Houston's Premier Scuba and Dive Shop Oceanic Ventures Inc.

(713) 523-3483 (dive)
5808 Newcastle Drive
Houston, TX 77401

Archives for April 2008

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DUI Demo Days

 


Chef Eric
Chef Eric
 

It is hard to believe it has been a year since we were last here for a rebreather confined water for Mark Conrad, Wade Sparks and Terry DeWolf.  But here we are again for the DUI Demo Days at Lake Travis and this year the water level is up to a reasonable level. 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

his year I was joined by a number of our staff including Dive Mom herself, Pat Croll, Vernon Dittrich, Bob Sloan and Wade Sparks.  Vernon and Pat were finishing a class, And I had scheduled this weekend as a practice session and a chance to get some skills out of the way for our Grand Cayman and Inner Space experiences.  Joining me for this session were CCR Normoxic Trimix students Harvey Sisco and Matt Booth.

 Saturday found most of us in the water except for Wade who became the cook for the day, keeping all of the


Chef Wade
Chef Wade

 participants well fed.  Vernon and Pat ran their students through their drills and mine were troopers as well, accomplishing most of the skills leaving only a few for our later dives.

Sunday found me with a plugged up head and students who had accomplished a lot the previous day.  Matt had to teach a class of his own, so Wade and Harvey went diving so Harvey could continue working on his trim.   This left me with Wade’s job from the previous day – that’s right Chef for a day.  Of course, during the night a storm blew in, dumped a lot of rain which continued the next morning.  This made cooking more ao a challenge although it had slowed to a slight drizzle.   The biggest challenge was sinking in the mud in front of the grill or walking around with 20 pounds of Texas Clay caked to my feet.
 

 

All-in-all we had a great time and the event was a success.  On top of that, we all had a good time.       

 

 

 

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Wreck diving in Florida

I have just dropped Pam and Bob off at the airport after returning 4 sets of twins and 14 stage bottles back to Fill Express.  This brings to a close another Technical Wreck diving trip to Florida. 
Pam Radford, Terry deWolf, Kelly Plato, Bob Sloan, Dave Snyder and Geoff Streitel, joined me for this wreck diving weekend.  We started diving on Friday with the Hydro Atlantic and ended on Sunday with the R.B. Johnson.  We had some great dives and and saw some big fish.  Terry saw a bull shark on the R.B. Johnson and we all saw a BIG turtle on the Lowrance.
Of course the trip started with a challenge — Capt. Oliver blew an engine and our plan was put into a bit of a tailspin.  But thanks to a little help from some friends (thanks Oliver and Mark), I was able to do a fast shuffle and set-up the diving with another operator.  Jeff and Suzanne rearranged some of their diving and found us boats and let us pick the dive sites.  They helped make the trip a success; and, their large boats were a treat!
We also set-up a few dives with Capt. Conrad who took our group out to the R. B. Johnson. 
The diving in the Ft Lauderdale area is primarily on artificial reefs — i.e. sunken ships.  Florida has been very aggressive in creating artificial reefs for fishing and diving.  The resulting dive sites are varied both in design and depth.  They offer something to almost every diver.  There are also some natural reefs but I have yet to dive them (too much wreck diving).
Thanks everyone for a fun trip and some great dives!

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Ulterior Motives…

Eric Rebreather HEad on BenchMy visit to Delta P was for more than a tour.  Al had arranged for me to spend some time with Jason, so I could complete a Sentinel Technician Course.  My purpose was to be more familiar with the unit and its components so I could handle the common and not so common field repairs.

 

We started b completely disassembling my unit all the way down to its basic components.  Jason then went through a step-by-step procedure for assembling the unit from the ground up.  Along the way, he explained some of their ideas in designing this rebreather and comparing it to their other, more expensive unit, the Oroborus.

 

Jason was an excellent teacher.  He was patient with me and took the time to show me a more professional way to do things.  At one point he told me, a professional uses the bench rather than manipulating things at chest level.  There is a greater chance of damaging things when you are trying to hold them and work with them rather than keeping them on the bench and using the tools and leverage to your advantage.

