Here's how it all started: I was sitting eating dinner one night last week and a funny feeling came to me. My mind churned. Sweat broke out on my forehead. The moon was full. I was compelled to go down into the Diveshop of Horrors and operate on two donors that had been sitting waiting in suspended animation for several months. When I returned to the house later that night, Franken-Rig had arisen! It is ALIVE!! Franken-Rig is the combination of the basic system of the Russian IDA-71 rebreather with the oxygen injection system from an East German RGU-FM rebreather. Essentially, the IDA-71 is a basic oxygen rebreather. By the simple expedient of filling the original oxygen system with air (or Nitrox), and then adding an oxygen injection system, a fully closed-circuit nitrox rebreather was created. Here's where that component was located: The RGU-FM relies on a constant mass flow of oxygen at approximately 0.9 liters per minute, nearly equal to normal 02 metabolism, and it also has a manual 02 addition bypass valve built into the system. Thus simply removing it from the RGU-FM and then adding this 02 system into the IDA-71 made for a clean and easy to do CCR conversion. PP02 measurement for the time being is done with a Draeger Oxyguage. Next week I'll construct a 3-sensor PP02 system and install it into the port that presently has the Draeger 02 sensor installed. That's it! The two best things are A: The entire rig (including PP02 measurement) cost less than US$2000, and B: It took me only THREE hours to do all of the work, including thinking it over. I could do a second one  in an hour.

"The next time you go to the market, remember that half of the people that you meet are of below average intelligence".

WARNING! Rebreather Diving is a dangerous sport. It weeds out the weak by KILLING them. Can I make it any clearer than that? SO: Remember, Rebreather-Diving AT ALL is dangerous enough. Making up EXPERIMENTAL rigs from parts gathered from here and there is about as iffy as it gets. DON'T try this if you don't know what you are doing. If you get killed following my methods, then shame on you! Don't let your family come crying to me as to how I facilitated YOUR death. The bottom line is that if you could not do this sort of conversion WITHOUT READING ANY INSTRUCTIONS AT ALL you are not ready to do it by following my methods.  Hey! Be careful out there, huh? If you want to persist in twisting the tail of the Dragon, Go read my Philosophy Page now to see if you have you head screwed on in the right way to accept these risks.

IDA-71 Basic Tour: The Raw-Meat! Basic Russian 02 rebreather as-issued. Read this first to get an understanding as to what the basic rig is like.
RGU-FM Teardown: The unwilling organ-donor    It died on the slab, but it's heart lives on!
Basic Nitrox conversion (This took 3 hours including thinking about it!)
Trimix conversion (This took 5 more minutes!) BUT you need to understand the Offboard Nitrox System first.
First Dive Report.	Damn, the thing actually *works*!
Rig Him Up!	Lessons learned after the first season.