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Elios Sub Suits

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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laminar

Well-Known Member
Aug 13, 2001
1,129
206
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I ordered a custom Elios Sub freediving suit, 5mm, Yamamoto neoprene and it is quite simply the best and warmest suit I have ever worn. :D

Reinforced arms and crotch, comfortable and effective seals at wrist, arms and face, chin-pocket (I can actual have an intelligible conversation with my suit on), and the best custom fit ever. Elios seems to have figured out what some wetsuit manufacturers still struggle to achieve: how to translate body measurements into a form-fitting suit. Picasso is still lacking in that department, despite the high cost of getting a custom suit. Custom fitting makes the biggest difference in warmth. I wish I had this suit during the winter.

Elios suits are cheap, too. $400 CAD with the shipping and their service is exceptional.

Other wetsuit manufacturers have a new competitor....

(no, I'm not sponsored by Elios, I wish!!!!)

Pete
Vancouver, BC
 
YEAH

I agree on that Laminar!

I bought my first taylormade Elios in the year 2000 and it is a skin/superelastic high density neoprene and it's still working very good!

Maybe I was lucky then because this suit was my first freedivingsuit. I have never had any problem with my Elios-suits.

A week ago I ordered 2 new suits (3,5mm and 6mm) both in skin/goldcoating which is warm and elastic and gives good glide!!

I recommend Elios if you haven't found what your'e looking for.:)

The adress: www.eliossub.com

I would also really like to be sponsored but I'm not good enough.:waterwork
 
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Laminar,
did everyone else up there get the same style suit.. I knew a few of you were ordering them. How are the rest liking the elios? Can you describe the differences if anyone else got a different model? I've got 3 different models of elios here (4 if you count my wife's).. love 'em all but especially like getting into the 3mm pro with superstretch lining. No lube and super easy to don wet or dry, very little seepage.
Fred
 
Hi Fred,

So far only Eric Fattah and I got new suits. I think 4 or 5 others will be ordering soon, and they all have different needs. Some want durability, others want warmth and durability (mostly a recreational crowd).

The suits we ordered were for performance in cold water. We'll be buying 3mm suits soon.

The neoprene samples were a little overwhelming. Elios certainly has many, many options for made-to-order suits. We imagine that the superstretch-lined 3mm is a good choice, because 3mm are so easy to tear.

The best thing about Elios is their ability to construct custom suits and not be limited to pushing "off-the-rack" suits onto informed customers.

cheers,

Pete
Vancouver, BC
 
I agree on that elios sub are the best suits i have tried. (i have had picasso, ezclapez suits) I am very skinny and tall and I dont fit into a normal suit.
They operate with to qualities of neoprene that is called neoflex and ecoline, the neoflex is the most expensive, I hav not found any big difference in quality. But i think yamamoto 45 is the best neoprene, I don´t know if they have that.
Buy the way when you order a custom fit suit consider having a ticle style top. They are much softer and more strechy, you have to experience the difference...
johan cold water refugee in denmark
 
Inside?

Thanks all,
I think this is what I was looking for. I made a pre-order, but I'm confused, whit the inside material. What is the best in order from best to worst for deep freediving:
1)open cell
2)nylon elastic
3)superelastic lining
4)Gold coating
5)nylon in the middle/open cell inside
6)Thermic plush

BTW, is better a high waist tight?
TIA
 
Our Elios suits are Yamamoto 45 open cell inside, smooth skin outside. That is what I recommend for anything 4mm or thicker. You can also get this for 3mm, but you must be extremely careful. Otherwise, I would go for a 3mm yamamoto 45, smooth-skin outside, superstretch/lycra inside.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
Elios gave this information to me.

The H.Density neoprene, (I think it is the Yamamoto 45), for deep diving is available in: (Inside/Outside)
(High density neoprene makes the boyancy change with the depth less and I think this is one of the important things to consider when looking for a suit.)

Open cell/Smothskin
Open cell+goldcoating/Smothskin
Sandwich, Open cell/Smothskin (nylon in the middle)
Superelastic nylon/Smothskin

I didn't ask for nylon outside because I wan't the good glide in the smothskin.

