Dry suit survey?

[Freedive WI]

I've owned a lot of suits over the years incuding:

Bubble suit
Jetsuit
OS shell suit
Viking sport 90
Viking Classic
DUI TLS 350
DUI CF 200
DUI CLX450

I have had viking dry gloves on most of them, except the neoprene suits where I wore 3-finger mitts- which weren't all that bad IF you get the right kind.

I also had dry hoods on at least 4 of them- which works out well if your using a full-face mask to do salvage jobs in the Milwaukee River. :-X

I've owned two p-valves, a Dive Rite and a Halcyon. I like the Halcyon better, but you have to make sure that the screw is open when you go below 100'- long story, but very painful and will never be repeated. :'( Relief zippers are a pain and I would certainly put another p-vlave in my next suit.

I have also had thigh pockets on at least one of the suits and any suit that I might get in the future will have these on- just make sure they are mounted on the sides and not the front, I had an issue with the drysuit guy who put mine on and he was not happy when I made him move them- but I did right it on the repair ticket and even UNDERLINED my request, but he still got it wrong.

I hate Rock boots, but that could just be me. The last two DUI suits that I owned I ordered from the company with the Turbo soles instead- it took a couple of extra weeks, but it didn't cost my anything extra.

My first couple of suits used aBC oral inflator hoses on the chest- that's how they used to make them. My OS suit had manual dump valves, but everything after that had adjustable shoulder dump vlaves and they always worked fine for me.

I just keep them wide open and lift my arm when I want to dump- make sure you keep your elbow bent while you do this to concentrate the air by the valve- otherwise it all goes to your wrist and your arm balloons up. I have never used a cuff dump, but some freinds of mine have and seem to like them. I prefer the shoulder valve because I can close it up and fill my suit with extra gas for long surface swims.

Next suit I would get is a DIVING CONCEPTS TLS custom cut suit. They make a custom suit for the same price as a stock DUI. IF I got another DUI it would be the TLS-350, as I liked that one the best out of the three that I owned.

I have seen, and like the looks of the Dive Rite 905, but have never used one. Andy's suits look fine if you get the chest zipper. I like the chest zipper smuch better than the back zippers. Either way, you need to baby them a little bit. Just because they look tough doesn't mean you can't break them. If/ when you do break one it is not cheap to fix- I have had to replace at least 4 zippers on different suits.

Hope that helps you out,

Jon