BTS (Beneath The Surface) Underwater Tray and Arm System Review

Its been almost a year since I’ve been diving with the BTS tray package and I think its time to write a detailed review about this setup.

In order to gather information for this review, I’ve recently dived with the BTS package with 2 strobes mounted on 2 different arms ( Flexarm and Ball and Joint ) and an Ikelite housing while also attached an action cam on the tray. I’ve done a couple more variations of this before and I will exaplain about this when I talk about the modularity of the system.

BTS are manufacturers of quality underwater arm systems based in California. Their line of products include Aluminum trays, grips adapters and arms segments as well as locline flex arms, special pivot trays, focus lights grips and many more..

Let me start by listing a few of the special features the BTS arm/tray packages offer:

The BTS grips are made of high quality rubber and I find them very easy to hold , in no circumstances do they slip and they sit very firmly on the aluminum handles. BTS offer these grips at 3 colors: Black , Yellow and Pink.
All double handle tray packages include a top bridge. This bridge is probably the number one advantage of BTS over its competitors.
1. The bridge allows easy carrying of the package and makes it super easy for the instructor or skipper to pass on the package from and to the boat.
2. It also allows mounting more accessories on it such as a video light, focus light, action cameras or any other accessory.
3. It protects your housing from every direction and also strengthens the handles making this tray package as sturdy as it can possibly be.
BTS use locline arms with a special designed base that sits firmly on the handle top, these flex arms are known to be the best in the market and the BTS implementation could not have been done better.

The above features in addition to high quality ball and joint arms and adapters make this package a very attractive one for almost any housing and strobe combination. Some improvement that can be made are that the ball and joint arms do not allow mounting anything on the middle as featured on Aquatica’s TLC arms or Nauticam’s arm systems , However , similiar mounts can be achieved by using triple clamps and necessary adapters. Another improvement that can be made is to the bottom tripod screws to have a knob that can be hand fastened or at least an allen key screw that does not require carrying a screwdriver.

Here are some example of different mounts and housing combinations:

Conclusion

The BTS packages are of excellent quality, extremely modular and this makes them an excellent investment that can be later modified to fit a larger or smaller housing, they are also competitive in price and come with a comprehensive warranty and superb customer service.

Take a look at our pre-built BTS Arm and Tray Packages or contact us to build the package that is custom tailored to your gear.