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The weight tab estimates how much lead to carry from your body measurements, salt or fresh water, what you’re wearing and what you’re carrying. The estimate updates as you change anything.

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Get an estimate

1

Open the weight tab

In Zenfinder, tap weight in the switch at the top. See Zenfinder.
2

Enter your body

Under you, fill in weight, height and age, and choose female or male under sex.
3

Set the water

Under water, choose salt or fresh.
4

Describe what you're wearing

Under wearing, check the suit and pieces listed, and change them to match this dive.
5

Describe what you're carrying

Under carrying, set the tank, backplate, first stage, adapter and fins.
There’s no calculate button. The figure at the top changes every time you change an input. As you scroll down the form, the readout shrinks to a strip pinned at the top, so you can see the answer while you work further down.

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Reading the estimate

The readout shows weight, the figure and its unit, and whether it’s for salt or fresh water. Under it is the line “estimate. test it before you dive.”
  • The unit follows the units toggle in the top bar (°C · kg or °F · lb).
  • The figure never goes below 0.0. If it reads 0.0, your gear is already heavy enough by this estimate.
  • If the estimate can’t be worked out, the readout says “couldn’t work out an estimate just now” and retry appears under it.
The figure is an estimate from what you entered. Before the dive, do a weight check at the surface and adjust. For what correct weighting means, see scubazenapp.com/weighting.

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You

Your body measurements are the inputs most likely to have changed since your last trip, so they’re at the top. The fields accept a decimal (with a point or a comma) and round it to the nearest whole number.
  • If a field is empty, the readout says “enter your weight, height and age for an estimate.” and shows no figure.
  • If a field is outside its range, the readout asks you to check that field by name, and shows no figure until it’s fixed.

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Body fat: estimated or known

body fat has two settings:
  • estimated: Zenfinder works out your body fat from your weight, height, age and sex, and shows the figure it’s using, for example “estimated 28 %”.
  • known: a field opens for your own figure. If it’s empty, it starts with the estimate. Use this if you know your body fat from a measurement.
If you leave the known field empty, the estimate is used, and nothing on screen says so.

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Water

Under water, water type is salt or fresh. The water temperature isn’t an input to the weight estimate, so it isn’t on this tab; it drives the logbook and wetsuit tabs.

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Wearing

wearing lists each piece you have on, one row each, with its thickness and age. A new Zenfinder starts with a 3 mm full suit. If nothing is listed, the section says “nothing on. add a piece below, or leave it for a skin dive.” To change a piece, tap its row. A sheet opens:
  • thickness: the thicknesses that piece is sold in (see the table below).
  • suit age: new, lightly used, used, heavily used or rubber.
  • undergarment (drysuits only): light, medium or heavy. The labels give the undergarment’s weight class: 150 to 200, 300 and 400.
  • done saves the sheet. Swiping it away saves it too. On a piece you’re already wearing, remove takes it off.
To put on another piece, tap add a piece and choose from suits, tops and bottoms, or hood, gloves and boots. The piece’s sheet opens straight away so you can set its thickness and age.

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Carrying

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Tank

Tap tank to choose:
  • The size: 5.7, 7, 10, 11.1, 12 or 15 L.
  • material: aluminum or steel.
  • tank: single or double.
If you’re renting and don’t know what you’ll get, the sheet’s note helps: “the usual rental tank is 11.1 L aluminum, single (the AL80).” That’s also the default. Confirm with the dive shop when you can, since a different tank changes the estimate. The weight tab offers sizes in litres only. When you use this dive from the logbook tab and the dive recorded a tank in cubic feet, Zenfinder picks the nearest of these sizes.

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The rest

  • backplate: none, 3 mm or 6 mm. With a backplate, choose its material: steel or aluminum.
  • steel first stage: tick it if your first stage is steel.
  • single tank adapter: none, steel or aluminum.
  • fins: soft rubber, hard rubber or plastic. Fins are always counted.

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Where the kit came from

The weight tab can be filled in for you from the other two tabs. In both cases a note under the readout says what happened.
  • From the wetsuit tab. add to weight calc replaces your body pieces with the recommended suit, and the note names the suit and what it replaced. Hood, gloves and boots stay. See Find your wetsuit.
  • From a logged dive. use this dive resets the kit to its defaults and fills in what the dive recorded. Your body measurements stay. The note lists what came from the dive, and the readout shows that dive’s belt weight and verdict to compare against. See Your logbook as a reference.

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Restore previous kit

Both notes have a restore previous kit button, which puts back the kit you had before. It stays until you change the kit yourself. After that, the kit is yours and the button goes, so restore first if you want your old kit back. Your body measurements and kit are saved between visits and with your account.