The ultimate low volume 'mask', Pipe goggles ! - Page 3

commonerg · #31 November 28th, 2004

Thanks to everyone who posted info about pipe goggles in this thread.

Here are my pipe goggles...

I bought the tubing at pet's-mart. I fed the pipe directly into the silicone eye-skirt to connect the left and right cups. For the mouth tube, I attached a connector, which I assume is normally used to connect two pieces of pipe together, to the skirt. The mouth tube itself then slips onto this connector (you can see this on the bottom right of the goggles in the picture). This is a nice feature, as it allows me to remove the mouth tube for storing the goggles and replacing the tube if necessary.

The seal on these goggles isn't perfect, but with a slightly larger pair of goggles, I assume I could make a very practical pair.

Also, check out my pillow hair.

JasonWelbourne · #32 November 29th, 2004

I have recently learned how to equalize hands free; talking to tyler the other day we got into a discussion about merging the concept of a pipe mask with the idea of an air bag that eric had referenced in another post. Basically, you would take a regular mask with nose covering and attach some tubing with a wide enough opening to allow for low-enough resistance air flow to the mask on one end and a freely compressible air bag on the other (snorkeling vest maybe). Upon leaving the surface, while doing the constant equalization necessary to prevent ear squeeze, you would just blow gently out your nose until you had released an appropriate amount of air. Then continue with dive as normal, albeit a FRV dive, and equalization of your mask, and consequatally the sinus air spaces would be automatic, making it very easy to equalize the ears using the hands free method. During ascent, air could be drawn out of the bag (to prevent SWB) by merely inhaling through the nose which would simultaneously assist the depressurization of the ear.

Walrus · #33 November 30th, 2004

Not sure what you meant with that last one, are you talking a regular mask with nosepiece, or a pipe-mask ?
The bag with air idea I already mentioned in an earlier post on this thread, I tried it a year ago with the goggles. I'm sure lots of others have tried it before me. Only thing is the volume of the mask becomes critical in terms of the size needed for an airbag. I used half a kmart-floaty (arm band) which cost 50 cents. I used a longer hose wich fitted straight into the air inflate valve. I think inflated the bag probably held aprox 200ml. If you used a regular mask would need at least 1 litre or more. The difference in volume between swimming goggles and a regular mask is pretty huge. I only took it down 45m or so just to try it, but worked fine, and could have taken it much further as far as equalising the mask. I just held it in my hand. Don't think I would have needed much more volume to get to 80m or so. One thing I noticed though the position of the bag makes a difference. It worked best when the bag was at the same level as the goggles. Otherwise the pressure is different and you get some suction. Also has a bit of a burping effect when you first duckdive it seems to let some air out, not sure how to solve that one.

commonerg, I have tried it with the style goggles you have in the picture but it didn't seal very well. Most rely on the suction to seal which you lose once you atach the pipe. I finally tried it with the aqua sphere swimming goggles, they have a really good seal since the skirt is soft silicone like a mask. Perfect seal.

Cheers,
Wal

Walrus · #34 November 30th, 2004

I remembered I still had the floaty armband thing, I just took a picture along with the goggles. They are my original pair that were made in a hurry, notice where I ran out of tube and used 3 pieces for the connecting bit. Yeh they are ugly but sort of my lucky goggles now since I used them for all my deep no-fins training. Seems almost a shame to make up some new ones.....

Cheers,
Wal

Walrus · #35 November 30th, 2004

Another picture showing the brand name in case you want to find them. The packet says Aqua Sphere Kaiman goggle (Large).

mjacobs · #36 November 30th, 2004

I'm not a goggle diver, but it seems to me that if you had enough tubing you wouldn't need an airbag. The capillary depth gauge principal comes to mind. You could coil the tubing inside your wetsuit top or hood. Of course, if you went beyound the tubings air reservoir limit you'd get water in the goggles but you could be conservative enough with the tubing. Is this a practical approach? Maybe you could even fashion a mask strap arrangement out of the tubing to make it more compact.
Mark

DeepThought · #37 November 30th, 2004

That might require taking down alot of plastic for the same amount of air, so my gut feeling says it won't work well for medium-deep CB. Might be very nice for shallow recreational freediving.

