New (re)breath of life for AP Classic

Captain Starfish

Captain Starfish

New Member
I've been chasing electronic issues on my trusty classic for a few months now - replacing one handset, then nearly getting toasted after a multiple battery failure at the start of a dive, then continuing issues with handsets switching themselves off, rotten loom, dead buzzer and other hassles.

I reached the point where, even if I rebuilt the loom from scratch and replaced the 2nd handset and battery box, I've lost all faith in the AP controller electronics.

But what to replace it with? No Deep Pursuits anymore. Shearwater Petrel with solenoid, three cells and temp stick would have been a no brainer if Bruce and co weren't so tightarsed about who they sold their gear to. But that isn't an option, so the search went wider for an alternative.

And landed on the AV1c.

No redundancy on the setpoint controller, no temp stick. But apart from that it's a full three cell solenoid controller and Buhlmann G/F computer with all the usual fruit (including HUD, compass, auto setpoint change, game for deco, backup battery onboard, continuous ceiling as well as traditional stops, yada yada yada) for 900 euro. And the feedback has been pretty solid.

I bought the new Version 2 unit which doesn't re-use the batteries in the Classic (one of the things I wanted to get rid of was my dependency on those ridiculous kidney batteries), rather it runs off an 18650 lithium ion rechargeable in the handset with a smaller backup flat pack battery also in the handset. Apparently good for 10 hours on the main, 2-3 hours on the backup. Good enough for me by a country mile.

So, a nervous couple of weeks after sending my AUD1500 off to some random Russian dude (Hi, Alexey!) the mail turned up Christmas eve with this little bundle of goodness. It's about the size of my VR-3. Screen is insanely bright as we've come to expect from OLEDs but with the 'volume' control to tone it down if required. All the goodies were there in the box - unit, HUD, cable gland pre-installed, strap, bungee, charger and cable. Ready to rock and roll!

The supplied gland for the main cable (I didn't get one on the HUD lead but fortunately had something the same size in the parts bin) is an M12x1.5mm thread. Alexey talks about tapping the thread into the chrome AP bulkhead assembly but I'm not a fan of cutting on chrome and I'm not a fan of the design of those assemblies anyway - they are built to allow water through the thread and up against the internal seal where it stays forever, rotting the metal. So first order of business was to knock up some new bulkhead connectors on the lathe and mill:

av1-bulkheads.jpg


Damn, Christmas weekend and I didn't have the necessary tap or any thread tipped boring bars small enough to turn it. Carry on with a couple more things before I can hit the local tool shop tomorrow and get going again.

With my Shearwater HUD as 'backup' that makes two cables and the OCB supply hose running down the left hand loop hose. I route it this way so I can still disconnect the exhale side and hang it up to dry. Time for some 3d printering - first to make up another HUD mount, similar to the newer AP one. But also for some dead sexy clips to manage the hose and cables.

av1-hoseclip1.jpg


av1-hoseclip2.jpg


More photos tomorrow in part two of what should be a pretty simple build thread, once I've got the m12x1.5 tap back home.
 
Am I really about to do this?

:crash:

Yes. Yes I am.

av1-noreturn.jpg



And life just got a whole lot simpler and tidier (for the moment, I'll fix that shortly).

av1-gutless.jpg



Measure twice, cut once, etc, etc, etc. Still - it's a warm and fuzzy feeling when you make stuff up and it fits right where it's supposed to go.

av1-bulkheadsin.jpg


:edit: the bung in the middle is one I made a while back when the buzzer packed it in. I /may/ pop a threaded hole in it one day and run the Shearwater cable through that, no need then for the 4th cell holder and I can go back to the old one. Or, if I can't hear the AV1c beeper, there are wires coming through for a buzzer on that too so I might put my spare buzzer in. We'll see.

Now time for some glue lined heatshrink (remember Starfish, put that on first, BEFORE you start connecting things) and some solder... stay tuned!
 
Last edited:
Hmmm. Wires stripped and ready to go. Just before I do anything too permanent, I think it might be an idea to check things out and make sure it all works and the wiring diagram is correct.

av1-tempwire.jpg


Great success!

I'm liking the power on battery test - open the solenoid, watch (and display!) the battery voltage drop. Lights are flashing, cell mV readings are coming through fine. Happy days. Now to work out how to waterproof loom it all up :)
 
Success is "looming".

av1-looming.jpg


Under the red heatshrink are all the connections, individually heatshrink wrapped. On the right side of the heatshrink I've run a 10mm collar of hotmelt glue, shrunk the red over the top of it, then tailed it with a short stub of black heatshrink. I also made a 'collar' of glue around and through all the cables coming in on the left, at the end of their outer shields. Then I made a heatshrink "trumpet" on the left hand side by simply not hitting the end with the heat gun. I filled the trumpet with more hotmelt, shrunk the trumpet, and taped over the blister of goop that came out at the end.

This /should/ be pretty watertight, I reckon, especially as the red heatshrink is a little loose and can compress the airspace inside.

Time to button it up and go for a pool dive now!
 
