Pros and Cons of Diving Backplates | Safe Diving

I saved Iowa's welcome to safe diving so as most of you will probably know by now I dive a back plate and wing BCD but if I'm honest it took me a while to convert to a proper back plate setup and it was quite daunting for me because it seemed like a completely different world so I figured that if I felt that way as a scuba diving instructor who'd been working in the scuba diving industry for quite a few years at that time that maybe others probably felt or feel the same way out there and I wanted to make a video that could possibly help a few of you at least consider back plates and maybe start asking some questions about them first of all for those of you who don't know a back plate and wing setup is a more stripped-down BCD unlike a traditional recreational BCD like a jacket or even a wing star BCD a back plate setup is a modular system with separate pieces recreational B CDs will all be a single thing that usually just sort of comes fully assembled as a metaphor of recreational BCD is a lot like a car that comes straight off the production line they come in a whole bunch of different colors but the model itself doesn't really change that much a back plate setup is more like a hot rod or a kit car that you buy the parts for and put together yourself because of this you can build something light and fast or heavy and tough you can make whatever you like and it will be just yours to your specifications and more importantly your size sure you can get different sized B CDs that fit you but everything on them is fixed so you have to have that d-ring there and you have to have that pocket but let's take a moment to think about back plates their pros and their cons of someone basically who spent some time in both camps every single part of your back plate you can customize to your own personal preference the first thing that you look at is the plate itself and to start with you can choose the material so the two standard materials are steel and aluminium steel is strong and pretty heavy sort of creates a solid mounting point for everything and it creates a bit of trim white nice and close to your body so you can take a bit of lead off of your weight belt aluminium is a lightweight alternative for traveling or if you just don't need as much lead then it's a good alternative and then you can even switch it up to anything from titanium to carbon fiber as well and you can find standard plate and skeleton plates to try and save some weight as well custom plates in and clever patterns for custom needs or just shapes for whatever you want and if you want to customize your plate in any other way then you can get them coloured or even water transfer printed patterns onto your back plate if you really want to but with just a backplate you just have a sheet of metal you now need to choose your harness and this is where your creativity can really explode harnesses range from padded quick adjust harnesses much like a recreational BCD and these come in the standard sort of range of sizes but these are fairly limiting because much like recreational B CDs the parts will be stitched in place so you won't get much flexibility or creativity the other end of the spectrum is a single piece harness which if the preferred mode which is the preferred by advanced divers because despite it being just a single piece of 2 inch wide webbing you have full control over exactly how long this shoulder strap is how long that shoulder strap is and how long each side of your waistband is how long that side is and more importantly where and how many D rings exactly are so it's not just a piece of 2 inch webbing it is a custom harness for you and exactly what you need and something that you can change at a later time if you want to add or move something later the final piece is your wing and these come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes for different needs and they are interchangeable as well if you come from singles to twins or you need more or less buoyancy but more importantly they're usually two shell systems so you get an internal bladder that holds the air inside but that's protected by a separate external shell that's there to protect that internal bladder from damage what's important about that is that if you rip or scrape that external shell you're fine do that on a recreational BCD and you have to throw the entire thing out even if you puncture the bladder you can either patch it or just replace the bladder you don't have to replace the entire BCD and if you want to add any extra bits like integrated weights or pockets or change your wing then go for it you can make and build whatever you want for each dive so if you want a stripped-down lightweight setup make it if you want something with plain to your left and lots of storage then build it the first downside is that you kind of need to know what each part does and what and which one you should invest in and if you only ever known recreational B CDs this can feel really complicated and daunting and you don't really know if you've bought all of the little bits that you may need to assemble a complete system and you don't want to be that diver that kind of shuffles awkwardly into a dive Center and embarrassingly asks what they need only that's actually the best place to go and if you come across an instructor or even a dive center that makes you feel bad then they're a bad dive center most instructors should jump instinctively and they just want to help you be a better diver so yeah it can take some time to look at each of the bits and decide which you need not want but need and then you have the fun of finding out if the parts are even compatible you see equipment manufacturers don't like it when you buy someone else's gear so they sometimes make it so that the only wing that will line up with their back plate is one of their wings now let's be fair sometimes this is just because they don't exactly discuss their product designs with their competition sometimes you can get lucky though and modern designs are becoming a bit more universal so you can get a harness from one place a backplate from somewhere else and a wing from another place but you do still run the risk of picking up stuff that simply doesn't line up and doesn't fit together but you've got all of