Very scary part is the hand air pump. Typically there is a thin film of oil that helps seal the piston to the wall of the cylinder and THAT becomes extremely poisonous when breathed in, especially under pressure.
i hate to get technical, but, scuba is Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. what he is using is a Surface Supplied Breathing Apparatus. nice effort tho
Hi everyone! Thanks for watching this vid. I see there's people wondering about the science behind the Scuba helmet. Honestly - I don't know how it works! I took a risk and I figured that I wasn't going to be underwater for a long time and I also had a very qualified diver filming me and watching out for me. I looked into how the helmet would work and the explanation I give in the video is how I interpreted it. To be honest I didn't think this video would reach this many people. However, I am planning on building a bigger, better diving bell next year and I WILL make sure I get the science right! I'm sure one of you guys knows the correct way the scuba helmet works and I'd love to know, too! So keep commenting below and subscribe to keep updated. Thanks everyone
+TREADER TUBE Ya know, you really, really ought to go to a local dive shop and have them give you a short tutorial on the physics of diving. It's really pretty simple and you can get some info that might actually keep you from killing yourself. For example, air from a tire pump is NOT usually poisonous as someone suggested, but it's lubricated with oil and tiny particles of oil can get into the air and then into your lungs. If you get enough, your lungs cease to work and you suffocate. You probably did some damage with this one dive but obviously nothing serious but you'll never be able to fix what you've done and if you keep doing it, the affect is cumulative. And that's also why most diving air compressors are electric because there's no exhaust gas to be picked up and compressed with the air going into your lungs.The sad part about all this is that you're risking your life because you don't have a clue about what you're doing and the information is right around the corner and readily available in books.Experimentation is great. That's how man has made so much progress over the years. People have died trying to gain knowledge about such things as diving. But, that occurs to serious experimenters when the body of knowledge is sparse. In this case, it's not sparse and you're not going where no man has gone before. It can be incredibly dangerous even in shallow water if you don't know what you're doing.Please, don't hold your breath while you return to the surface. It can kill you in just a few feet. Your dive shop can tell you why,
+I'm Grateful Thanks for posting a structured comment. Totally appreciate your points made. As I wrote above I never thought this video would reach as many people as it has but a lot of the comments have helped me realise that this was more dangerous than I thought. However, one of the craziest things was trying to get the right information in the first place. People weren't too forthcoming when I said I wanted to make a scuba diving helmet out of a plastic bottle. I understand it's stupid and they thought I was an idiot but without any learned guidance I had to muddle through the best I could. I like how you mentioned that 'mankind makes progress by experimentation', and despite me not recommending anyone copies this, I do believe in trying things yourself - even if they've been done before. Anyway, despite the stupidness it was a project built on fun. I've got less-dangerous vids on my channel. Thanks again
I know this Steven Henderson But I dont have the money for it.... im broke, but ive got an empty water bottle an a hose pipe :-D I will catch the lobsters to buy scuba gear then... then I will catch shit loads of them lobsters and scollops... i'll be making all kinds of fish money ;-) Thanks TREADER TUBE
My grandfather built a diving helmet in the fifties out of metal (Not sure what kind) so its heavy enough to weigh you down. It also uses a bicycle pump with a long cable to supply air. Really cool I’ve messed around with it in a pool a few times. He used to use it to explore ponds and lakes with it. Sounds kinda creepy to me.
+THE UNKNOWN there could be a possible way to avoid that. If there was a substantial supply of oxygen entering the helmet to balance the loss of pressure from the co2, it could possibly work. However, I haven't taken physics so don't quote me on it
'+THE UNKNOWN there could be a possible way to avoid that. If there was a substantial supply of oxygen entering the helmet to balance the loss of pressure from the co2, it could possibly work. However, I haven't taken physics so don't quote me on it.' ElderlyMantis09
Hi Johnny, definitely agreed - no one should do this alone - or without support. The video doesn't really show it but we had a pony bottle with regulator down there, Rob (the diver) was there with me the whole time and we weren't in deep water or in an isolated location. We had a lot of fun and this video got a lot more attention than I ever thought! Thanks for you comment
I saw the pony bottle at the bottom and the divers with you. The biggest problem would have been not staying straight up and the jug filling with water if put on it's side.
