(NB: experienced technical rebreather divers might find this post “boring” while beginning technical divers might find it interesting and provide you something possibly new to think about and non-divers will probably just frown and wonder what am I talking about). 🙂
I don’t really know any technical divers who aren’t also “gear hounds.” I’ve lost track of how many tanks I own.
One of the big advantages of diving a rebreather is that you generally don’t use your bailout gas. That means that you fill the tank once and it could be literally years before you either want or need to refill it. Of course, you need different tanks with different gasses based on the depth and expected decompression obligation. Hence, the proliferation of tanks…
My “usual” deep bailout tank is a 6.8L Carbon Fiber tank filled with something like 21/35 (yes, I know they aren’t DOT approved).
They are light, they have good “trim” and buoyancy characteristics, and can carry quite a bit of gas. The working pressure is 300 bar (about 4350 psi). At that pressure, a 6.8L tank can hold about 72 cubic feet of gas (6.8 L * 300 bar / 28.3 L/ft3). So, I get 72 cu ft of gas in a tank that weights less than an AL40 and has better buoyancy characteristics. Practically, I usually fill to about 4200 PSI and get about 65 cu ft.
Planning bailout for a 200′ dive
Normally, that tank would be perfect as my “deep bailout” for dives up to 200 feet deep without a lot of penetration (i.e., the types of dives I typically do here in Southern California).
If I do a 200 foot rebreather dive for 30 minutes at a PO2 of 1.3 with a Gradient Factor of 50/80 and a Diluent of 10/50, I get 60 minutes of decompression for a run time of 90 minutes. Perfect!
However, if I have to bailout and all I have is my 21/35, it would require about 245 cubic feet of gas!
Therefore, on a dive like that, we carry a second cylinder of gas with a higher oxygen content. The “standard” gas for that would be Nitrox 50 (50% oxygen). In that case, I would need about 20 cubic feet of 21/35 and about 80 cubic feet of 50%.
So, I would use relatively little of the 21/35 and require (at least) a standard AL80 tank full of 50%. I’ve done plenty of dives with this exact configuration, but then I started thinking about trying to balance my bailout tanks (I do the left/right tanks and not both on the left) and thought “why not just buy a second carbon fiber tank?”
Then, I started to think about this idea of balancing gas usage between the tanks and realizing that I can’t practically carry enough 50% in that 6.8L tank…
The Bailout Gas Tradeoff
There is an implicit tradeoff that happens when you carry bailout gas.
If I carry 50%, I can start breathing that “oxygen rich” gas at 70 feet deep and stop using the “oxygen lean” gas 21/35. This will shorten my decompression time significantly (207 minutes to 96 minutes).
You might ask “why not just bring 100% pure oxygen?” That would reduce the decompression obligation even more, right? Not really.
The problem is that you can’t start using the 100% until you are at 20 feet deep which means that you need more 21/35 gas to fulfill your deco stops until you get to 20′ and the shallower you go, the less effective that gas is. So, you gain efficiency once you get to 20′ but you are less efficient by not being able to switch to a richer gas at 70 feet. Also, note that you would need 92 cubic feet of the deep gas.
Here is a table that summarizes the different scenarios mentioned above:
| Scenario 1 (no bailout) | Scenario 2 (only deep b/o) | Scenario 3 (with Nx50) | Scenario 4 (with O2) | |
| 21/35 | 0 | 245 cu ft | 21 cu ft | 92 cu ft |
| 50% | 0 | 83 cu ft | ||
| 100% | 0 | 39 cu ft | ||
| Runtime | 90 minutes | 207 minutes | 96 minutes | 110 minutes |
Which gas to use in my new tank?
I bought my second carbon fiber tank and started to think about what gas to fill it with given that most of the dives I would use it for are in the 150-200 foot range and that I would be pairing it with an identical tank filled with something like 21/35.
Nitrox 50 would be the normal choice but you can see from the above table that I wouldn’t have enough capacity. I started to analyze the idea of using Nitrox 70 or Nitrox 80. Note that “old school” rebreather divers used 70% quite a bit as a deco gas but I don’t see it very often anymore and most people have “standardized” on 50%.
Here is what the dives would look like for both 70% and 80%:
| Scenario 1 (no bailout) | Scenario 2 (70%) | Scenario 3 (80%) | |
| 21/35 | 0 | 51 cu ft | 68 cu ft |
| 70% | 0 | 62 cu ft | |
| 80% | 0 | 52 cu ft | |
| Runtime | 90 minutes | 99 minutes | 103 minutes |
In the end, I decided to fill the tank with 70%.
