Antares Oval Dryglove System

It took me 10 dives, playing around in the living room, by the campfire and again in the living room, but SUCCESS! Hopefully you will learn from my mistakes and be completely dry the first time you dive.

Two pieces of advice to start: 1) I would not consider the red support rings optional. There was a night and day difference in terms of ease of use donning and doffing and security immediately after I put these on. Secondly, the o-rings are small. If you are shore diving, don't let the gloves or the cuffs get ANY dirt on them. Like a camera o-ring, even something smaller than a hair in the o-ring will cause a big leak. Be meticulous about cleanliness and lubrication. Follow the instructions to the letter.

The last piece of advice: Spend some time sitting in your house getting the gloves on the rings properly. The dive site is not a good spot to find out that you have the rings slightly out of alignment on the gloves. Personally I had much better success with the Showa 495 gloves sold by DRIS than the orange Atlas 620's. Glove and ring (blue vs green) choice is critical for this system. I would count on spending a solid 2 hours messing around with the gloves in your house before even attempting to take them deeper than the sink in the laundry room. Learn from my mistakes, take your time and enjoy a dry and comfortable 1st dive with this system.

Gloves are hard to doff.

Both gloves leaked on first dive. Going to see if I can get some new o rings and try again. I have been careful to lube with the provided chap stick lube and I always make sure they click. Half the time when doffing the PU comes out with the glove. I would rather have some kind of twist lock system.

Good system for cold water diving. Just make sure you buy larger glove size then usual. The bigger the better. Cuffs can be a little uncomfortable hitting hand where thumb meets wrist. However the ability to change wrist seals make these worth the price

Just installed these for my Hollis drysuit. Good news for divers is that now the come with the red support ring to give these a very positive lock in the ring system. I highly recommend lubing the o-rings before use to prevent damaging them. They take a little effort to get the gloves installed the first time but it also comes with two ring sizes for either latex or pvc gloves. I used the blue for the pvc gloves. Put your gloves on last when getting ready for a dive. Put glove on then align the oval and press down on the bottom of ring with it next to your ear till you hear a firm click, then the same on the top of the ring. Visually inspect to see that it is firmly seated.

I purchased the Si Tech Antares system a while back from DRIS and have had nothing but problems with them. DRIS was very helpful and said they would return them. I went ahead and contacted Si Tech directly and they sent me out a whole new kit, no questions asked. Upon receiving the new set, I immediately installed them on my suit.

I put on my dry suit, lubricated the o-rings and jumped in the water and flayed my arms around to make sure the gloves were not going to leak. Believe it or not, the gloves did not leak!!! I got back into my boat and put all my gear on, double tanks and deco bottle, blah blah blah. As soon as I started to make my decent the right glove started leaking right at the alignment notch. Nothing I could do could make them stop leaking. The small amount of water accumulating in my wrists was not enough to end my dive. I continued to dive and it felt like I was wearing a regular wet glove on that side and my forearm was a little drenched. I'm gong to give these gloves one more shot and if they don't work after the 20th time I'm going to remind myself that I am not insane and to stop using them. I guess I will just have to cut my losses 180 dollar loss that is. I've had pretty good luck in the past with stretch pull over gloves.

On a bright side:

- it doesn't leak;
- it's easy to put on and to attach to my suit - literally 25 seconds per hand;
- it has a lower (oval) profile so you may have a better reach-ability to some hard to reach corners;

On a negative side:

- it's overly expensive for what it consists of (vs. bill of materials);
- it's almost impossible to detach after a dive from my suit (Hollis DX-300) - sometimes I'm lucky enough to detach one glow, but usually - no luck at all; it's really a nightmare to disconnect it without breaking locking tabs.

Bottom line - I use it because it's easy to don and because it actually keeps my hands dry, warm and toasty.
But the very moment I may spot something that I may be able to detach myself/alone with less efforts and less stress (especially important after long cold-water dive) - I'll trash this "system" without second thought.
On a side note - don't even consider buying "Kubi" - money lost on extremely expensive trash... always flooded and always cold (a year experience with another dry suit).

I'm a total Waterproof/SiTec nut. I use them on my D1-Hybrid and never had a problem . I really don't understand why some people have problems with those. if you everything like outlined you will not be disappointed.

I have used this system on my Waterproof D7 for around 20 dives and they have leaked almost every time. The problem is that these rings do not maintain a reliable seal inside the rigid rings on the suit. The rings will detach completely when climbing down a ladder to the dive platform and will even leak just from moving your hands while at depth. I have made sure to align the pins on the rings so that is not the problem; it is just a poor design. This is a nuisance when the water is 60F but it really sucks when it is 36F at 100+ft. I have used several gloves, including Atlas, cheap rubber gloves DRIS sells, and expensive Waterproof gloves; the same problem occurs regardless of the glove (and no I did not trim them too short, I didn't even trim the Waterproof gloves at all). I expected more from Waterproof and SI Tech... they let me down.

