Solar Heating Unit Review

This past weekend Tanya and I were teaching an Essentials of Tech class and trying out the Solar Heating Unit. On Saturday, we conducted two dives that lasted about an hour and a half or so each in 35F/2C to 46F/8C water. The air temperature was around 32F/0C. I had on the equivalent weight of a 400g polartec undergarment and was using air for dry suit inflation. On both dives I ran the heater the entire dive on “low” (11.4v/10ah LiPo battery). Why run the heater the entire dive? Well, I am normally cold during these types of dives. My hands are frozen and numb (yes in dry gloves with good liners and blood flow) by the end of the dive and I can barely work the buttons on the camera. Because of this, I opted to run the heater the entire time and what a difference it made. The unit gave off a ton of heat and my hands were only slightly chilled but I could still feel them. Most importantly, after 1.5 hours in COLD water, I could still USE my hands. I was able to move my hands and have them actually work stuff easily and not feel like I had pancakes for hands. Using reels, cameras, and snaps was easy. The second dive I actually got hot and turned the heater off for about 15minutes during the dive.

Sunday, we conducted another two dives under the same conditions, run times, etc... but I wanted to try the unit with argon for dry suit inflation. Everything was the same except for the fact that I was hot. I could only run the unit for a few minutes and then turned it off because I got hot. Tanya had pretty much the same experience using the heater except her dry suit had a neck leak on one of the dives and her entire upper body was wet when she got out of the water. During the dive she had no idea that her suit had a leak and that that much water actually entered the suit. She said that she was warm for the entire dive and never got chilled.

My overall impression of the unit is simple… it is great. It is well thought out, simple to use, and weighs nothing. I would recommend it to anyone looking to be warm and comfy on any dive. Most of us do not dive regularly in 35F/2C water but for those of us who do, I am happy to say that we finally have a low bulk high efficiency heating option available to us.

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Comment by Jonathan Edwardsen on January 22, 2012 at 4:37pm: AG,

So here is a little cold water/weather update on the solar heater for our diving in the Northeast. The weekend started off with 4 inches of snow and about an inch of ice. Needless to say we had a few people unable to make it to the dive site on Saturday. Sunday was a different story and yes, the snow was still everywhere. We began teaching our Essentials of Tech class with surface temperatures at a balmy 21F/-6C. During setup and the pre-dive briefings, the staff of Submerged, Inc. used the solar heating unit with the boat battery and were nothing but warm. Our entire bodies were warm… hands, feet, toes, everything. We could set up gear without having to have on bulky gloves. The dives were the real test…

During the dives, we each used an 11.4v 5.7ah LiPO battery pack to run the heaters (low heat setting). Again, we were toasty warm for the 62 minutes in 38F/3C water. The only thing I can say is that these heaters really do work. Tanya said, “This is the first dive of this length in these types of conditions that I have done without shivering.” The heaters reduce the number of layers of undergarments required for shorter exposures (1 to 2 hours) which means a huge increase in the range of motion and comfort. As you know, as an instructor teaching and videoing classes, we are quite often stationary for longer periods during the dives which means we are much colder than our students. The heater really works and is an effective solution to longer bottom times in truly COLD water. I will post some photos later this week.

Jonathan Edwardsen

Comment by Unified Team Diving on January 19, 2012 at 10:12am: Johnathan

I tell you - we (myself and the Instructor Candidates) could not of survived this weekend's Essentials of Rec/Tech without the Solar Drysuit heating system. We were teaching ALL day (outside and in-water) 10+ hours. Each day would start first with a 2-4 hours dryrun session on the picnic benches. We were in the open and exposed to the cold wind, the surface batteries ran the heating system continuously, keeping us perfectly comfortable. They would last about 3 hours per battery and generated enough heat to make the miserable outside weather comfortable.

Then when we hit the cold pacific waters, we were in for about 90 min per dive, and again these little solar heating units kept us perfectly comfortable. As the instructors or instructor candidates, you are not moving around, you are remaining stationary, so normally you would freeze your butt off. These little suckers changed the game. We ran continuously on low heat settings (11.2v) and they kept us perfect for 90+mins per dive. Of course between dives, we would plug in the surface batteries once again be comfortable during the debriefs. I can't say enough about how awesome these Solar Drysuit heating systems are, and how they will change the game in the future.

AG