From: njs@scifi.uucp (Nicholas J. Simicich)
Subject: DEMA 93 trip report
Organization: Nick Simicich, Peekskill, NY
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 13:55:58 GMT


Well, Another DEMA comes and goes.  I went to learn what was going on
in the dive industry, and I think I learned something:

1.  The rumors of DEMA's death were greatly exaggerated.  DEMA
    **Filled** the entire Orlando convention center's exhibition hall,
    and used most of the additional space for seminars and so forth.
    Compare this to the World Science Fiction Convention, which used
    about half the space available in Orlando.  My guess is that the
    PADI PRO show is going to fail, or at least will be a small,
    second-rate show, as compared to DEMA.

2.  I overheard at least three dive shop owners (not at agency booths)
    talking about leaivng the PADI fold.  NAUI had advertisements
    aimed at facilities and facility dues.  People were talking about
    bringing in SSI for crossovers.  The main reason?  People don't
    like PADI competing with them, as dive store owners.

3.  PADI's fancy booth was put on a truck and left California.  It
    didn't arrive in Orlando.  They rented a bunch of stuff.  Club Med
    was in the PADI booth again.

4.  The general mood was up.  People claimed that orders and bookings
    were up.  Orlando is a nice town, the weather was pretty good
    (compared to Houston) and so forth.  We found a couple of cheap
    seafood places, a couple of miles off of the beaten path.

New dive computers: The big thing in dive computers this year seemed
to be the 'two piece'.  A company called Cochran consulting was
bringing out a computer that was a civilian version of a computer
originally developed under contract for NASA.  It consisted of a
computer/sender unit that clipped to a LP hose, and a dumb recieve
only unit that attaches to your wrist.  It has a lot of internal
memory (no one will say how much) and can be dumped through a $100
wand that attaches to the hose clips.  You rap on the case to turn the
main unit on, and push a button on the wrist unit.  The normal
receiver will only recieve a sender that was a few feet away, but the
instructor version has 10 windows (so that you can monitor 10 students
depth and time (and air) status on a large wrist unit.

Uwatek is marketing their new two piece computer (in the US) through
Mares and US Divers.  In this case, the pressure sender is a stub that
attaches to your first stage, and the reciever (which you wear on your
wrist) is the computer (looks like an Aladin Pro, but a little larger)
and it dumps to your computer through buttons on the face.  You have
to 'train' the computer to listen to a particular sender when you turn
it on (the Cochran units come in pairs).  Both of these computers
adjust the model if you are breathing too rapidly (exertion).  The
Uwatek will also adjust the model if you are diving in cold water.

Dive-Rite had some mock ups of their nitrox computer.  It is made by
Seiko, but they are not allowed to put that in writing.  Dave Duis
talked to the folks who were doing the development.  His account made
me think that they will have some early software troubles unless their
testing is thorough to the point of being anal.  You set the mix
before you leave the surface, it can't be reset once you are
underwater, making it less than useful for your technical nitrox use.

As I recall, all of the above computers can be dumped into your PC,
using some sort of additional attachment.

At least some folks who attended Tek '93 came away with the impression
that Nitrox is going to be end up being bad for the technical diving
community.  It will swamp them, and distract them.  If you believe
that Nitrox is useful for recreational divers, not just a toy, then
you probably believe that it should be in the hands of the mainstream
agencies.

There were a few new publications from the Watersports Publishing
folks, and so forth (Mix, for one) but perhaps the best book published
this year was the Best of Sources, Vol 1, by NAUI.  Sources has had a
fair bit of stuff in it, informative articles (written from many
viewpoints - personally, I disagreed strongly with some of the
articles, but they got me to think, and I think that was the important
part).  

There were no regulators in the Viking booth this year.  The
distribution of the Poseidon regs has been taken over by Parkway.
This has negative implications for those of you who might have bought
Poseidon regs and who, as I do, need to think about upcoming annual
service.  Viking says that they can't honor warranties, as they can't
get parts from Poseidon.  Parkway doesn't sound like they will honor
these warranties, although you will be able to get your Poseidon regs
serviced at your local Parkway dealer, your annual is likely to cost
you around $60.

DUI, for the first time since their introduction, had suspended the
requirement that all purchasers of the DUI weight system take a
special training course.  They agreed to build me one (build one to my
size, that is) without requiring me to wiew the video which, as I
recall, stresses dropping your weights in an emergency.  We bought two
others.  IMHO, for cold water, thick wetsuit or drysuit diving, this
system is the best looking thing to come down the pipe.