I am a commercial diver as well. As you know the deeper you go the pressure increases. At 1ATA 33' the pressure double and volume of air iinside the hat would decrease and it would get to the point where it would cover your face. To over come this would require more weight and a lot more air. So this would only work in shallow water and the likelihood of in major trouble would be negligible. I can think of a few ways to over come this but then it could get you in some trouble.
To fix the CO2 problem, get a rubber tube that is long enough to connect from your mouth to the side of the helmet. This way, you can breath the fresh air with your nose and exhale the CO2 with your mouth. Keep in mind you must tape the end of the tube to the helmet so it doesn't float around you. (To keep it stabilized) Also, I recommend adding a mouthpiece to the front of the tube to make it more comfortable. :)
In the first minute you said "I will be creating co2, and I'm afraid that will make the oxygen come out of the bottom". You even made a animation for it. Well the problem with that idea is as you breathe your lungs use the oxygen, and turn it into co2. It is an equal exchange. You are creating no additional material, you are only using all of the oxygen in your helmet. Furthermore, you have additional air being pumped into your helmet, but no where for this additional air to go. Which then causes the problem you just got done mentioning "air coming out of the bottom". Smooth.
Now you know why the old hardhat diving helmets were big heavy brass and glass contraptions. Add about 8lbs of weight to the lower edge to achieve a more neutral bouyancy. Might take moreweight than that, but start out light. And you will want some weight at waist level or below. You want to naturally float vertical or nearly so, head upward of course, with any open helmet type system, so you don't spill your air. Releasing too much air by leaning the helmet will instantly send you toward the bottom until you recover your bouyancy control. Some of the weight should be held on by some sort of releasable mechanism. You should always be able to dump some or all of your weight. Also it would be helpful if you could build some sort of BCD, or bouyancy control device. This is a vest type afair that is inflatable from your air supply and has purge valves at all possible high points to release excess air. Add air to increase bouyancy. Release air to sink. When it is right on the money you can maintain your depth by controlling the amount of air held in your lungs. As you sink you will sink faster and faster. As you rise you will rise faster and faster. This is due to the change in your bouyancy with change in pressure. Reducing the volume of your helmet will improve performance. At least partially enclosing the bottom will help prevent air spillage, too. There is no reason why you could not homebrew a full 1920's style dive suit and helmet, actually. Since it would not be acceptable as a serious diving outfit, you would of course confine yourself to very shallow depths such as the depth you tested your water cooler bottle helmet in. It would be a fun and educational project. Just be sure you don't get the ultimate lesson, and get bent or dead. Even with real professional equipment, brass hat diving was a very hazardous undertaking. Also there are lots of DIY plans and instructions out there for rolling your own hookah compressor, some of which will kill you and some of which might not. Might be better than a buddy on a bicycle pump. And you need some filtration in your system. You might not think so, but you do. If you save your nickels long enough, you could get SCUBA certified and learn a lot about diving that might save your life some day. Plus you would learn about more practical equipment, and be able to get tanks filled, and go on organized dive trips. Real diving can be a lot of fun as well as useful and even lucrative enough to pay for your gear. There's an awful lot of boats out there that need their bottoms cleaned, and zincs that need replacing, and important stuff dropped overboard in harbors. I tried something similar to this when I was 10yo. I am lucky to be alive to admit it. Just sayin. I won't even build my own tank fill compressor or even hookah compressor. Only commercially available SCUBA gear for me, thank you.
I dived off Mafia Island, Tanzania with local divers who use a steel bucket connected by a hose to a compressor on a boat. As long as the compressor doesn't fail you can free dive and return to the bucket to breath and rest..
If your air source is on top pushing downward and carbon dioxide is heavier than o2, the excess gas should 'spill' out of the bottom of the bottle once it gets too full. So as long as your friend is pumping more fresh air than the amount of carbon dioxide you are producing you should be fine
I did this when I was a kid around third or fourth grade and I filled a backpack full of rocks and the helmet was A 5 gallon bucket attached to the backpack so I didn't have to hold onto the bucket and I use the garden hose duct taped to the inside of the bucket. One of my cousins was pumping the bicycle pump. I spent 20 minutes at the bottom of his eight foot deep pool.
