grumpyolman
New member
This all began with not wanting to carry SCUBA tanks, find air, do annual inspections, hydro every five years, etc. At this ripe old age I know I am not going deep anymore. (There's no loot there anyway unless your last name is Fisher) I thought Hookah is the way to go. I started with an Airline 2/60 (2 divers 60') with a 2.5 commercial grade Honda engine. This is the Cadillac of the hookahs. A bit more expensive but if you like quality and want good air it's still a good deal. ONLY...problem is the gas engine, even though a Honda, was way too loud. I called Honda and everyone I could, willing to void my warranty if someone would just tell me what kind of muffler I could make or buy that would make this thing whisper. No takers on that.
I am now thinking DC electric but goodness the batteries are heavy. I also weighed getting an Airline DC unit or getting the Hookamax. The Airline is 1/3 HP and the Hookamax is 3/4 HP. If you read the fine print it sounds like Airline designed their DC unit for a lot lighter work than I do when tecting with a friend underwater. The Hookamax ended up being about $1K less expensive as well.
So! Enter the Hookamax. Save yourself some time on batteries as the bottom line is the more lead in the battery the more amperage it will store. Yeah there are other factors, but that's the bottom line. One "D" battery, like you find on a semi, would run the Hookamax about 2-3 hours. Weight 125 lbs...about. However, I found out that two 6 volt batteries hooked in series, deep cycle, and 220 amps each would run the compressor longer,,,at least on paper. Those batteries are 63 lbs each and if you handle one at a time it's not that bad.
I needed a way to get all that from the garage to the car and from the car to the beach. I ain't making 6 trips. I found that there are some super wagons, not the wagons we played with as kids, that were reasonably priced and would do the carry work. The wagon you see in the pictures was $80 and included shipping from Ontario. It's metal which means I can weld on it if I want serious mods or need to do repairs. Some of the wagons were in the $300+ range.
The pictures are self-explanatory. We loaded up, drug the gear to the beach, dove, and hauled the gear back to the Explorer.
The results...We timed things with a stopwatch. We did 2 divers from 6" to 12' for one hour and fourty minutes. A single diver then put another 40 minutes on the unit. If you snorkel or dive you know we were working to do this, but not super hard. Maybe similar to a steady walk. In terms of run duration and energy conservation, the Hookamax has a pressure switch hooked in line with the accumulator tank. When the tank reaches 100 PSI, the compressor and motor stop running. (It's direct drive. No belts) When the pressure in the tank gets about 80 PSI it starts and runs until the pressure again reaches 100 PSI. As we were underwater, we really couldn't tell about what percentage of the time the machine was off. However, MANY time we surfaced to check where we were and just make sure all was fine, and the compressor was not running.
The thing breathed just like using a SCUBA tank. You absolutely can not hear or feel the unit running when underwater. I do not think if there were people using the same beach that the noise it made would be intrusive. The lines spread out in the water would be.
The one down side to the unit is that it is so quiet that if it ever stopped running and you were deep, you'd get no warning other than it was getting harder to get the air out of the regulator. If you are going to use this machine where you can't stand up if need be, and you see yourself over 20' a lot, I'd suggest a reserve air supply on board your body somewhere.
Loot!! Little to find there that day. We did find the usual number of sinkers, a few coins, some tabs, and all the usual junk. I did find a .117 caliber pellet. Thanks Tiger Shark. It was just a test run. If we were serious about maxing finds another place would be chosen.
Hope you enjoy my experience and the pictures...Jim
I am now thinking DC electric but goodness the batteries are heavy. I also weighed getting an Airline DC unit or getting the Hookamax. The Airline is 1/3 HP and the Hookamax is 3/4 HP. If you read the fine print it sounds like Airline designed their DC unit for a lot lighter work than I do when tecting with a friend underwater. The Hookamax ended up being about $1K less expensive as well.
So! Enter the Hookamax. Save yourself some time on batteries as the bottom line is the more lead in the battery the more amperage it will store. Yeah there are other factors, but that's the bottom line. One "D" battery, like you find on a semi, would run the Hookamax about 2-3 hours. Weight 125 lbs...about. However, I found out that two 6 volt batteries hooked in series, deep cycle, and 220 amps each would run the compressor longer,,,at least on paper. Those batteries are 63 lbs each and if you handle one at a time it's not that bad.
I needed a way to get all that from the garage to the car and from the car to the beach. I ain't making 6 trips. I found that there are some super wagons, not the wagons we played with as kids, that were reasonably priced and would do the carry work. The wagon you see in the pictures was $80 and included shipping from Ontario. It's metal which means I can weld on it if I want serious mods or need to do repairs. Some of the wagons were in the $300+ range.
The pictures are self-explanatory. We loaded up, drug the gear to the beach, dove, and hauled the gear back to the Explorer.
The results...We timed things with a stopwatch. We did 2 divers from 6" to 12' for one hour and fourty minutes. A single diver then put another 40 minutes on the unit. If you snorkel or dive you know we were working to do this, but not super hard. Maybe similar to a steady walk. In terms of run duration and energy conservation, the Hookamax has a pressure switch hooked in line with the accumulator tank. When the tank reaches 100 PSI, the compressor and motor stop running. (It's direct drive. No belts) When the pressure in the tank gets about 80 PSI it starts and runs until the pressure again reaches 100 PSI. As we were underwater, we really couldn't tell about what percentage of the time the machine was off. However, MANY time we surfaced to check where we were and just make sure all was fine, and the compressor was not running.
The thing breathed just like using a SCUBA tank. You absolutely can not hear or feel the unit running when underwater. I do not think if there were people using the same beach that the noise it made would be intrusive. The lines spread out in the water would be.
The one down side to the unit is that it is so quiet that if it ever stopped running and you were deep, you'd get no warning other than it was getting harder to get the air out of the regulator. If you are going to use this machine where you can't stand up if need be, and you see yourself over 20' a lot, I'd suggest a reserve air supply on board your body somewhere.
Loot!! Little to find there that day. We did find the usual number of sinkers, a few coins, some tabs, and all the usual junk. I did find a .117 caliber pellet. Thanks Tiger Shark. It was just a test run. If we were serious about maxing finds another place would be chosen.
Hope you enjoy my experience and the pictures...Jim