One potential downside to this is that Nx70 is not a popular or “standard” gas that other divers carry. So, if I need to donate my gas, the other diver needs to know that it is only breathable above 40 feet AND that they probably need to program that gas into their computer.
Now I need to go dive with the configuration and see how well it trims out. 🙂
What RMV are you using for BO planning?
I think I just had it set at 0.8 for both Bottom and Deco in MultiDeco.
PS – I just used 0.8 for consistency among the different test cases. For real dives, I vary the RMV depending upon the severity of the dive. Mel Clark also taught me an interesting way to calculate gas usage that I’ll show you next time we meet up. I personally think a “safe” way of estimating gas usage is a RMV of 1 or more for bottom gas and then .5 or more for deco gas. If you do have a CO2 hit and you bailout, it is probably going to be 5-10 minutes of heavy breathing before you even get close to clearing it.
How are those carbon fiber tanks working out? I’m thinking Of buying them. What do they cost to get them in the US?
On Sat, May 29, 2021 at 12:47 PM Wrecked in my rEvo wrote:
> Brett Eldridge posted: ” (NB: experienced technical rebreather divers > might find this post “boring” while beginning technical divers might find > it interesting and provide you something possibly new to think about and > non-divers will probably just frown and wonder what am I talki” >
I really like them. Again, just make sure you have a way to fill them since they are not DOT certified and you need to fill to 300bar to get the full benefit.
Just from memory, I think each tanks was $250-$300 including a valve and shipping from France. The prices are higher on their website because they include VAT which you don’t pay.
Brett
Just FYI, your gas volume calculation does not factor in compressibility and you are carrying a fair bit less gas than you think.
A 6.8L cylinder at 4350 PSI of air is only 64 cu-ft, not 72. At 4200 PSI it is less than 63 cu-ft.
I haven’t run the numbers for the same volume and pressure of 21/35. It would be different. Helium has a different Z factor than O2 and N2, and it’s actually LESS compressible, so volume would be even less than 64.
http://cmwelding.com/technical/gas-calculator-gas-phase
Yep, understood. When I’m diving alone, my bailout plan is usually about 40-50% of the capacity (e.g., about 30-40 cubic feet). When I’m with other rebreather divers that I know/trust, it is more like 50-75% (i.e., team gas).
Hi Brett!
This is one of the few detailed sources of information that I found on the Carbondive 6.8l, so thank you for posting this.
I am somewhat in between OC (sidemount for caves/wrecks and backmount for deep) and CCR (JJ) right now and looking to buy at least 2×6.8l tanks that I would use interchangeably for sidemount OC and bailouts for CCR.
Do you have any information on or have you measured the buoyancy characteristics? I cannot find a proper spec sheet – weight in water full/empty + trim details (the need to pass a restriction in sidemount OC by removing them from the waist D-rings and bringing them forward, for instance, is a breeze with the Alu, a nightmare with normal steel tanks).
I find them pretty neutral in the water. I essentially sidemount them when I’m diving my rEvo rebreather. If you look at the latest post I just sent out, my friend Drew took some pictures of me in the water with both of them on and you can see how they sit.
I generally have something close to 21/35 on the deep bailout tank and a one-pound weight at the end to counteract the helium. They are very light and easy to maneuver in the water.
– brett
Another factor to consider for helium-rich dives is that you might spend a fair bit of time waiting for your computer’s deco model to compute acceptable off-gassing of helium, which if you believe the laws of gas diffusion, should not be affected by what proportion of nitrogen or oxygen is in your deco gas (equal rates into 50% nitrox or 100% O2). Nitrox mixes below 100% should be perfectly fine for that aspect
I think you are basically referring to what most people call the “helium penalty?”
If so, there are ways around it but I don’t use them (e.g., flush the loop with a bailout gas with less helium than your onboard Dil on your first deco stop and switch your computer).
There are also a lot of theories by some well respected scientists and divers (e.g., Simon Mitchell) that basically say that the helium penalty is real but potentially accounts for limitations in the algorithms we use.
What I do know is that I’ve done 100s of dives with rich helium mixes, paid the helium penalty, and haven’t been bent.
Also remember that those cylinders are for my bailout so the gas mixtures in them are only in play if/when I bail out.