Global Manufacturing still seems to be the place to get specialized
regulator tools and test equipment.  Their new products for DEMA
included a surface supplied regulator set, suitable for the 10-15 foot
bar hangs.  They would make one up from O2 safe components for a few
dollars more.

They were also pushing their regulator flow bench.  This device
operates on the principal (as I understand their explanation) that
there is a relationship between the mass of air that a regulator
carries and the work required to move that mass of air.  Thus, the
amount of work required to pull, say, 15 cu ft/min through a regulator
at sea level is the same as the amount of work required to pull 1.5 cu
ft/min through a regulator at 300 feet.  So they had a thing that
would inhale at 15 cu ft/min, and you could hook the reg to a
manamometer (or a Magnehelic gauge) and measure the inches of vacuum
that it took to suck that much air through the reg.  Personally, I
consider this method suspect, as it measures the system mostly under
high inertia, and doesn't measure the work of starting or stopping the
air column.  I also think that there are going to be problems with
effects from the speed of the air on the measured pressure.  None the
less, they claimed that Sherwood was going to test their units using
this system before factory ship.  The product that I still like is the
regulator test bench in a tackle box.  Low in cost, the magnehelic
gauge and pressure gauge are topnotch (albeit fairly marked up).

They did demonstrate that you could tell the difference between a good
and bad reg with this method.

Oceanic was showing a BC with a stretch expandable air compartment.
The idea of the BC was that it would fit better in warm water and
still hold a decent amount of air.  Looked like it packed pretty well,
too.

The new Datamax Pro (first released last year, as I recall) is $199 as
an upgrade if you are coming from, say, a Datamaster Sport/S.  I think
that if you are having problems with your old unit (my wiife's
flooded), they will do this for you as an adjustment.  It has a user
replacable battery, a 'J' cell.  The upcoming model (not yet being
shipped) will include a thermometer.

Orca was clearly there.  They were showing pieces/parts from the old
computer and the new computer.  They were explaining, in words of one
syllable, exactly what was wrong with the old Delphi, and what they
were doing now, and why the new parts were not going to fail the way
the old ones did.  Orca also had their Nitrox computer.  It was nitrox
I only, 

The word for tanks was Titanium.  You may have heard about the
individual who is importing tanks from the formar USSR.  My
understanding is that they are ahead of us in the use of titanium for
many different sorts of items.  Here we have some titanium watches,
and titanium knives (and I have a pair of titanium glasses frames).
They are lightweight and corrosion proof, and are machined to a mirror
finish.  I got a good look at one at the PSI booth.

That is the good news.  The bad news?  The planned retail price is
$1500, for the 4500 PSI 160 cu ft tank.  Personally, I don't ever
expect to see these tanks for sale in the US.  DOT approval has not
yet been received, and they don't expect the DOT to have to visit the
manufacturing facility.  I think that the importer either doesn't
understand the problems Last year, Beauchat had all sorts of tanks
that they thought they were going to import.  This year, nothing.  I'm
sure it was a DOT problem, based on a conversation I had last year
with the Beauchat folks.

Luxfer was showing their fiberglass wrapped aluminum tanks for scuba.
Higher pressure, lower volume.  They said that they felt that the DOT
was about to issue a ruling extending the working life of the tanks
from 15 to 18 years (one more hydro) based on the good results from
inspections.  They are under a lot of pressure from fire departments
to do this since the first of the wrapped SCBA tanks were approaching
the end of their useful life.

And speaking of pressing and forming, there are at least three
aluminum tank manufacturers, Luxfer, Catalina, and one other, whose
name I can't recall.  In any case, it will mean another, slightly
different tank weight and buoyancy, and probably more headaches for
tank inspectors, who need to track the individual problems with these
tanks.  Luxfer is famous for neck cracks, for example.  The good news
for us is that tank wholesale prices are on their way down.  They were
lower this year than last year.

The travel bargains this year will be to Honduras and Belize.  


Last year, I carried around a recorder and interviewed people.  I just
didn't manage to do it this year.  Sorry, folks.  

-- 
Nick Simicich - uunet!bywater!scifi!njs - njs@watson.ibm.com
SSI #AOWI 3958, HSA 318, NAUI #14065
Join the movement ---  turn 'to bush' into a verb.
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