Sentinel RedHead CCR
In March 2014 we announced that Vobster Diving had gained a licence from VR Technology to support, service, manufacture and supply Sentinel closed circuit rebreathers to the recreational diving market.
Overnight the value of Sentinel Expedition rebreathers rocketed because owners once again had the support they needed for their machines. (Sentinel owners had started to nickname their units 'Sent-to-hell' because they had been left in limbo since June 2013 when Avon Protection acquired VR Technology).
Vobster Quay established 'Vobster Marine Services' and the 'Expedition' evolved into the 'RedHead' under the VMS umbrella. As a result Expedition owners were able to replace the unit's existing electronics and upgrade to a RedHead.
Fifteen months later, after investing a lot of money in research and development, VMS received confirmation that the RedHead had passed CE accreditation in June 2015. They received the CE certificates at the end of October 2015, before achieving ISO 9001 as a manufacturer in the first week of November 2015.
"It now genuinely features reliable monitoring of all resource crucial to CCR divers - we have solved many problems that prevented the opticon Sentinel expedition achieving this. Tim Clements, VMS Marine"
The completely redesigned RedHead is 4kg lighter and is more modular than the Expedition. VMS Marine state that the modular nature also assists with in-field troubleshooting and saves on postage for repair costs - only broken parts need be shipped.
VMS Marine have also confirmed that this unit is more flood resistance, has better PPO2 tracking, better work of breathing, and most importantly a new O2 sensor module that actually work. They respond to changes in resource level and reduce the effort required to monitor PPO2, CO2, battery, scrubber time remaining (dynamically, thus warning of floods, poor material etc), HP O2 and HP Dil. You still need to know what you are doing, but the system now works.
It is possible to remove the electronics pod for travel and the batteries are rechargeable.
Divers have observed that the RedHead is still the size of a fridge. VMS state that this extra size assists with keeping the scrubber warm and contributes towards increased performance.