the bits that you need now and they all fit together only unlike a recreational BCD that just comes assembled in the bag ready to go diving you kind of need to build your BCD but I look at this part like building Lego you wouldn't buy a fully assembled Lego set would you I mean there might be some people that do but the fun is in actually building it and to be honest it's not that much of a pain or even that complicated it's just a matter of being methodical and taking your time threading your harness will take you a good afternoon to get just right because you're gonna be fitting every single d-ring then putting the thing on moving it half an inch down and then on again each section is just right but the more time you spend at this point the less time you'll spend in the water trying to clip something off because your d-ring will be exactly where you need them to be recreational B CDs are made for single 12 liter cylinders and that's about it really that's what most divers dive with and that's what they're built for because of that they're built with a plastic backplate because that's all you really need to be honest it's lightweight it's cheap and it it does the job only plastic will Bend it'll twist and even crack on the strain and especially heat if you leave your BCD out in the Sun to dry off don't be surprised if a plastic part has misshapen in the heat but if you want to mount anything more than just a single 12 litre tank then you can need something metal and once you bolt your tanks onto your back plate they are rigid and they don't move or sway whether you sort of mount a single tank or twins onto a metal backplate it's going to be a much stronger mounting point for all of your kit than just a plastic backplate and then we get on to failure points now this bit is gonna get a little bit preachy because I was taught to look for baby points in everything and this isn't made to make regular BC diesel Affairs but there are failure points all over them the biggest failure point on reparation will be CDs are gonna be the pinch Clips just moving parts made from plastic that interlocks are just gonna wear out and break eventually but if you opt for a single piece harness then you only have one quick release on your waste as a failure point you have to go some to accidentally wear through a two inch webbing strap without knowing about it back plate setups are made with a more robust diver in mind the materials will usually be thicker so they last longer and can withstand more abuse than a recreational B CDs recreational B CDs are often lean they lean towards sort of weight saving alternative now you may get one or two B CDs in their entire range that are made for diving at home but their real focus nowadays is on traveling divers because most of us travel to go diving orally to be used to so the dry weight of a BCD is often a big consideration now when buying a BCD so the manufacturers use thinner materials but you could drive a truck over a lot of backplate and wing systems not though that comes up too much in my experience a complete back plate system will be more expensive than a off-the-shelf BCD but of course it's made from better materials and you're effectively getting a custom-made BCD especially for you in the long run if you're going to be serious about your diving then a back plate system is going to work out cheaper because the parts that you'll be replacing will work out cheaper than buying a completely new BCD every single time so your capital cost will be a bit higher but not significantly higher if you're clever and you don't go for solid gold earrings then a back plate system won't be prohibitively expensive even if you do trick it out a little bit it still won't be as expensive as Atomics newest BCD but yeah if you're still in the realms of not investing too much in your own dive equipment then back plates are probably a step too far for you back to the car analogy if you're only ever planning to do the easy kind of day-to-day commute then a standard car will do you fine if you're never gonna do a track day or you're never gonna go off-road then the added cost is just a little bit much and it's not what you're made for you but if you do want to upgrade and go a little bit faster or a little bit further then this is how you'll do it back plates aren't only for deep technical divers though the there are a few dive centres that are actually using back plates as school equipment now but whatever level you are sort of with your diving if you find that you're getting into your diving then you should definitely consider back plates at least and the same for you kids or your kids if you get your kids into and wind diving then they'll never have enough money for drugs so you know it's it's good for the kids so yeah if you've never even tried back plates before don't worry about them or think that they're daunting they're they're more of a just custom BCD that you assemble for your needs and your shape as well but what do you guys think have you ever tried a back plate system what do you think about them if you have any questions whatsoever about setups let me know in the comments below and if you want to see my own setups that I dive with right now then there'll be a little icon that's kind of popped up around there but yeah let me know what you dive or what you're thinking of diving in the comments below okay thank you very much for watching this video on my channel I upload videos every single week all about how to become a better scuba diver now I've been working in and around the diving industry for a very long time now and I have a lot of advice that I can help you out with so if you need any help or advice with anything to do with scuba diving just let me know in the comments below and subscribe to my channel because I'll probably make a video all about it to help you out so you can click here to check out one of my latest round 2 videos to upgrade your equipment and your diving and click here to check out one of my scuba diving advice videos thank you for watching and of course safeguarding

Channel: Safe Diving

Views: 9,045

Rating: 4.9428573 out of 5

Keywords: scuba, diving, advice, dive, equipment, gear, technical, backplate

Id: FocYSPUWP9M

Length: 13min 36sec (816 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 13 2020