Heated Vest Questions

[tflaris]

I have used the Santi with a Light monkey external battery Pack. Works well!

TF

[Red Hat Jef]

I've got a motorcycle vest wired into a light monkey battery pack using a light monkey bulkhead and a Pitkin controller. Works great.

[jebernot]

Get the Golem like the rest of your dive team. We will take care of the battery.

[PfcAJ]

Can someone please remove the ellipses from the thread title?

[Dsix36]

My girlfriend has one of those and really loves it. There is no bulkhead for flood potential and it can be flooded safely since it can also be worn with a wet suit.

I might be tempted to try it out if I could ever pry it out of her fingers.

[Garth]

I've got a motorcycle vest wired into a light monkey battery pack using a light monkey bulkhead and a Pitkin controller. Works great.

I suppose anyone who wears something for greater than 12-15 hrs during a dive should be good enough for me on my 3-4hr dive...


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[PfcAJ]

Something to consider with those heater shirts that have the internal (relative to the drysuit) batteries is that if it turns on and you can't get it to turn off, you're gunna have a bad time.

Some of these vests get HOT and some of them can develop hotspots that can burn.

All that said, I've got a synergy tourmaster motorcycle vest. Its been good on some fairly long dives and has some inherent insulating ability due to the material. The Santi one is nice because its also got 200g thinsulate which provides some passive warmth when the vest is off.

In any case, I wouldn't rely solely on the vest to keep warm. A good (fresh) undergarment, base layer, and hood is critical.

[Superlyte27]

Yeah, I've pretty much decided against the one I've listed. The idea of not being able to shut it down when something goes wrong would be really bad with 2+ hours of deco

[Rich]

Talk to the Monkey's Pete, they'll set you straight...

Safe diving,

Rich

[apitkin]

I use both the Santi and the Tourmaster Synergy like AJ. The latter is a bit more powerful. I am on my second one - eventually they develop hotspots, I think with repeated bending of the wires (don't fold it!). The Santi one works well too. A good base layer underneath helps a lot. You also have to consider the power consumption. Most vests are 35-50W which is around 3-4 amp current draw at 12V. A 10Ah pack is not going to get you through a 5 hour deco on full power, but might be fine with a power controller like the LM one. I use the Golem integrated bulkhead but that's because it was the only integrated inflator/suit heater valve around when I started using active heat. I would probably get the LM one if I was starting out now. I also wouldn't worry too much about flooding - I have used several of these vests with partial floods and it doesn't seem to be a big problem.

I will also second what AJ said about making sure the passive insulation is good too. Not only will it help in the event of a failure (these seem to be fairly common for a myriad of reasons) but it will extend the burn time of the battery pack as you won't need as much heat.