JasonWelbourne · #38 November 30th, 2004

what I was talking about was a regular mask with nose peice. I did the homemade liquid goggles and the homemade pipemask and the homemade noseclip thing, and given how easy it was to pick up hands free equalizing, I just don't have much zeal for them anymore.

I find liquid goggles to be uncomfortable once the saline starts to migrate into my sinus cavities (or whereever the heck those tubes lead). I find nose clips to be a bit tricky when I do my turn around at whatever depth. I am sure that I could train myself past that, but I am not motivated to.

I have however become infatuated with the idea of FRV diving, and the benefits that could be exploited by having that spare air handy.

commonerg · #39 December 1st, 2004

Jason, you mentioned a "Do-It-Yourself" nose-clip. Would you mind sharing how you did it? Is there a thread about this?

JasonWelbourne · #40 December 1st, 2004

commonerg · #41 January 5th, 2005

After playing around with different masks and clamps I finally have a setup I'm happy with.

I ruined a nice new Seal XP swim mask in the process. The silicone on the Seal mask tears easily when it is wet. Be careful if you are trying to modify one into a pipe mask.

The black silicone on this speedo swim mask is very nice. I love this mask. Great field of view. Low Volume. Strong Strap. Again, I used the little 2 way connector which helps with the seal and allows me to remove and replace the tubing.

The nose clip is just a small clamp I got at home depot. The rubber bands at the bottom make it not clamp down so hard on my nose (it kind of hurt).

The total cost on this was $21
$17 for the mask
$1 for little clamp.
$2 for tubing
$1 for waterproof superglue

$46 total if you include the scraped Seal XP mask.

pheydebreck · #42 May 4th, 2005

mjacobs,

you are right, an open tube works also well, and you can really use it as a depth gauge, at a certain depth water begins to drop into the mask (a nice signal, you are almost there!)

herbert nitsch used a sphera seal mask with pipe for a FI world record attempt, as he told me, it worked also quite well without holding the pipe in the mouth...

mjacobs · #43 May 4th, 2005

You could maybe even put the open tube INside the mask rolled around the perimeter of the faceplate, mark the tube, and have a visual and accurate depth guage built in while simultaneously reducing mask volume. I'm not really a dive for the numbers guy and haven't tried it, but it seems to me it might work.

ahofbauer · #44 March 13th, 2007

I copied a DIY pipemask a friend made once. In this case it was a pair of extremely cheap goggles (1.20 us dlls) two small peces of brass pipe, epoxy glue, FESTO brand compressed air hoses (inner diameter of some 3mm) and a T-connector (also FESTO).
The polyurethan hoses are even "jummy yellow".

The "mask" turned out to be really useful and practical if used in combination with a noseclip. We also tried it with a balloon for self-equalization.
The best air container solution for the mask was the use of several meters (up to 15) of a very thin plastic hose with an inner diameter of about 1mm. This thin hose (being open on one end) worked like a compensation tank.
The idea of integrating it into the lead collar came quite naturally.

NATVRA NON NISI PARENDO VINCITVR

strauss · #45 September 2nd, 2007

My PipeGoggles are partly inspired by Wal’s design.

Took me about 10 minutes and cost less than 5 bucks, excluding the goggles.

I used:

AquaSphere Kaiman Goggles
4mm plastic tubing (windscreen washer system part, available from auto store)
“T” connector (windscreen washer system part, available from auto store)
Rotating leather punch. Ensure the punch is “hollow”.
Set of pliers
Scissors

Method:

Punch 3mm holes toward outside of each lens. Sharp edge of punch on outer side of lens.
Trim ends of tubes on an angle, like the end of a hypodermic needle.
Gently pull these ends through the 3mm lens holes with a set of pliers.
The hole should be slightly smaller in diameter than the tubes. This way the tubes will be “constricted”, making them water and airtight.
If hole is too small, make larger by carefully inserting and twisting punch.
Trim the pointy end off so you don’t poke your eye out,
Attach “T” connector and mouthpiece
Trim all tubes so that the “T” connector sits just above your upper lip
TEST!

The advantages I can see of this design are:

Theoretically, an even distribution of air to each eye
No glue required
Simple

Tested them to -5m, no leaks. Now I just need to get a noseclip!

DeeperBlue