Sausage Inflation

[Nemrod]

I decided to start a new thread for sausage (SMB/DSMB) inflation/deployment though it comes from my efforts resulting from my recent misadventure and resulting desire to further simplify my gear. I have always had difficulty with oral inflation of my SMBs with that inflator that is designed I guess to be pushed with the teeth. The reason being is that I was relieved of my two front teeth when I was a child and instead I have replacements that were experimental at the time and somewhat one of a kind, well, two of a kind! And I cannot push the oral inflator mechanism to open it as a result.

Most sausages nowadays come with an oral inflator that can be inserted into a BC QD for inflation (as an alternative to oral inflation) but this means I must disconnect my BC/wing and then reconnect it afterwards. All while holding on to my wife and my camera lest they go away where I cannot find them . A few years back my sister gave me an old Dacor POC regulator and it had the oddest Y fitting cobbled into the hoses and I never did understand what it was for and my sister could not remember either. I was looking through some online catalogs and came arcoss a 3/8X24 male to BC QD. Hmmmmmm. I bought two and put them into the odd Y fitting from my sister. The other end of the Y fitting is the LP hose male 9/16. Yes!!!! Eureka, I know have a BC LP hose with an extra QD fitting to inflate my sausages .



Does anyone know of a similar Y connector that could be used with an LP hose and two BC QDs? I would like to make up another and what I like especially about this particular one is that one connector is in-line (for the BC) and the other is offset for the sausage and other tool connections.

James

[luis]

I like that. Yes, I may look for a similar fitting.

Thanks

[tbone1004]

why not put a drysuit inflator hose on the rig? I don't take mine off so I have a long inflator hose with a bolt snap that clips off to my left hip d-ring next to the SPG. When you need it, you unclip it, shoot the bag, then clip it back off.
Not that a power inflator is something that I deem mission critical, I am always leery of y-adapters since they often have low quality castings and I've seen a lot of threads strip unexpectedly.

[Nemrod]

Tom, I had thought about adding another hose but that runs counter to my minimalist tendencies. If I were in heavy exposure gear/drysuit I would worry more about loss of the power inflator but I was diving pre-BC and with early BCs that had no power inflator, just oral inflation (and I had the same problem with them with the inflator often hitting my teeth if I slipped). I try to weight such that I can control my bouyancy with my lungs and put little or no air in my wing. When carrying my camera, which is most of the times these days, I do add a little extra weight for stability, but that is just a puff or two into my wing at the start of the dive.

But entertaining your suggestion, would you run the extra hose with BC QD along side the BC inflator hose, under the same rubber bands and just let it rest beside the power inflator? I am not against this way, just was trying to avoid yet another hose.

This Y fitting, I cannot speak for other fittings, seems to be a quality piece of brass, well machined and nicely plated. And it survived my sister in good shape so it has been well tested. You have to remember that certain of us have been accused of being tropical resort divers, we are in minimal exposure gear and as a result, not carrying much offsetting weight. Loss of the BC when so outfitted is not a big deal.

For a little while I used one of my Air Buddies for sausage inflation duty:



It was installed in line with the BC hose and I did not remove the Schrader valve as I was only using the Air Buddy to inflate my open bottom safety sausage. I also sometimes installed the Air Buddy on it's own hose, similar to your suggestion. But one day my Air Buddy stopped being my buddy when it would not quit bubbling and I decided it was a complication and no longer trustworthy. I did use my Air Buddy on the end of a hose with a MkV first (and OPV) and a 6 cf tank to sneak dive the Blue Hole at Ichetucknee Park and of course I was banned yet again afterwards for my compressed air assisted snorkel dive.

To explain why I mentioned the Schrader valve with an Air Buddy, if the intent is to use the Air Buddy to breath from, as an alternate air source, the inline BC version pictured cannot deliver enough air unless the Schrader valve is removed from the BC QD. Then it is suggested to wrap a Zip Tie so that the BC QD cannot be released, sort of important because if one did so then the reward would be all of your air rapidly dumping from the cylinder. This among several other reasons might explain my current disfavor with the Air Buddy.

Luis, I know you have carried an IP gauge with you when testing the Argonaut, for example, tell me again, did you have it on a separate hose or plumbed into your BC inflator hose?

This is the fitting I got, it looks a bit different from what I received and show in my picture but I like what I got better so I am happy with the substitution.

https://www.piranhadivemfg.com/item/Smb ... ator--2507

Here is a Y adapter, reversed for the aux side compared to mine but might actually be better for access for tool/inflation purpose:

https://www.piranhadivemfg.com/item/Y-A ... ssure-1213

And then it would need this for the LP hose port:

https://www.piranhadivemfg.com/item/Reg ... ction-1205

I also found this Y block, might work about as well but again not as compact as mine from my sister:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224465358198?c ... gIvZ_D_BwE

Jimmy

[tbone1004]

I agree with the concept of minimalism and that's where I'm trying to understand the balance of an extra hose vs. the splitter. It accomplishes the same thing, so the question is where is the failure most likely to happen and what is the added risk. For me, I would argue that the drysuit hose is actually more simplistic in nature and less prone to failure than the y blocks simply due to less dynamic o-rings. Drysuit hose just runs down along side the left side of your backplate and clips off to a hip d-ring. Pull it out when you want it, leave it down low when you don't.

[Nemrod]

I guess it is the extra hose I stumble over. I agree that the hose and a single BC QD run for inflation/tool use is probably slightly less failure prone than a Y splitter which has an extra O-ring (or two) and two BC QDs. Are you using a BC QD there on the unused "drysuit" hose?

