Kentucky Fried Drysuit-Heating


This shows the connectors used at the drysuit.
Left is the part that is put into the suit and to the right you see the 1-pin-connector. 

 

Why electrical heating ?
Because it is comfortable and and it is the last possibility when all other things are just not warm enough !

What is this site for ?
To give you an idea about how to build your own stuff.

What is it NOT for:
It is not intended to give you a ready-to-rock solution if you have no clue about what you are doing !

IMPORTANT:
No responsibilty when fumbling around with hot / electrical stuff ! If you have cool burnmarks please send us a photo for the collection ;-)

Also important:
If you fuck up anything else before or during the dive, like being tired, haven´t eaten before the dive and during the deco, etc. this stuff won´t work either !
So it is also a good idea to DIR in this case !

Where to get the stuff:

cables from Fritz Schwarz GmbH in Schwabach/Germany, or Reinhard used wires from a car-seat-heating.

The "Suit-Connector" to put in the drysuit:
Artikelnummer: 210 Winkel-Female 2Pol., Gewinde 7/16"x1/2" =88EUR

The Malepart:
Artikelnummer TT20092 Telefonstecker  Vaterteil, schwarz, 1 Pin-2polig =36 EUR

both from Domeyer in Bremen, Germany.

The orange outlets are Type KSS from DEV-PEIN in Düsseldorf/Germany.

 

Micha und Reinhard

Here you can see the the heating-tube for the batteries. We usually take old scooter batteries from longtube-Gavins and use them as heating batteries. They have to be rewired for 12V then !!!!
The tube is a standard Scooter-Tube with 2 outlets (orange) and two switches.
It is important to mark the ON/OFF Position, because if the support-dudes (or the owner ;-) ) leaves them burning the corrosion will eat up the male 1-pin-plug, wich is a pain-in-the-ass and also expensive.

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 This again shows the connector in the dry-suit. Be sure to not mount it in a place were it will interfere with the harness, etc ! The lighter is not for heating, only for size-comparison !

 



The above pic shows the T-Shirt with the wiring.
Of course the wiring is the critical part, because it determines if it is going to be chilly, warm, hot or damned hot.
75W is a good amount to have it really warm. You will also have to think about the length of the wire. I used 5m(15feet)  with 75W and i got burnmarks, so we suggest at least 10m (30feet) of wiring with 75W to get the heat spread over a wider area of the body.
75W is still so much heat, that in NO WAY !!!! you should wear this on your skin, but it is just right for leaving it on all the time during deco and not having to switch it of temorarily. We have 3 layers of underwear, then the heat-shirt and THEN the drysuit-underwear !
Take this advice serious, on a dive you will not immediatly notice that you are going to get seriously burned !
 


Here you see again the drysuit, but this time from the inside ! The most remarkable thing is that even Reinhard´s black suit is blue on the inside ;-)
You see the connector that connects to the heatshirt on the inside.

Prior to the dive, when already geared up, one should make a final test, that all connections and cables are OK, so you just measure the electrical impedance of the cable to make sure you do not freeze your butt off  during deco.
This picture was taken a few minutes before our dive at the
 Doux de Coly this summer. www.tekdyk.dk/doux