Cell/coppercoating and Cell/Titaniumcoating insides are not available in High density neoprene.


If you are not used to taking on and off this kind of suit I definately don't recommend a cell based inside and smothskin outside. Superelastic/smothskin is in my opinion a very good choice if you're not looking for exceptional warmth.

I don't recommend long John tights in combination with cell based inside because it's easy to tear the straps over the shoulders. In that case it's better to have high waist tights and on cold days a vest inside as a complement.
 
Elios told me that they sell high density neoprene (Heiwa neoprene) in three densities. They actually don't promote yamamoto because of the huge buoyancy change & huge compressibility. I have samples of the heiwa neoprene and some is remarkable stretchy given the density.

The bottom line is that if you order from Elios, don't ask for the material based on their confusing names. Tell them the brand of neoprene and the in/out coatings you want.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
What would be really cool is if you could get a suit made with a mixture of high&low density neoprenes.....

Cressi make scuba suits like this, and same goes with surfing wetsuits. They make the shoulders and other parts around the joints with the more stretchy neorpene. So for a freediving suit, say make arms high density, then shoulder joints low density & more stretchy. Then maybe the Torso a mixture of the 2 ?
That way it would be warmer at depth, but you still have the freedom of movement.

Might be difficult to do as it required lots of smaller panels, then might not be as strong either. With the scuba & surfing suits it's done with normal 2 sided nylon neoprene and stitched.

Cheers,
Wal
 
Interesting idea Walrus. I wonder if there would be any problems to make this without stitches and unlined/single lined neoprene?

Eric, so what you're saying is that Yamamoto45 is not High density neoprene? I have always thought that it was but I never asked Elios about that. :duh
I have only specified inside/outside and that I wanted a suit for deep diving.

What's making the Yamamoto 45 so great then if boyancy change is big?

Is it only the flexibility?

Don't you think that it's a benefit with a boyancy that don't change with the depth?

Have I missed something here.:confused:
 
All competition freediving suits have been traditionally made with Yamamoto 45 or Yamamoto 46 neoprene. The picasso competition suits are yamamoto 46, the freediverUK suits are yamamoto 45 (picasso has an exclusive deal for yamamoto 46, but it is almost identical to the 45).

The number specifies some sort of fraction of air bubbles, for example 46 might meat 46% air bubbles by volume? So yamamoto 39 is higher density (more rubber per unit volume), than 45 or 46.

In deep freediving, the most important aspect of a suit is flexibility. A non flexible suit requires extra oxygen from the muscles to stretch and bend the suit. This extra O2 is so overwhelming that any buoyancy change is irrelevant compared to the flexibility. Further, high stretch suits are warmer at the surface because they fit better.

People once tried making freediving suits from high-density pre-crushed rubatex, hoping that the small buoyancy change would make up for the lack of flexibility, and the experiment was a failure (the lack of flexibility was simply too overwhelming.)

Other than yamamoto 45/46, the only other extremely flexible neoprene I know of is a neoprene manufactured by GUL, which also stretches about 450% before breaking. Do note, that the elongation at break is not a good indicator of flexibility, instead, something like the young's modulus would be more indicative, in other words, how much force does it take to stretch it by 100%.

In summary, 'high-density' neoprene is neoprene which is almost pure rubber, with almost no air bubbles, thus having a very low insulating capacity, and low flexibility. 'Low density' neoprene is neoprene with lots of air bubbles, higher compressibility, and more flexibility, and also, greater fragility.

One last point: low density neoprene has another drawback ; collapse. After repetitive deep dives, the air bubbles get crushed permanently, so after a year of deep diving your 5mm may end up as a 4mm. However, with high-density neoprenes, even though they may collapse somewhat, they can never collapse as much as a low density neoprene since they didn't have as much air to start off with.

It is generally believed that serious collapse occurs after 40m of depth. So, if you are making repeated 50m dives, several times per week, your wetsuit will collapse in a matter of months.

Single dives to 80m or more can collapse a suit very fast.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
Interesting reading Eric. It's always nice to learn new things.

