For those of us who couldn't make it (like me), how was the meeting?
What did you learn?
Was anything new or exciting discussed?
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For those of us who couldn't make it (like me), how was the meeting?
What did you learn?
Was anything new or exciting discussed?
Nice crowd. Good speakers. I set in on nearly all of them.
Here are a few raw photos... I'll upload some later today to the CDF.
http://www.divetraining.net/pictures...nov_17_nacdws/
Ditto what Tom said.
The social on Friday night was well attended, and good food/drink was enjoyed by all. Thank you Richard Dreher for selling the NACD caps because it was COLD!
I attended all the Saturday sessions and enjoyed them all.
Thanks to the NACD for putting this on. For a volunteer organization, they do an amazing job with the seminar.
There were a lot of nice prizes donated by Salvo, Golem, OMS, Dive Rite, Ginnie Springs, Steve Gamble, Eagles Nest Training, NACD, Hammerhead, Adventure Sports in Tampa, and others that I have probably left out. Thank all of you in addition to Splash and ADM. Your customers appreciate it!
This was my first NACD seminar, and it was fantastic. I sat through all of the presentations, and learned something from each of them. Thanks to all of the speakers, they did a great job. The BOD looked pretty snazzy in their suits, spiffy!
Deb and all the volunteers did a great job putting this event on.
It was also great seeing so many of my friends and dive buddies (both past and future!).
I was diving during most of the CCR seminar today, but I was listening while gearing up and down, and it was excellent as well. It was nice seeing all the different manufacturers there. Quite a crowd!
Shirley
If (like me) one was interested in rebreathers then the convention was amazingly informative. Just an awesome amount of information from a lot of different people. There were some other presentations as well which were all very well done, great speakers, good videos, etc.
Many thanks to the presenters and organizers and especially to all the rebreathers trainers who volunteered their time and units.
Oh and the food was awesome. Burt served up a full thanksgiving style dinner for the Friday night social, The hotel did lunch on Saturday and sandwiches for lunch break at the Sunday CCR Summit. I ate better then if I'd been stayed at home.
Rich, the dive animal, picked up his 1000 cave dive award. Really impressive considering I think I had a several hundred cave dive lead on him just a couple years ago and I'm nowhere close to 1000 now. :)
The Workshop was simply Outstanding!
Great. Sat had a lot of good presentations. I missed some of the RB workshop to go diving on this morning but what I saw of it was very informative. Very well organized.
This was my first NACD conference as I was working out of town for others and it was truly a great event to attend. From the campfire talk and fantastic food Friday night to the informative and interesting presentations on Saturday. Also, the various venders at their booths as well as all of the NACD volunteers doing their thing.
I had a great time, learned some new things, saw some new things and very much look forward to the next one. Now let's just hope that I'm not out of town again....
I'm sure I'll get shredded for this, but...
Was I the only one that had a real problem with Leon's little speech on sunday?
He didn't say a dam thing about his breather, and spent the entire time slamming other instructors, training agencies, and manufacturers.
It felt very unprofessional and a rather cheap shot at the industry while on his soapbox.
Other than that it was pretty awesome :-D
Well the discussion was about how each rebreather differed. Most CCRs are basically similar in function and just a few pieces make most units different from the standard.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Edmonston
The point I took from his talk was the difference for his unit was in quality control of the units and instructors. Maybe his unit had some features that were different - if so he didn't mention them.
All the speakers had interesting things to say. Though it would have been nice to have gotten some specifics on the unit I came away better informed either way.
One item of information one of the speakers mentioned was that there were (I think) 36 :!: startup companies showing rebreather units at DEMA this year. Add to that the hundreds of home built units described on the internet and there is just an amazing number of rebreathers out there. I think rebreathers are becoming much more common and the topic of rebreathers at the conference was well timed - as well as amazingly informative.
What I took from that was the following. ISC sees a challenge in the competition coming up in the RB arena. There are only so many RB divers and more and more manufacturers are fighting over a small pool of customers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Edmonston
His poise on his ISO 9001:2000 was to show that he makes quality products. They DO!, but not because of ISO certification. That certification assesses consistency, if you start with crap, you will consistently make crap. If you do make quality products, you will consistently do so.Luckily they do make an excellent product.
Yes Mike, I was somewhat surprised at Leon's apparent frustration, maybe anger and fear of the future and others coming into view. Innovation will keep things afloat, not personalities.
Yup, I can't agree more. what really burns me is that Beth and I REALLY wanted Leon to tell us the nitty gritty of his machine. I know it's an awesome product, it's built like a tank, but he treated us all like 2 year olds.Quote:
Originally Posted by MengTze
During the break, I went to talk to leon about the Apex electronics, I had questions. His response was more or less "if you have to ask, you don't belong on my machine".
Like we discussed about the RB-80 + training, that's not a positive business plan. Beth and I are now in the market for some new rebreathers, and he has potentially alienated 2 clients that were pretty excited about his machine.
I just don't get it... Oh well, it looks like we're picking up 2 Inspirations instead. Such is life..
