GUE CCR configuration

[Barrygoss]

LOL



The GUE configuration has no logic in terms of CCR diving but has some in terms of trying to morph over ideas from their use of the RB80 and a need to keep to some form of standardised system along the lines of their OC system

GUE did a frankly amazing job of creating a standardised rig for OC diving, but the desire to keep everting in line with the GUEs version of the Hogarthian concept, has lead to some less than ideal solutions

Their CCR rig is the worst of these by far.

I experimented with manifolded 7s on the back with off board 02 for the purpose of diving boats where kitting up was very difficult so having all my bailout on my back helped.

The rig is unwieldy and the equivalent of driving a bus to driving a sports car. The two 3ltrs on the back are far more comfortable to dive.

It also goes against a basic safety concept of CCR diving, which is to keep your bailouts totally independent of driving the CCR its self


Having the valves at the top is also a bit of a step backwards to a time where we all struggled to reach them. On a CCR theres no effort involved as they are by your hips.

Its sad to say but I also feel that GUE had to do something different to make them stand out. They fought against the use of CCR for many years, but in the end had to accept it was the only way forward for trimix diveing. SO I have a nagging suspicion this was a face saving exercise in some ways. Rather than admitting you could just stick a CCR on your back and go diveing they sort of reverted to type and said, OH NO your all doing it wrong you should be doing it like this .

IMG_3392 by markchase8, on Flickr

#popcorn.

Having been on a boat with the GUE ccr, it works and I’ve modified mine in the 40-60m range to suit.

B

[Wibs]

#popcorn.

Having been on a boat with the GUE ccr, it works and I’ve modified mine in the 40-60m range to suit.

B

Give us a clue as to why it works in the 40-60m range then...

Is it just backmounted bailout?

[Barrygoss]

Give us a clue as to why it works in the 40-60m range then...

Is it just backmounted bailout?

Really?

You spent an hour lecturing me in Plymouth as to why I needed to do fundies, many years ago.

You need to pass fundies.

B

[Wibs]

Really?

You spent an hour lecturing me in Plymouth as to why I needed to do fundies, many years ago.

You need to pass fundies.

B

Ah, those were the days... about a month after I'd attended my Fundies -- which I failed -- and was still in zealot mode.


...
Still can't find any 'official' description of the GUE rebreather spec. Is it a secret?

[Barrygoss]

Ah, those were the days... about a month after I'd attended my Fundies -- which I failed -- and was still in zealot mode.

You weren’t in zealot mode. you didn’t and still don’t understand GUE.
Or the GUE mentality/attitude.

The CCR JJ makes absolute sense.

Go see graham or John K after tech 2 for the reasoning if you can’t do it

B

[Steve Clark]

Met up with a couple of people at Eurotek where the subject of the GUE CCR configuration came up.

I'm not familiar with it except knowing that it includes a twinset of diluent and a long hose.

Where could I find out more about this configuration: its precise config, its reasons, benefits, thinking behind it, the deployment protocols, etc.

I'm asking out of genuine curiosity as someone moving to CCR in the next year. If it's really that much better than a stock JJ, then shouldn't we all adopt it?

This is a genuine question.

As a GUE OC diver with several GUE CCR buddies, the biggest advantage I see is that it works with the standard team procedure stuff. I don't do much OC trimix diving, but I spend a fair bit of time training with and supporting folks on GUE JJ-CCR & on the GUE RB80 SCR

I don't modify anything when diving with a GUE-JJ-CCR diver. The long hose still works. The valves route from the same sides - wing & regs etc. I can understand easily what's going on if they have a problem or need to shut a valve. There are lots of parallels between OC backgas & CCR dil. This helps me, it helps mixed teams and it helps CCR divers who swap between CCR & OC regularly, for instructing or just for the environment.

The GUE-JJ rig is bigger & heavier for use on smaller hardboat & ribs. I've seen them with 2x7L, 2x9L & 2x12L setups. This was a bit of a PITA on a recent trip where we were using a dinghy tender to get to a hardboat (Kyles of Bute). The RB80 is probably worse, with D12L or D18L drive gas. Flip-side, for shallower stuff (~40m), they can get away with just taking some o2 since they are carrying enough on the back for 'deep' bailout.

For cave diving, the bigger DIL/backgas cylinders are a good thing. Kind of essential for diving with a mixed OC team, without changing reserve gas setups. Also lots more wing gas and they don't need to be switching stage-stage in a total loop flood situation. They can revert to using the long hose as a standard primary. [This has happened to one of my buddies relatively recently beyond a deep sump and it worked out ok. Still lots of buoyancy management required for gas in each side of the loop + the controller running on auto]

If you're not already on the GUE path, it's probably a lot more convoluted than you need and it'd be better matching the setup of your likely buddies.

If you are GUE, I can see why people want to keep the essentials of the fundamental system.

Like everything GUE, it's not the best system for every possible dive. It's a system that's as close as possible to standard across as many types of dives as possible. That's the compromise. That's the advantage.

[Mark Chase]

#popcorn.

Having been on a boat with the GUE ccr, it works and I’ve modified mine in the 40-60m range to suit.

B

Of course it works, its got a scrubber some cells 02 and dill??? What else do you need?


