Gordon Smith (born Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada 1950, died January 9, 2006) is an inventor, engineer and tool and death-maker famous for creating rebicher diving KISS SCUBA.
Video Gordon Smith (inventor)
Riwayat profesional
Gordon Smith was trained as a tool and die maker in C. A. Norgren, Littleton, Colorado. He returned to Canada in 1975 and worked for Comptec International Ltd., a color printing company, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Gordon Smith spent fourteen years at Comptec and moved from a Mold Maker position to become a manager of the Tooling, Engineering, and R & D. During this period he was responsible for increasing the output of machine operators by a factor of 6. He also helped move Comptec into the telecommunications business and developed a production system for telephone assembly used today by almost every major phone manufacturer in the world.
Gordon Smith left Comptec in 1989 to start Kiss Manufacturing. In the late 1990s Gordon discovered and started producing the KISS line of diving rebreathers under the name Jetsam Technologies.
Maps Gordon Smith (inventor)
KISS Rebreather development
Gordon is an avid scuba diver in the Pacific Northwest, diving all over British Columbia on his "Ferrous" ship. In the mid-nineties, technical surveying became a movement that provided some background on some commercially available rebreors - very expensive and challenging to get at that time. Gordon was interested in technology, and also did not find his dives limited by the size of his tanks (generally consuming two tanks for every common diver). As a self-taught and owner of his own machine shop, he has the means and technical ability to start exploring the design and construction of his own rebreathers. These are exciting times for the development of rebreather, where virtually no certification bodies can handle non-military rebreathers and certainly there is no clear path forward towards acceptance of their use in recreational diving. For example, some charters at the time have the ability or experience to accommodate rebreather divers (often relying on live boats following bubble streams and with business models based on dives that last under an hour). However, since Gordon's initial goal was limited to diving on his own ship with his chosen people he could proceed with developing this experimental tool without the burden and limitations of regulatory considerations (self).
The first attempt in 1998 was a new approach, with unique pistons serving as counterlungs rather than conventional flexible bags. Interestingly, this approach is intended to use tank pressure to compensate for the friction of the ring and intertia of the displaced water. Although o-ring friction in the air is acceptable, this model can not handle the inertia of the required water movement. This prototype suffers from excessive breathing work and does not pass surface respiratory tests while submerged even for a few minutes. It makes it start however, and however has a dubious description of "looks like R2D2 make love to octopus" according to Gordon.
The next prototype is a semi-closed design again, but this time with a more conventional flexible counterlungs. It works very successfully, and has been pigeon for months. However, with the experience he gained with the semi-enclosed design, he saw that a fully enclosed system would have been feasible and far more desirable in terms of performance. He quickly decides on benefits including oxygen sensors because of the unintentional risk of hypoxia if necessary for surface exercise. One of the early innovations is the integrated bailout funnel, immediately switching to diluents for short-term open-circuit operation in an emergency or even entering the water. He also inserts the regulator to prevent negative loop pressure if the counterlung becomes completely deflated when it goes down.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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