Wow, the head looks pretty bare without battery box etc.

av1-lookingempty.jpg


Tightened up the gland nuts, installed the head, passed positive and -ve tests.

Fired her up, calibrated, about to have a dive in the pool and watch what happens.

But green is good, right?

av1-readytogo.jpg
 
The narked cell holder just slides out but I reckon there's so much more wiggle room in there that you could get cells out pretty easy.

Couldn't see the shearwater HUD on the other side so I'm printing a new dual HUD holder for the left side now. Other than that the pool test went... Swimmingly!
 
Nice, 900 euro's plus a classic with knackered electronics is a pretty cost effective way of getting a rebreather with up to date electronoics compared to the cost of a new unit.

consider keeping a lookout for a reasonably priced predator with cell monitoring in place of the shearwater HUD. I run a deep pursuit with a second predator and it works well. Having the second handset permanently wired in has alowed me to carry on diving on the rebreather on a couple of big trips when one computer has died.
 
Good thinking, but I think I'm approaching the point where any more money will go in the "buy a rEvo" fund. The classic was a great way to dip my toes in the water and try out this rebreather thing, but it really is a dead end and the money is better spent elsewhere. It could become a sidemount BOB guts though if I upgrade my main unit. Time will tell!

One thing the pool dive did demonstrate was that the shearwater moved out to the right hand side was pretty much out of view of the mask. So I made a new HUD holder, ready rigged for double trouble. I wonder how long it will take to learn to ignore this christmas tree!

av1-mk2hud.jpg
 
AlexBerger said:
cool how about the cells can you remove them individually or do you have to disassemble the head as before
Click to expand...
Alex, I had a bit of dicking around with one of the T-piece adapters on a cell the other day, ended up changing out the cell as part of the diagnostics. I could do it with the holder in place but, when I went to swap the old cell back in, I pulled the holder out because it's still a bit of a squeeze.

One thing to note if anyone else heads down this road - don't make your gland adaptors the same length as the AP ones. This is probably why the AP ones are inside out, but the thread sticking into the head fouls on the cells when it all goes together which means now my cell #3 is sitting below the 3:00 position and a potential water trap. Hasn't bitten me yet but I'm wary. Cutting the thing back flush with the nut would be alright, I think, just a PITA to do now the cables are all wired in. It'll be dremel time though if I start to see #3 misbehave.
 
Well done! Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

I almost picked up a clapped out classic, thinking it would be a good cheap MCCR. Your idea is better though.

Do keep us updated after the shake down dives.

Peter
 
I think you are right that the Classic is a dead-end piece of kit. Thanks for showing what can be done with one other that buying the Vision.

Matt.
 
The Classic has its place.

A new car drops 10% of its price as you drive it out of the lot. And then, every year, that money just evaporates. On the other end of the spectrum, a 10-15 year old Landcruiser is worth $5k now and will still be worth $5k in ten years time. In those ten years it will pretty much go anywhere and be reliable as hell apart from a few well known issues.

And the AP Classic is the same. For someone who wants to start on a full blown eCCR with minimal financial risk, I reckon it's probably the best option available. Exactly the reason I got one anyway. I knew when I started that the handsets gave problems, I knew that I might be sending the head back to replace (at some expense) those handsets or looking at other options. When one finally died completely, I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of spares here on CCRx to have a replacement. And when the other one started its shenanigans I could have just replaced it too, and probably would have gotten a couple more years out of it before I flogged it for what I paid for it. This way I get to play with nice new brains. If I decide to move on completely, I can reinstall the AP guts and spare working handset, and keep the AV1c for a homebuild or something.

But, yeah, I think the AP Classic is soon to become the AP Vintage: cool to own (because it still works and that's rare), impossible to get parts for and will start getting rarer and rarer. Hey, at least it's not like the Boris or anything else that demands to be returned to a factory that no longer exists for a service that's no longer offered before you can dive it again!
 
Last edited:
matt said:
I think you are right that the Classic is a dead-end piece of kit.
Click to expand...

Maybe as a whole... I bought the bear minimum amount of Classic parts to make my MCCR (scrubber and hoses) its a perfect loop to build upon IMO, easy to get parts and spares, endless amount of 3rd party bits available and when AP move on from the Vision they'll be a nice crop of ECCR parts for the few of us left with Classics to harvest! ;-)


Nice work Captain Starfish.
 
Ben Field said:
Maybe as a whole... I bought the bear minimum amount of Classic parts to make my MCCR (scrubber and hoses) its a perfect loop to build upon IMO, easy to get parts and spares, endless amount of 3rd party bits available and when AP move on from the Vision they'll be a nice crop of ECCR parts for the few of us left with Classics to harvest! ;-)

Nice work Captain Starfish.
Click to expand...

Cheers. As a whole, they're still a nice unit to dive and they're damned cheap. They just have flaky electronics and lack the bells and whistles of the units that cost two to five times as much.

I daresay we'll start seeing more and more cheap Classics come on the market with old pre-RMS rEvo electronics and suchlike in the future, too. Which is pretty cool (just damned hard to certify on!)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top