Weight appropriate for wetsuit?

[pfriedel]

I have yet to do a better (more controlled) test with the gear, but I had my first chance to try out my new hooded 7mm shorty over my full 7mm in Nagi yesterday.  The only hitch was that to get under I needed 28 lbs.  That seems like a heck of a lot, but with 28 I could only get under by kicking down to 15' where the neoprene compressed enough to get me neutral with no air in my BCD.  Down to 30' and I needed to give a fairly strong blast of air in my BCD to keep off the bottom.  I'm pretty good about grabbing my fin tips to prevent sculling and exhaling completely to sink those first few feet normally.

  Now, with that much weight, I'm definitely looking to buy a weight belt to spread out the load a bit to prevent a nautilus-style ascent if I need to dump a weight pocket.

  I'm a bigger guy (6', 230-240), and I had between 7 and 14 mm of neoprene all over.  Should I not worry about it so much?  After coming back from Cozumel and diving with some of the fish down there (the "I only need 5 lbs to balance out the tank's buoyancy and can stay down the full no-deco time at 40' and still come up with 1800psi" type), I'm not sure if I'm seriously overweighting or not.

  Otherwise, the neoprene kept me so toasty at 52F (estimated - my Vyper doesn't update temperature more than once every few minutes) that I suspect I could dive even colder without much discomfort.  And the fit was so snug that I don't recall my trunks being very wet after surfacing, so I'm pretty happy with the gear until I go dry in a few years.

[mud_diver]

Doesn't seem out of line to me. I'm 5'6 and 145# and it takes me 22# with a 7 mil full body wetsuit. If carrying that much weight bothers you, there are several things you can do to reduce it. 1. Switch to steel tank instead of aluminum. 2. Use a backplate/wing sytem instead of a BC. This gives you the option to make the system heavy with different weight sources, yet still keep up to 10# or so in ditchable weight pockets.
Doing this, and you can get rid of the weight belt totally. I personally find them uncomfortable.

[Swimjim]

I am the same size and weight as you and with my 7 MM wetsuit I use twenty eight pounds, so I'd say your pretty close.  My  BC carries ten pounds non ditchable, so My weight belt has eighteen. 
      I am currently transitioning into a bp/w set up and yes the backplate does weigh a few pounds so that can come off the belt.  And when I dive my old steel 72's as independant doubles I can lost a few more. 
      At anyrate, your pretty close.  Take a tank with 500 psi in it and do the bouyancy test.(In a pool or controled environment.)  With no air in your bc you should float vertically with the water level at eye level.  Dive safe

Jim

[pfriedel]

  Yeah, I need to tag along with an open water or discover scuba class to figure out my proper weighting one of these days.  I think I was 24lbs with my 7mm+hood+gloves+boots, so adding 4lbs for thin booties under boots and a 7mm hooded shorty isn't too off base.  One of these days I'd like to figure out the surface buoyancy for each piece of gear as individually as I can (mesh bag + item + spring scale, kneeling on the bottom of a pool and pulling down on the handles with the scale), so I know how much is inherent in the system and how much is my built-in PFD.  But that's just a thought I have.

[mud_diver]

The same thing can be done at home, in your bathtub, but easier if you can get a 55 gallon oil drum, it is taller. Insert the item into the mesh bag, add some weight until it sinks. It is best to have some small weights to do this, not just 2 and 3 pounders. You can use anything for small weights, even a bag of pennies, just weigh them on a postal scale to determine the weight.

[divingdeputy]

ok......wow guys.......you are using as much wieght with your wet suits as i do with my dry suit. i'm 5 foot 4 , 155 pounds. with an steel 80 all i need is 16 pounds. heres what i tell the guys i work with. take your body weight times that by 10%, this will give you a base, with me its 15 pounds, now add 2-3 more pound to adjust for an empty tank, because aluminums tend to become positive when empty. if you are using a steel tank just add a pound. if you cant sink after doing this, you are holding your breath, all the air is not out of your bc, and you are not relaxing allowing yourself to sink. try it out it works.......but you need to RELAX