Denser liquids go down and less dense liquids go up. With the CO2 molecule being heavier than the O2, it would make it go down and not up as you suggested. The close enclosure and constant flow coming from the pump and your breathing would mix the gases, so there would not be a clear "gas A" would be pushed down and "gas B" remains on top. Taking into consideration that humans only absorb about 4-5% of the oxygen contained in one breath and the constant pumping of air, your "light headedness" was probably psychological. This could be easily tested with an O2 measurement device.
Well done ! Unaware of 2000+ years of diving history, & thus uninformed by the developments in underwater breathing technology, you have reinvented the wheel.You have re-discovered the surface supply free-flow helmet. Versions of the hat have been around for hundreds of years,but they all required considerable engineering.Your hat is fantastic. You've made it very cheap & easy for anyone to take a look underwater. I see you have already noted the many warnings you received as to the many dangers you were exposed to.I hope your viewers do likewise. Commercial divers today use a development of this idea, with several safety features added to it. with your open bottomed design, you rely totally on your buddy pumping air down to you to provide the pressure to keep the water out of the hat. If he has a heart attack,you get no more air.When you breathe in,you will notice the level of water in the hat rise. When you breathe out, it will sink again.Each time you breathe in, you convert 4% of the oxygen in your body to CO2. After a couple of breaths your hat will be full of CO2 & you will pass out & die. If, on the other hand, your supply hose bursts, or comes off the pump, the hat will lose all it's air, & all it's pressure.The water at the base of the hat is being pushed down by air pressure, when that goes the water fills the hat.In seconds.So you drown. So you see the need for improvement that led to modern diving helmet technology. We add a neoprene neck dam which seals around the neck & connects around the bottom of the helmet.This stops the water coming in if you lean over. We add a non-return valve where the air comes into the hat.This prevents the air in the hat from leaking out if the supply hose comes loose or is cut. We also carry a spare air supply on our backs. Apart from that, we use your hat. Nowadays, the attention is on the air supply.Best Diving Industry Practice requires at least two independent air supplies, each capable of allowing the diver to reach a place of safety. For us, this means 2 big compressors or 2 sets of bottled air.Your system will need a better air supply. Your equipment is thus very primitive & out of date, but at the same time delightfully new. I would love to see you develop this gear. Used in benign conditions, with a little bit of guidance, you could have lots of fun. If any of my above situations occur where you are likely to use this gear, in shallow open water, you just drop your weights & come up . Your one remaining hazard is CO2 poisoning. If there is not enough flow to flush it all out of the hat, it will build up. CO2 is dangerous.It dulls your thinking & makes you clumsy.Enough can kill you.Symptoms are feeling hot, feeling anxiety, & most identifiable, rapid shallow breathing.A throbbing headache for hours after a dive suggests CO2 poisoning.I would eliminate the possibility by fitting a DV mouthpiece to your hat allowing you to blow each breath out of the hat. Your air line was kinked (visible in the video).This will cut off your air supply. We (Commercial divers) must use airline rated to 30 bar & 500kg breaking strain.You may use whatever you like. I would use the largest diameter hose pipe I could find - the entire pipe will act as an air storage device & give you a couple of breaths. Thanks for the video, I will make one of these.
