Practical questions from a new Reg/BCD buyer

> don't know if you still get 232 bar tanks which are A-clamp only -
> apparently so from Lee's comment.

I still have several of them that, slowly, but surely, I'm putting
DIN/A-Clamp valves on. I got a good deal on the valves from a shot that
caters to technical divers. They valves were left over from conversion to
manifolded twins. At 14.5 psi to the bar, 232 bar is just over 3,300 psi.
Both Catalina and Luxfer make 3,300 psi tanks that they sell with A-Clamp
valves. Catalina calls theirs Compact, Luxfers calls theirs neutral
buoyant. Both, in fact, are roughly neutral when empty.

I like the buoyancy characteristics of these tanks. I originally chose them
because they didn't get all floaty at the end of a dive. The standard 80
tanks, which are 4-5 lbs buoyant when near empty, tend to annoy me by
floating around while on my back. My Catalina Compact 80s don't do that.
Later, when I switched to a plate and wing, I grew to really like them
because the combined weight of tank and stainless plate almost perfectly
offsets my natural buoyancy. In my warm water configuration, I dive with no
weight at all and use only about 4 lbs when using my 3mm wetsuit. It's
probably needless to say, but I don't dive particularly cold water.

Not counting size differences, there are essentially 5 classes of tanks
commonly used in the US. The low pressure 2,250 or 2,600 psi (I forget
which exactly) steel tanks are pretty popular with the technical crowd
because they seem to be safe a substantial overpressure. They are available
in both A clamp and DIN valve configurations. The 3,000 psi aluminum tanks
are so common here that we call them Standard. The normally come with an A
clamp valve. The 3,300 psi neutral/compact aluminum tanks are not
particularly popular mostly because they're expensive and, until recently,
were made on the West Coast. By the time Luxfer introduced theirs, other
options were available. Most of them came with A clamp valves as well.
Next up are steel tanks rated just under 3,500 psi. These are the most
recently released product, the ones designed for and sold with the
convertible valves. I have two of these that hold roughly 100 cubic feet of
gas in the space of a Standard 80. Finally, there are the 3,500 psi tanks,
formerly known as Genesis and High Pressure. To the best of my knowledge,
they were only available with 300 bar DIN valves. I had two of them that I
sold when I bought the ones with the convertible valves.

Lee