Come on man. The Meg is one of the best rebreathers on the market. Are you seriously going to not buy it because you had a chance to meet the owner of the company and don't care for him? I have no doubt that owners of many companies from whom I purchase products wouldn't be my best buddies. But if they make a great product, I'll buy it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Edmonston
The Inspiration seems to be a quite different rebreather than the Meg. At least from my looking at both. Are you giving up anything crucial to buy that one instead?
I personally thought Lamar did a great job staying away from the politics and talking about their units. After diving so much with Brett, the logic he has with respect to bailout (BOVs), etc aren't really addressed with any of the other units. However, I have seen the Optima and the Meg both dove with offboard bailout sucessfully.
Just my OC 2ยข
Hi Ford,Quote:
Originally Posted by PerroneFord
Long time no chat...
The inspo is not really different. Scrubber, front counterlungs, electronics. For Beth and I, it really came down to the Optima, the Meg, and the Inspo. We dove the Optima and the inspo. Both are great machines. For the diving that we do, we would like to stick with loose sorb as opposed to cartriges. Nothing wrong with the extendair (Used them in the NAVY), but loose sorb is more widely available in places that we dive. I am very familiar with the meg, and what it really comes down to is the electronics. I really like the Inspo electronics, and I was there Sunday to LEARN about the MEG Apex electronics. Again, what burns me is that the owner of the company thought that we were not worth the time. If he feels that way before a sale, how's he going to treat us after we buy the machine. I have friends STILL waiting for parts from Leon. Sorry, my life doesn't run on his schedule.
IMHO, the MEG and the Inspo are both very capable machines. I choose to dive the Inspo because I FEEL better about the service that I'll receive if I ever need something from the company.
You really have to worry when someone (Leon) is so overconfident about their product. It eventually clouds your vision. It leads to the inevitable "It can't be my product's fault, I build the best product" attitude.
That my friend, might eventually cost someone his life, and I'd rather it not be mine.
Yay - big bailout! That's my ticket. Brett's KISS CCR and the RB80 were the "Big bailout" units. We actually got to dive a couple of the KISS units. I think Brett's mod would have been our choice among the CCRs.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeepSea
I've been designing my own. The RB80 would probably be the closest thing to what we are building (big bailout, no electrical controls and simple to use). But after looking at all the work to design and build our own we'd probably actually be willing to pay the big bucks to avoid the hassle. No luck there though: can't buy or take the course unless you are DIR all the way through Tech 2+.
That's OK though, we really didn't have $20K to spend and I think I'd rather die then dive DIR anyway. ;-)
Kind of the opposite of Leon's ISO-9000 tested rig: no controls, no inspections, be my own guinea pig. :)
If you can't buy the the RB-80 but want that style what about this unit?
http://www.frogdiver.com/pricelist.html
Stay AWAY!!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by curtschu
I talked to him at length at DEMA,
1. NO water traps
2. Backmounted counterlungs with NO DRAINS
3. Depth limited to 130ft
4. NOT DESIGNED FOR CAVES!!
5. Insanely small scrubber.
for SCR's this is a much better bet, and 1/2 the price About
http://www.hbtechnology.it/sporttechdet.php
ISC is in a good position as to product development and manufacturing. The Meg is an outstanding unit and given that the manufacturing process is certified, I think it would take actual malice to create a dud system and get it in the hands of a customer. So I would not worry about that too much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Edmonston
(not pointed at anyone)
On the other hand, many people are emotional buyers and with the strong personalities at play, one would not be hard pressed to see people shy away from ISC. I too am not fond of the man, but he makes a fine RB. So I'll stick with that for now.
Thanks.
Ours is headed more towards a "sidemount" unit carried like a stage bottle (like Duncan's D5) SCR running off standard doubles which also serve as bailout gas. And it'll run off a standard deco computer as if you are just using standard OC equipment - with the option of running higher PO2s for deco like a CCR.
In my theory efficiency is nice but doesn't do any good in a cave if you still need to carry full bailout. Anything more then 4:1 is nice but unnecessary. CCRs commonly run in the 20-30 to 1 range but then if they crash you've got to have bailout sufficient to get you out - which means you can't go farther then your dilutent.
Even the RB80 isn't what we wanted - it'd just be easier then building our own. We'll have some features I can't really talk about until my patent lawyer says it's OK. ;-)
(In other words: I could tell you but then I'd have to make you dive it without training.) ;-)
When you are ready to talk about it, let us know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary
I am surprised no one is talking about Jakub's (Golem Gear) unit. He offers both front or back mounted lungs, 4 o2 sensors, etc...What did everyone think of his unit?
Looked great. I'd say he had all the bases pretty much covered from what I saw. All the units that were described did (except for the Lar5 and MK15 which were military units just for show and contrast). Choosing between one or another would have a lot to do with style of use rather than features mostly. Not everyone really went into full details of their units, most just described why certain features of their unit worked well for what they were doing.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeepSea
The Golem breather is very nice. Same electronics as the Optima. The only thing that i was not crazy about, was the protrusion of the sensor wire directly on top of the head. It just looked like it could be ripped clean off fairly easily. Other than that it was nice, but very expensive.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeepSea
$10,200. ouch...
One of the units had a feature I liked. Instead of wires it had a fiber optic cable to the warning display. All the sensors and lights were in the scrubber and the warning lights came out via the fiber optic cable.
That would be the InspirationQuote:
Originally Posted by Gary