The point is is it as comfortable as diving 3s on your back? No

Is having the valves on the top easier to reach than by your hips? No

Is there any advantage of having the dill on your back as the same gas as being your bailout? No

Is there an advantage with off board 02? No

Has the addition of a manifold and H valves introduced failure points which we were all told by GUE were a bad thing? Yes


The JJ is a very well thought out bit of kit. You can unplug the 02 add and run PSCR through it, you can add a dill valve and unplug that an run off board emergency dill via your bailouts. You dont need 14ltrs of dill on your back




On a purely practical side. On multi day multiple depth trips Id take four or five 3ltr dill bottles some with say 21/35 some with 18/45 and some with 10/70

Then id take three X 3ltr 02 bottles.


SO if we got blown on the audascious and ended up on the Laurentic, id just switch to my 21/35 dill and go diveing

Arguably you could just load up three tanks of 10/70 and say sod it ill just dive lean mix no matter what the depth. Its one of the big advantages of a CCR after all.


With the silly GUE rig you cant do that unless you have multiple sets of 7ltr tanks with H valves on and are happy to strip the manifold to swap tanks.


Which ever way you look at it the GUE JJ rig is a bit daft. I know I have dived it. In fact I think that pic above was taken BEFORE GUE announced their version of the manifolded 7s rig? At the time I joked they'd copied me

I persevered with it for a while but the fact is, it just isn't nice to dive. Note the black 2.5kg bar of lead I had to cable tie across the bottom of it because the valves made it top heavy as well

If you want to dive that way, great knock yourself out. Its a free country

But PLEASE dont start saying its a better way to dive a JJ, because thats just laughable.


I have owned many CCR in the last 14years of diveing them. ALL of them were heavily modified except the JJ. My JJ was one of the very first batch of four sold into the UK (when was that? 2012 I think?) and yet the only change I have made to it is to swap the BOF over to a Golum Shrimp and after about 1100 hours use the 02 add packed in and I replaced that with a KISS valve with CMF so I could run it as a MCCR with parachute ECCR. The ECCR had never failed me but I like MCCR and in fact originally ordered my JJ as MCCR but they never went forward with offering that option.


The rest of it just works, and works well in standard configuration.

[Wibs]

Is the config:
- JJ can
- 3 litre O2 tin inverted as normal
- 2 x 7ish tins of dil HP manifolded in valve up with two HP valves per tin
- one longhose attached to the one dil tin

Answered by Steve below

[Mark Chase]

As a GUE OC diver with several GUE CCR buddies, the biggest advantage I see is that it works with the standard team procedure stuff. I don't do much OC trimix diving, but I spend a fair bit of time training with and supporting folks on GUE JJ-CCR & on the GUE RB80 SCR

I don't modify anything when diving with a GUE-JJ-CCR diver. The long hose still works. The valves route from the same sides - wing & regs etc. I can understand easily what's going on if they have a problem or need to shut a valve. There are lots of parallels between OC backgas & CCR dil. This helps me, it helps mixed teams and it helps CCR divers who swap between CCR & OC regularly, for instructing or just for the environment.

The GUE-JJ rig is bigger & heavier for use on smaller hardboat & ribs. I've seen them with 2x7L, 2x9L & 2x12L setups. This was a bit of a PITA on a recent trip where we were using a dinghy tender to get to a hardboat (Kyles of Bute). The RB80 is probably worse, with D12L or D18L drive gas. Flip-side, for shallower stuff (~40m), they can get away with just taking some o2 since they are carrying enough on the back for 'deep' bailout.

For cave diving, the bigger DIL/backgas cylinders are a good thing. Kind of essential for diving with a mixed OC team, without changing reserve gas setups. Also lots more wing gas and they don't need to be switching stage-stage in a total loop flood situation. They can revert to using the long hose as a standard primary. [This has happened to one of my buddies relatively recently beyond a deep sump and it worked out ok. Still lots of buoyancy management required for gas in each side of the loop + the controller running on auto]

If you're not already on the GUE path, it's probably a lot more convoluted than you need and it'd be better matching the setup of your likely buddies.

If you are GUE, I can see why people want to keep the essentials of the fundamental system.

Like everything GUE, it's not the best system for every possible dive. It's a system that's as close as possible to standard across as many types of dives as possible. That's the compromise. That's the advantage.

A very sensible answer



So Wibs in short, unless you plan on diving with GUE divers in a GUE teem of mixed CCR and OC GUE divers? dont bother with the GUE JJ Rig.

[Steve Clark]

Still can't find any 'official' description of the GUE rebreather spec. Is it a secret?

There's enough people diving it, the secret is long gone.

As far as I understand it, you have :

A standard JJ-CCR
Two large back-mounted cylinders of DIL with a GUE standard gas (32%, 15/55 etc.) valves at the head end. Like a twinset with the JJ in the middle. Typically D7L or bigger.
The DIL cylinders have a flexible hose manifold (4 knobs) and it's normally dived open.
Right post drives the long hose, wing & ADV. Long hose lives on the right shoulder D-Ring. Unclip to donate.
Left post drives the SPG & BOV (some people dive standard backup reg without BOV)
A small 3L oxygen cylinder mounted space-shuttle style at the back of the right cylinder/JJ with the valve at the arse end
This has OPV and drives the MAV & the solenoid. Also has an O2 gauge which lives in the standard place next to the SPG on the left hip.
A Halycon wing, cut to suit the JJ. Fed & dump in the same way.
For cave diving, suit inflate cylinder goes on the back too. Space shuttle style between the left cylinder & the JJ. Valve arse down. As per OC mix/RB80. Same hand position.

All the other stuff - lights, scooters, stages etc. - are all in the same place, gear is identical and no new training or changes required. Just a big pile of cash and proper T2 experience.