Argon bottle in sidemount - where?

[mgif99]

I am new to Sidemount, and so far am very happy with it. But I can't figure out where to mount an argon bottle for trimix dives. I've tried to research this, but haven't found a satisfactory explanation. I have a Hollis SMS 100. Any descriptions are appreciated, and pictures would be great!

[DA Aquamaster]

I never found an ideal location for an inflator bottle, then I realized I didn't really need one most of the time.

For example in 70 degree caves with 18/45 or similar, I am either diving wet or diving dry and using the 18/45 to inflate the dry - and despite all the rumors to the contrary, that's just not a problem - for me at least.

In South Florida offshore diving, I am again diving wet most of the time. If I do dive dry the temps are again such that using back gas to inflate the suit is a non issue.

In colder water trimix diving in an offshore environment where trimix is a poor choice for inflation gas, I will add a short hose to an AL stage with travel gas in it (30-32%). The since the travel gas stays on me in offshore environments, it can do double duty as an inflator bottle.

Now, if I find myself diving high percentage helium trimix in cold water caves where I'd need to add substantial gas to the suit after dropping a travel mix, I'll have to figure something out. Currently, it will probably just be a 6 cu ft tank slung under/inboard of the primary tank.

[jcook]

You can get a argon bottle kit and put some bolt snaps on it and clip it to the bottom of your rails on the SM harness. It will hang out of the way, I did that on my SM rebreather with a spare DIL bottle.

[RN]

When I use an inflation bottle I mount it similar to the way I mount my stage bottles, except valve down. I clip the neck bolt snap to the rail and the bottom bolt snap to my chest d ring. It sits snugly between my sidemount bottle and my torso. I route the hose up under my waist strap to my dry suit inflator.

[DA Aquamaster]

When I use an inflation bottle I mount it similar to the way I mount my stage bottles, except valve down. I clip the neck bolt snap to the rail and the bottom bolt snap to my chest d ring. It sits snugly between my sidemount bottle and my torso. I route the hose up under my waist strap to my dry suit inflator.

Can you post a picture or video Rob? It sounds great and better than what I've experimented with - clipping the neck to the waist D-ring not the towel bar.

You can get a argon bottle kit and put some bolt snaps on it and clip it to the bottom of your rails on the SM harness. It will hang out of the way, I did that on my SM rebreather with a spare DIL bottle.

I tried butt mounting my old inflation bottle kit to both the lower D-rings on the back of my Nomad and to the towel bars. In the former, the reg and hose interfered with the wing and side mount tanks and in the latter the reg and hose routing was not what I wanted.

[jcook]

I tried butt mounting my old inflation bottle kit to both the lower D-rings on the back of my Nomad and to the towel bars. In the former, the reg and hose interfered with the wing and side mount tanks and in the latter the reg and hose routing was not what I wanted.

Did you try an all-in-one valve/reg combo? I did notice it was much more comfortable and helped with the hose routing. Just my 2 cents.

[WJH]

I have the Hollis SMS100 and mount my Argon bottle on the back of the rig, left side, valve down. Bottle has 2 trigger snaps on it, mounted with hose clamps, stage style, 11" apart. The D-rings on the back side of the Hollis rig are perfectly positioned for this. Traditional length hose routed the usual way works fine.

WJH

[Teppo]

I mount my argon to Nomad with hoseclamp around argon bottle with quick link under the band, this quick link fits to small d-ring in nomad, the valve is down and is tied from valve to similar d-ring with bungee at lower part Nomad close to plate. The hard part is ones you put on harness, make sure that you can reach the valve in Argon bottle, since we dive under ice in winter and its not uncommon to have free flows during dive, specially to inflators

I dives this rig with 12l 232bar (´72 are similar size?) sidemounted and it worked fine

i got photo on Facebook page cavediving.fi https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

Since that photo i use DR light at butt mounted and planning to have battery for my suit heater at the same spot i had 5amp L&M canister for winter dives

Teppo

[BillGraham]

I sewed a couple of fasteks into my harness right along my side where the jacket meets the wing. I mount my can light on the left side and the argon bottle on the right. I had one of those all in one valves for a while but you need an adaptor to fill it and it's hard to get serviced when it breaks.

[CaveMD]

I usually just use a travel gas or deco bottle for initial inflation so the resulting he mix at depth is not too terrible. However my deepest dives are around 300'. If I start going much deeper than that I will need to find a suit inflation bottle technique too. The bottom time to deco ratio just gets too obscene >300'...maybe if they get an iPad or android tablet good to 100' for deco that might change.

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