The only thing that seems strange to me is that the suits I have from Elios (all are high density neoprene) are made of a neoprene that is extremely flexible and soft. I have compared it's flex too many suits, ex. Picasso, Top-sub, Polo-sub, Sporasub.....and the fact remains it's as flexible or more flexible compared to them all!

The question is then: Does Elios really talking about High density neoprene?:hmm

Maybe I should ask them for an explanation...
 
I have samples of Elios' high density heiwa neoprene, and it is remarkably flexible, and with Elios' extre stretchy nylon, it would be more stretchy than a picasso suit with nylon outside.

Ordinary nylon coated yamamoto suits lose all the benefits of the yamamoto due to the inflexibility of the nylon.

Elios uses a weaker but stretchier nylon, more than adequate for strength, yet it retains a lot of flexibility.

Compare your neoprene to a picasso suit that is smooth skin outside, and you'll notice a difference.

Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
Peter,

As i know you have a superelastic/smoothskin suit, perhaps you can help me out. I am planning to get an eliossub suit, but i cant decide whether to get a sandwhich or superelastic lining (out will be smoothskin). i really dont get the concept of superelastic lining. is it like the gold coating of picasso suits or the metalite of cressi suits, or like something else?

I know sandwhich is as strong as nylon which is very appealing, but will a smoothskin with superelastic lining be as resistant to tears?

Erik
 
Again, the problem with the strange names Elios uses.

The 'superelastic' lining is just Lycra, the same material that women's swimsuits (and some men's speedo's) are made of.

It is much more stretchy than nylon, and I have a sample of 3mm yamamoto with 'superelastic' lining, and it is extremely stretchy.

I also have a sample of the 'sandwich' material, and it is the least stretchy of all my samples, although my sandwich material seems to be made of higher density neoprene.

I don't recommend the gold coating at all. It is too slippery, too expensive, and it is colder (due to the fact it is less sticky).

Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
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Kirehe:

Like Eric say the superelastic lining is lycra, a kind of nylon I think.

I have 3 suits with this lining and it's good against tearing. In fact 6 of my buddies have this suit 5mm Smothskin outside/Superelastic inside and no one has never ripped a suit. (That don't mean that you don't have to be careful with your suit, but follow the advices on Elios homepage.)

One of my buddies owns a 5mm Elios with the sandwich construction. It's simply 3 material layers glued on each other.

Outside 1 layer smothskin/open cell
in the middle 1 layer of superelastic lining.
Inside1 layer (I belive) cell/cell.

(The superelastic lining is between 2 layers of neoprene.)

The sandwich is warmer but flexibility is the same. My buddy had problems with his long John tights, it was ripped.
I belive that the sandwich is a little more fragile compared to sothskin/superelastic because the textil on the inside protects more than when it's in the neoprene.

I hope you find a good solution Kirehe.
 
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>I don't recommend the gold coating at all. It is too slippery,
>too expensive, and it is colder (due to the fact it is less sticky).
>
>Eric Fattah
>BC, Canada

Yo Eric,

Are you guys using water or soap while dressing this kind of suit (gold coating). My experience is that this kind of suit have to wear dry and this trick also makes this kind of suit really warm, also in water (for me it is the best option here in cold waters in Finland). This trick keeps skin dry (it works almost like dry suit when it is tailor made) and as we know how the air works at this case. It is not slippery at all when wearing it this way, it is more like like the next skin :)

best rgds,

- kimmo

ps. make sure that the skin is totally dry while dressing this kind of suit, good dressing technique can be found at Eliossub website
 
Quick question - getting a new suit soon, and pretty keen on the Elios... is there really that much difference between a smooth outer skin and lycra? Or is it going to end up being a half a meter on a 50m dive kind of thing?

Cheers in advance :)
 
One problem

Yes Kimmo that's true but I guess everybody get wet anyway after a while...

As you probably know, there are 2 kind of freedivers:

1. The ones that "do it" in the suit..

2. The ones that SAYS they do NOT "do it" in the suit...:D

:eek:

Seriously Kimmo, here in Sweden we also use this method on gold-coated suits.
 
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