NOT, and discuss here before restoring links. Thanks. (Of course, relevant links can still be added.) -- David Scarlett(Talk) 22:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The first 4 sentences of this article

It seems quite odd to me that the first 3 sentences of this article are about the origins of the name. Only in the fourth sentence is the name defined.

Is it really necessary to note the origins of foreign language words at all in this article? It does not seem relevant to this article - this is an English language article on a technical subject. I would probably find this information interesting if I chose to read an article about loan words, acronyms or the origins of words used in Welsh - not here. Even if it is justified, I don't think the origin of a word in any foreign language deserves such prominence on the third sentence in this article. Mark.murphy 22:45, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FDA

Regarding this sentence: Exotic gas mixtures presently used in scuba are intended to prevent decompression illness in diving, but officially, the FDA appears to continue to believe that scuba divers all use compressed air.

Either the FDA "officially" recognizes something or they only appear to recognize something because it isn't official policy. Instead of conjecturing as to what their policy may or may not be, how about finding a reference? Mojodaddy (talk) 14:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ambiguous

"Still, most semi-closed systems allow at least twice the duration of open circuit systems (around 2 hours)."

Which lasts 2 hours, the semi-closed or the open circuit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.132.129.187 (talk) 00:17, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The semi-closed. The preceding paragraph illustrated a 40 minute duration for open circuit. RexxS (talk) 01:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Air Cylinders section

As this article has been around for some time, I thought I should flag up a revision I'm about to make. The article states "The drawback is that aluminium cylinders are neutrally buoyant when full, and positively buoyant when nearing empty. This results in having to monitor buoyancy during the dive more closely..." Why should a correctly weighted diver need to monitor more closely? The change in buoyancy as a cylinder empties is precisely the weight of air lost (about 1 lb for each 14 cubic foot of free air). It simply doesn't matter what the cylinder is made of. The real drawback of Al cylinders compared to steel is that they tend to be much thicker (and heavier despite the lower density of Al). This increases the total volume of the diver+set, which equates to a greater total weight to carry out of the water. RexxS (talk) 01:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)