 

The Sentinel is a rather simple device with some surprising mechanical twists designed to make it safer for the end user.  They have given divers using their products a great deal of thought and have tried to build a straight forward machine that allows for flexibility and customization in the diver interface but not in the basic operation.  The unit features a custom designed back plate and wing that can be substituted for a more conventional backplate and wing if desired,

 

As I reassembled my unit, I was continually amazed with the design features incorporated into the unit.  It is apparent that the design team build on the success of their other unit and the experience of a number of divers inside and outside of the Company.

 

Of course, I was responsible for re-building my unit, so I hope I was a good student.  I guess I’ll find out in a few weeks.

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Who knew?

Delta P TechnologiesHave you ever been surprised when you finally meet someone you have had an email relationship with?  Well if you have, you would understand my surprise at visiting the Delta P/CCR Technologies offices in England.

 

We have sold the VR3’s in our store since its introduction a long time ago.  I have had a long distance relationship with them for all of those years – mostly by email, telephone and an occasional meeting somewhere in the US.  So when I visited their offices recently, I was surprised at what I found.

 

First of all, they are out in the country.  Well sort of, their office is in an small business park outside of Poole, that is out away from the city, port and hustle of Poole.  When I went upstairs to meet Al and Kevin I found a staff of 7 in the office including Kevin Gurr, the president of the Company, Jason the lead engineer and designer, Freda from customer service, Mandy in charge of production and procurement, Chris in customer service and  billing, Linda, in charge of accounting and of course Al who is the primary client services person and one of the go to people at Delta P.

 

Manufacturing ProcessAfter tea, Jason took me on a tour of the facility.  Our first stop was actually to the building next door where Jason introduced me to Steve, the Production Manager  He is an amazing person; he has 28 years of aircraft parts fabrication experience and heads up the thing that surprised me the most about my visit, the production facility.  Unlike many small scuba manufacturers, Delta P actually builds the cases for their computers as well as the majority of the components for both the Sentinel and Oroborus Rebreathers.  They have two C&C Mills and two C&C lathes along with one off manufacturing machinery and tools.

 

My assumption was that they had the components built to their specifications and then assembled the products.  In talking to Jason and Kevin., having your own production facility is the only way to control the quality of your product.  The production facility was impressive.  The operators were all hired away from the aircraft industry and had 10 to 15 years of experience in that industry prior to joining Delta P.

 

It was interesting to see all of the parts, both aluminium and plastic.  The plastic parts on the rebreathers are not injection molded plastics but rather milled from Delrin stock.  Some of the operations take 48 to 72 hours to complete – isn’t automation wonderful?

 

Steve is passionate about his work and he is proud of the products they build.  The milling is precise, the finished parts are clean and free of manufacturing debris.  All of the employees in the production unit, are very proud of their work and volunteered to show me what they were doing, how it was being done and what the finished product would look like.

 

Our next stop on the tour was the shipping department and then on to the assembly room.  Here I met Richard who was assembling Sentinel sub-assembly parts preparing for the next build cycle for the Sentinel rebreathers and the upcoming ISO 9001 compliance audit.  Here were Poseidon regulators being fitted with adapters for the hoses, manifold blocks with hoses being attached and heads assembled in the electrical shop (our next shop).  They currently have three assembly stations but have plans on adding more to help meet the demand for the new Sentinel rebreather.  According to Kevin, they have over 100 on order at this time.

 

After tea, they drink a lot of tea here, my tour continued on to the electrical department, currently housed in a temporary building next to the main building.  There are 4 people working here assembling both the Sentinel rebreather heads and the dive computers.  Additionally, they handle repairs and health checksfor customer computers and rebreather heads.  Besides the things you would normally expect in an electrical assembly department (wire, solder, soldering irons, parts, etc) there were two different pressure pots.  One unit is for testing the rebreather components and the other is for the VR3 and VR2 computers.  Before they leave the electrical department, every component is pressure tested.

 

My tour was a complete surprise and impressed me at the same time.  Here is a Company that has invested heavily in manufacturing and technology in order to build a product that they are proud selling and diving.  Since most of the staff are divers, they carry the passion they have for their sport into their jobs.