Simone Puzzolo from Italy build a good and cheap working oxygen rebreather using a ordinary bagpack!
The oxygen rebreather (A.R.O) has been constructed with a waterproof bag that only cost a few Euro’s, a piece of hydraulic hose (canister with telescopic function to vary the volume between 900 and 1700 grams of Sofnolime. Pressure on the sofnolime is added by the use of a elastic band that is mounted. The loop is constructed of pvc fittings and a corrugated hose(tecnoprene, milan).
I use a mouthpiece made of a 3-way valve normally in use for swimming pools. The valves are build in a separate pvc valve housing that are mounted on the mouthpiece.
The O2 cylinder is a surplus of my diving equipment, the rest is from a trekking backpack.
The autonomy is about 4 hours (with 1700 g of soda lime), but I tried it only for 2.30 hours !
To make the ARO neutral I have to add 2.5 kg of weight. The oxygen bottle is supplied with a lever to manually add oxygen in the loop. The oxygen line is fitted with a large quick connector. To prevent the counterlung to ‘stick’ I add a couple of hair curlers in the counterlung.
Simone Puzzolo, Italy.
Simone, well done! Thanks for sharing this information with us!
Page first published 20-10-2013
Therebreathersite was founded by Jan Willem Bech in 1999. After a diving career of many years, he decided to start technical diving in 1999. He immediately noticed that at that time there was almost no website that contained the history of closed breathing systems. The start for the website led to a huge collection that offered about 1,300 pages of information until 2019. In 2019, a fresh start was made with the website now freely available online for everyone. Therebreathersite is a source of information for divers, researchers, technicians and students. I hope you enjoy browsing the content!