Thanks for the detailed comment, lots of info! I didn't expect the video to been seen so much and I was just having some fun, I wasn't even sure if it'd work. I do wish I could go back and do it again and sort the things I chose to overlook (kink in hose etc). I know people have gotten annoyed about the vid but that's what happens when 1 million + people see something. Can't please everyone. I actually went and dived an old sunken Soviet prison - check it out: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8bm9O1OoHII.html
For the Co2 problem just have a tube for your mouth to the underside of the jug. You going breath in through your nose and breath out through your mouth
just got an idea, so, if you put an opening with a tube going to your mouth, you be able to exhale out the mouth, and inhale with your nose, now water getting into the tube can be fix, probably, (I'm not genius so), just put a spring loaded flap on the front, so that when you exhale, it pushes the flap, and when your done exhaling, it closes because of the spring. :)
How about if you connect a empty hose to a bucket or something and at the top of the hose you can attach a float so the hose will float above water, giving you the ability to breath underwater! :D
This dangerous I m a commercial part one Diver learned me self from Scottish navy instructors , and I be done well for myself . I bet my instructor found this , he would really insult you as he did with all the British lads offshore . But nice one . As long you are breathing under 2 meters it’s ok . Below that level you need to test co2 . What you could do is give continuity to the air flow , and you should be alright . Once again , NICE ONE
That was brilliant, just 2 comments: coat the internal wall with abit of edible oil to dispel the fog, and if you don't want the mix of CO2 in the tank, have a pipe to breathe out of.
this is pretty cool but definitely isn't new people have been doing this since the twenties to the fifties and it was very popular back then because gear was much more expensive than it is nowadays I believe even modern mechanics wrote an article about it in the thirties and gave some diagrams on how to make it the only thing that has changed is he's using plastic bottles and people used to make these out of old water heaters
I did almost exactly this but with a bucket and lead weights in my parents pool. Worked fantastically until the air hose blew off the pump, almost immediately sucking all the air to the surface. Luckily I just ducked out and stood up.
You need to add a one way valve, a very important safety feature on all dive helmets. Myth-busters did an episode on this ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LEY3fN4N3D8.html
it was a fun experiment seemed pretty cool :p if anyone actually need something simular tho go the safe way. buy an oilless electrical compressor and run it off an battery with a hose and a breath regulator (place a water/oil with micronfilter incase of metal shaving) you have simple "pumps/compressor" that coast about 100 dollar and runs of an 12v battery. if you want something bigger they go for around 300 just make sure its an oilless. make sure to breathout on the way up and remember diving sickness.
sorry if this has already been said, but its not a "scuba helmet" as it is not self contained it has a supply from the surface, scuba means self contained underwater breathing apparatus
Improvise a type of snorkeling tube for your mouth to run under your diving bell, in through nose, out through mouth c02 problem solved. For the design make sure there are plenty of counter bends to make sure water doesn't flow into your mouth inadvertently, and stabile for multiple angles
0:34 Problem fixed by having another tube that goes from your mouth under the rim. You brethe the good air in threw your nose and you exhale into the exit tube which bubbles the carbon dioxide out to the surface. Using your nose and mouth like a simple valve. :) Of course you could just breathe threw a tube.. in threw your mouth and out threw your nose.. But hey.. The snuba helmet looks really cool. :)
It would also let the water in from the bottom as the air went out the top. You need positive pressure to keep the water out unless you're in a fully-sealed system.
+ Chris Elliott -- There's no need for that if a better pump is used. The fresh air coming in from the pump will displace the CO2 in the helmet if the flow volume is high enough, just as it has been doing for hard hat divers for more than 180 years. The problem here was that the hose got kinked in several places and so the fresh air flow was restricted. (And the bicycle pump probably was not providing enough air to begin with. The deeper you go the more air it takes to fill your lungs, so a bigger pump is needed to be actually usable for any extended period.)
Technically not a scuba diving helmet, because scuba stands for self contained underwater breathing apparatus. This is definitely not self contained. still a sick video
Guys, SCUBA stands for "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus". By the way, the key-word is "self-contained". If you have some pipleine to/from the surface, it is not SCUBA-diving any more. ;)
lol "too buoyant" :) now you know why the first scuba divers wore belts weighted down with heavy lead and heavy shoes! well not that all scuba divers DON'T use a belt of some kind but now it's mostly as ballast to keep them neutral in the water!
It's a diving helmet, but it's not a SCUBA diving helmet. Scuba means "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus," and what you've developed is not self-contained, it's a surface-supplied setup.
Cut the mouth piece off of a snorkel and cut a hole in the top of the jug, attach it and seal it so that the pressure will push co2 at the top out of the valve in the snorkel when the pressure builds