Purchased the Oval Dryglove system from DRIS along with the 495PVC lined dry gloves.

Did a lot of reading before deciding on the oval system but finally decided that the round rings were just going to be too big and cumbersome.

Installing spanner rings in the gloves was very simple and easy. Taking a pair of scissors to a new anything take a bit of faith - but you do what you have to do.

Trimmed the cuff off of the gloves after installing the spanner rings and practiced donning and doffing one hand at a time in the living room a few times. (did not put on the suit - just put my arms into the sleeves to practice).

Nervous about my first trip to the lake. Had all of my rig on (doubles, lights, gauges, etc.) and saved the gloves for dead last.

Took my time, had rings well lubricated beforehand, glove number one went on without incident although I did not hear the "click" when donning. Was VERY careful to align the notches (a spot of white paint might help for those like me we with older eyes). But, with notches aligned and no visible problems I went with it despite not hearing or feeling the click.

Donning the second glove using an already gloved hand was not nearly as difficult as I had imagined it was going to be. Helpful to rest the cuff on my knee as I lined up the rings which is a bit difficult as I was already in my rig - but doable.

I did have the red support ring that comes with the system installed in my sleeve as well.

The dexterity with the PVC gloves and liner was also a pleasant surprise. I do think I could get in my gear fairly easily with the gloves already on. I plan to try that when I next have a dive buddy with me in case I get stuck.

Doffing the gloves was not a problem at all, twist and push as described in the manual worked fine for me.

50F water with dry toasty hands was fantastic!

Admittedly the tabs on the rings seem a but fragile and I am more worried about breaking one while traveling than while assembling the system. I have taken to stuffing something soft between the tabs when I pack them in my drysuit bag.

Now if I can figure out what to do about the popsicle headache I'll really be set.

DRIS retrofitted the Antares oval ring system on my Fusion drysuit a month or so ago and I got my first chance to dive it with silicone wrist seals and dry gloves last weekend.

When I got the suit back from DRIS the first thing I noticed was the removal of the neoprene cuff on my Fusion drysuit sleeve that would normally cover the wrist. It did not make sense to me that removing that cuff was required but I trusted DRIS to do the install properly so although it seemed unnecessary to me - I could be wrong.

Apart from the cuff the installation looked good. I was a little bit surprised how large the rings seemed to me - but in comparison to the round rings I'm sure they are fairly streamlined. I had no previous experience on my suits.

DRIS had installed the replaceable silicone neck seal system on the same suit last year and I loved the silicone seal. Same for the silicone wrist seals. I love them - much easier to doff and don. Very comfortable, and hopefully they won't turn into sticky, black mush after a year.

Since I purchased and had installed the permanent oval system, AND purchased the Antares oval dry glove system at the same time I expected to receive the stiffeners for both of these systems with my suit. DRIS considered the stiffeners that come with the permanent oval wrist seals they installed redundant and did not include them in the shipment. This was easily remedied by a phone call explaining that I am a crazy person and redundant or not I would like the additional stiffeners. DRIS was very accommodating. (I also like to see old parts when a mechanic works on my car :)

I played around with the dryglove system at home a bit. No problem getting the rings on the gloves (I bought the recommended smurf blue gloves) I admittedly fretted about cutting the extra cuff off the gloves - I am not at all bold when it comes to cutting things - but after muddling about for a week I finally got up the courage to cut the gloves - no problem.

Had one practice session in the living room putting on the glove, tucking the liner under so it didn't interfere with attaching the glove rings to the permanent wrist rings. Took special care to lubricate the glove rings as suggested. No problem aligning and snapping together although I think a dab of white paint on the alignment notch will help my aging eyes. Doffing was simple, push and twist as advertised.

At the dive site I had my first chance to don the drygloves for real. I saved donning the gloves for last - in my doubles harness, regs in place, wrist gauges in place - then the gloves.

First glove went on my right hand just fine. (I am right handed). I was concerned about being able to get the notch and tabs aligned properly - no problem. Putting the left glove on using my right gloved hand to assist was not as traumatic as I feared. Took a couple of tries to get my left tabs aligned but it will be easier with practice I am confident. I will say that I could not detect any click when installing the gloves at the dive site - but they appeared to be seated all the way so I went with it.

The performance in the water was flawless. Stayed perfectly dry - excellent. Dexterity was as good as with thick wetsuit gloves - maybe better. No problems with rings interfering with access to pockets.

Overall - the Antares dryglove system worked flawlessly on the dive. DRIS installation was excellent with the exception of my personal proclivities.

I had heard some horror stories of people complaining and evening changing them out but my experience has been very positive and I recommend the system.

One caveat - most of the horror stories may have been prior to the inclusion of the red internal ring shield that comes standard in the kit now. I did install this extra ring.