Equipment & Technology
9 guidesNo product rankings
How cave-diving equipment works, what each piece is for, its limits, and what to weigh when choosing it. Educational only: equipment does not replace training, and nothing here is a dive plan.
Educational, not instructional. These guides explain what equipment does and why. They contain no dive plans, gas calculations or procedures, and they are no substitute for training with the equipment.
9 guides
Equipment articles
Breathing Gases in Cave Diving: Why Every Cylinder Is Analysed and Labelled
A conceptual guide to the gases cave divers breathe (air, nitrox, helium mixtures, oxygen), why each cylinder is...
Communication and Documentation Underwater: Light, Hands, Touch, Cameras and Their Limits
How cave divers communicate without speech, using light signals, hand signals, touch contact and written notes, how...
Diver Propulsion Vehicles in Caves: Uses, Risks and Training
Scooters let cave divers travel much further, but distance multiplies the consequences of any failure. This article...
Equipment Configurations for Cave Diving: Backmount, Sidemount and Streamlining
Why cave divers care so much about how their equipment is arranged: redundancy, access to gas, team compatibility,...
Exposure Protection in Cave Water: Wetsuits, Drysuits and Heated Undergarments
How divers lose heat in water, why long cave dives make thermal protection a planning issue even in mild water, and...
Lighting in Cave Diving: Primary Lights, Backups and Redundancy
Why cave divers carry several independent lights, what a burn-time or beam rating actually describes, and how light...
Navigation and Survey Instruments: Compasses, Depth and Time, Slates and Electronic Survey Devices
What cave divers use to record depth and time, take bearings and write notes, how underwater cave surveys turn those...
Rebreathers in Caves: How They Differ, the Bailout Concept and What Training Involves
Closed-circuit rebreathers let cave divers stay longer on far less gas, but they add failure modes that open-circuit...
Reels, Spools, Guidelines and Line Markers: What They Are For
The continuous guideline is the cave diver's route home. This article explains reels and spools, what guidelines are...
Further reading
| Title | Type | Publisher | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival ↗The founding text of accident-analysis-based cave diving safety. Each chapter opens with a real accident and draws out a... | Book | Cave Diving Section of the National Speleological Society (NSS-CDS) | 1979 |
| BCRA cave survey grades ↗The widely cited BCRA table of survey grades (1 to 6 and X) and passage-detail classes, as revised in 2002. Useful for... | Organisation | British Cave Research Association | 2002 |
| History of the NSS-CDS ↗The section's own history, including equipment milestones credited to its members: line arrows, jam-proof reels, early... | Organisation | National Speleological Society Cave Diving Section | — |
| Analysis of recreational closed-circuit rebreather deaths 1998-2010 ↗Analysis of 181 recreational rebreather deaths with a fault-tree comparison against open-circuit configurations. Explains why... | Research paper | Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine 43(2):78-85 | 2013 |
| MNemo v2 User Manual ↗Online manufacturer manual for a clip-on electronic underwater cave survey device, covering calibration, survey mode, data... | Research paper | Ariane's Line | — |
| Mapping the Catacombs: An Underwater Cave Segment of the Devil's Eye System ↗Shows how action-camera video, video lights and dive-computer depth data can be turned into cave maps and 3D models, validated... | Research paper | arXiv (preprint, cs.RO) | 2025 |
| Rebreather Forum Four consensus statements ↗Twenty-eight consensus statements adopted at Rebreather Forum Four (Malta, 2023) on rebreather safety, research, operations,... | Research paper | Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine 53(2):142-146 | 2023 |
| Thirty years of American cave diving fatalities ↗A review of 161 cave diving deaths reported to DAN between July 1985 and June 2015, covering training status, safety rules... | Research paper | Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine 46(3):150-154 | 2016 |
| Cave Diving Directional and Non-Directional Markers 101 ↗Clear explanation of line arrows, cookies and referencing exit markers (REMs), the difference between permanent and personal... | Safety guidance | TDI / SDI | — |
| GUE General Training Standards, Policies, and Procedures, Version 10.4 ↗GUE's full public standards, including Appendix A (base, sidemount and rebreather equipment configurations), cylinder marking... | Safety guidance | Global Underwater Explorers | 2026 |
| Heated Garments ↗Covers immersion ratings, failure points and reported injuries from heated undergarments, and summarises the US Navy research... | Safety guidance | Divers Alert Network (Alert Diver) | 2022 |
| Lithium-Ion Battery Safety ↗Explains thermal runaway, shorting, water intrusion, charging practice, storage and travel for the lithium-ion packs used in... | Safety guidance | Divers Alert Network (Alert Diver) | 2019 |
| NSS-CDS cave courses and equipment requirements ↗Index of NSS-CDS courses (cavern through DPV, CCR, trimix and survey). Individual course pages list prerequisites and... | Safety guidance | National Speleological Society Cave Diving Section | — |
| The Dive Light: A Tool for All Divers ↗Plain-language overview of dive-light types, lumens versus lux, beam angle and signalling, canister lights, burn tests and... | Safety guidance | Divers Alert Network (Alert Diver) | 2023 |
| Thermal Stress ↗A dive-medicine researcher's review of heat loss in water, wetsuit and drysuit insulation, the evidence on argon inflation,... | Safety guidance | X-Ray Magazine, issue 63 | 2014 |
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