What I am wanting to do is to be able to inflate the sausage without removing my DSV mouthpiece (DH) or second stage (single hose), as the case may be, for either oral inflation or using the second stage to inflate the open bottom type sausage. It was after the activation of my DSV to orally inflate my sausage that I aspirated a gallon or so of seawater . And so this is part of my attempt to make sure that does not happen again.

If I try your suggestion, using the hose that would normally be used for a drysuit, would you think a 30 inch length so that I could get the QD up in front of me? As you say, the hose would be nearly invisible when not in use. But, not sure here, I think I can deploy the dsmb with the Y splitter with a single hand and I think your hose method would need two hands, one to hold the hose and press it to the dsmb inflator and the other to hold the dsmb? Where as the Y splitter is held in position by the BC hose, corrugated hose and the shoulder D-ring bungee so I (might) be able to press the dsmb fitting to the extra BC inflator QD using one hand only.

Most probably know this already but not all dsmbs are created equal, some have an oral only inflator and some have a BC QD fitting that can be inserted into the QD or orally inflate and some are closed bottom and some are open bottom, who knew! Anyways, the QD fitting will not lock in like the power inflator, when released it just pops back out and up and away the sausage goes:



And aside question, does anyone recall when safety sausages came into wide use, especially in SE Florida? Ages ago I had one of those Dacor floats with a CO2 cartridge inside. It would blow up to be about the size of a basket ball, pretty cool. I think me and Rob last deployed mine at Wazee one year. Fun but nothing special . I do not remember what I did with it --- .

James

[rhwestfall]

If you are diving with a pony (which you seem to have with you as "basic kit"), why not put a SMB fill nipple on a LP port of that first stage?

FWIW - I have used the "wye" to create multiple supplies without incident... single hose over shoulder (revised length as necessary to make a clean configuration), splitter, short hose with BC LPI QD, and whatever length hose/fitting needed on the other.

[Nemrod]

Thanks, I think I will try Tom's method too, not having a drysuit using that as a source never occured to me. I am strictly a resort diver these days.

No, I am not always kitted with a pony unless solo but that is a thought, the BC fitting could go directly into a LP port since it has a 3/8X24 male end. But, thanks also for the assurance that the Y will not blow up! I ordered an 18 inch and a 20 inch DGX braided LP regulator hoses to try the Y fitting. I normally use a 22 inch braided BC hose so I think the 20 inch will be right once I add the Y. The hose will not get here in time for my trip, shucks .

Here is how it would work:



James

[tbone1004]

If you have a LPI roughly the length of your SPG hose it will work, it's going to the same place on your harness and following the SPG down, and you may have one of those laying around

[Chris]

I decided to start a new thread for sausage (SMB/DSMB) inflation/deployment though it comes from my efforts resulting from my recent misadventure and resulting desire to further simplify my gear. I have always had difficulty with oral inflation of my SMBs with that inflator that is designed I guess to be pushed with the teeth. The reason being is that I was relieved of my two front teeth when I was a child and instead I have replacements that were experimental at the time and somewhat one of a kind, well, two of a kind! And I cannot push the oral inflator mechanism to open it as a result.



Most sausages nowadays come with an oral inflator that can be inserted into a BC QD for inflation (as an alternative to oral inflation) but this means I must disconnect my BC/wing and then reconnect it afterwards. All while holding on to my wife and my camera lest they go away where I cannot find them . A few years back my sister gave me an old Dacor POC regulator and it had the oddest Y fitting cobbled into the hoses and I never did understand what it was for and my sister could not remember either. I was looking through some online catalogs and came arcoss a 3/8X24 male to BC QD. Hmmmmmm. I bought two and put them into the odd Y fitting from my sister. The other end of the Y fitting is the LP hose male 9/16. Yes!!!! Eureka, I know have a BC LP hose with an extra QD fitting to inflate my sausages .



Does anyone know of a similar Y connector that could be used with an LP hose and two BC QDs? I would like to make up another and what I like especially about this particular one is that one connector is in-line (for the BC) and the other is offset for the sausage and other tool connections.

James

I purchased one of those Y adapters to put a normal second stage on my bc hose. Now it sits in a drawer.

[SurfLung]

I found this at Dive Gear Express... They also had some quick connects that can be incorporated.

https://www.divegearexpress.com/regulat ... tch-blocks

https://www.divegearexpress.com/regulat ... onnects-bc

[rhwestfall]

If I was to do this, I might use the above, but put a 6" BC hose/fitting to make a little room to manage it...

[Nemrod]

I did use my new Y adapter to inflate my surface sausage several time during the recent trip to Cozumel. I am pleased to report that it worked very well. I did clip my camera off so I could use both hands the first few times but I also managed it single handed. It takes about one second to inflate my 4 footer and zoom, away it goes. I used my "15 foot" spool which has about 20 feet of line on it. Viz is so good in Cozumel I am not really worried about boats, more to just let the skipper know where I am when the group gets strung out. Much easier anyways than orally inflating. For dh diving it allows me to shoot the buoy without removing my mouthpiece or closing the DSV.

Inflating a sausage with my rig is done by feel, I cannot look down to my inflator. Using a Y block further up in the line so that an additional hose could be run might be easier because the sausage inflation could be done out in front instead of essentially under my chin. But I was trying to stay as simple and clean as possible. I may add a short length of hose, might have to be custom.

James

[Drado]

I gotta admit, if it wasn’t for this thread, I may still have been inflating my SMB orally. Never occurred to me that the inflator was meant for QD use!

[couv]

Mike Nelson used some magical device to inflate his MB. Why can't our SMBs be inflated with either method like an aircraft life vest?