Nautilus Lifeline and Diver Lost for 13 Hours in Hawaii

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I to am thinking about getting a Lifeline but am waiting on the results of this threa.

Later Mon,
Nick
 
Mike and I went back and forth via PM's back in March. Nothing that needs to be kept private so I will post them here.

nautilusmike:
Peter
Again my thanks to you.
I wanted to update to let you know that we have had Scott's radio in our lab for a week now and still can't find anything wrong with it. It would be a lot easier at our end if we could find a problem to be quite frank. I've been chatting back and forth with Scott and he seems like a really good guy. We know that the radio wasn't charged after first getting it until the incident - 2 months - but it should have been ok. In sleep mode, the Lifeline uses 10% of it's battery capacity every month so it should have been at 80% or more.
Next step at our end is to send the battery back to the cell manufacturer to evaluate for defects. It's possible that there is a firmware glitch which we haven't found. We're looking hard.
sincerely

Mike

nautilusmike:
Peter_C:
nautilusmike:
It's possible that there is a firmware glitch which we haven't found. We're looking hard.
From what I understand, it was a very rough day/area. Is it known that there were other boats in the area? Maybe his boat had the speaker turned down, or they were tuned into the wrong channel. Of course if he hit the DSC button maybe something did fail, or no one had DSC within his distance.

Good luck,
Peter

Thing is that he was not able to turn his Lifeline on. He tried all the buttons. green, orange and red. and tried them a number of times. He couldn't get the display to light up. We've got one more idea that perhaps there was an intermittent problem with the LCD display and that the radio itself turned on ok?? We are sending the LCD back to manufacturer for analysis just in case. We are going to do a big rewrite on the manual to cover a number of issues and lessons learned ie. charge your unit before a dive weekend, check for firmware upgrades every month if you can during this first year or before a big dive trip, use the new self-diagnostic function (currently writing the code) before a dive weekend to check that everything is ok, even if you think your unit is not working, if you need it, depress the red button regardless. etc. trying to make the manual simpler to read and more bullet proof.
Again my thanks for all your suggestions.
cheers
Mike

My personal opinion is Mike and his team have provided a product they believe in. They have also done everything they can to determine what happened in this case to never let it happen again, but first there has to be a problem to solve?? The company immediately contacted the customer and sent out a replacement unit, and as a gratuity gave him a second unit for free, to allow his buddies to have a radio too. That is going above and beyond what was asked, and shows the company is concerned in making customers happy. Since this incident they added new features in to be able to test the radio, along with other firmware upgrades. Since software can be upgraded at no charge, without requiring a hardware return, this is good for the customers that currently own one or are planning to get a Nautilus Lifeline. Make sure to charge it and check for available upgrades.

Edit: There are ways to test your radio very easily if you have a second DSC radio, or at least with an old schoold VHF or handheld you can just call back and forth.

FWIW since we often dive in remote areas, I just upgraded my boats VHF with DSC, and a high end 8' antenna. The technology is sound and proven, and here today for all to use.
 
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Peter--please don't take this the wrong way, but it was Mike that promised a report for all interested/impacted by this. Since making that promise there's been nothing, not even an update on the unit being examined. The onus is on him to follow through on his promise.

I do thank you for posting what you have, since it was done by PM and would not have been visible to anyone else until now.
 
I don't have a horse in this race since I don't own a unit. However, I am considering adding a unit to my kit some time in the much farther future.

I routinely prepare reports. If anything, nautilusmike is guilty of having offered an overly-optimistic deadline for the resolution of this problem. He can, of course, post terse responses such as "unit powered on first attempt - next step: evaluate LCD display" but, no matter what he posts, those in possession of a unit will be unhappy until the problem is identified and fixed. The truth of the matter is that intermittent faults are difficult (or sometimes impossible) to find unless you are able to reproduce them. Here is what I have learned from the thread: if getting lost at sea is a concern to you, rely on multiple different signalling devices.
 
Peter--please don't take this the wrong way, but it was Mike that promised a report for all interested/impacted by this. Since making that promise there's been nothing, not even an update on the unit being examined. The onus is on him to follow through on his promise.
I agree he dropped the ball, although he did touch base with me. Who knows how many websites he is having a similar conversation on, but you are right and I will give him crap via PM.

Does anyone know if Rescue 21 is actually set up and working in Hawaii? It is of concern for me since we are headed to the Big Island at the end of May. It shows April as a date for something?? Which also means when Scott had his loooooong drift dive the system wasn't in place.
http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg9/rescue21/pdf/acceptanceschedule.pdf

Cozumel is listed as having MMSI capabilities but what does that mean? ALL cruise ships and other ships are required to have DSC capability utilizing a Class A relaying radio. Of course they must be within range of the DSC sender, which has been tested to be around 12 miles (Nautical?) roughly for the Nautilus.
KLOTH.NET - DSC - GMDSS Maritime Digital Selective Calling

Of course the last list shows Honolulu listed twice for MMSI numbers :confused:

"The Rescue 21 system will be fully deployed by the
end of 2012 throughout the coastal continental United
States, Great Lakes, Hawaii,"

Edit: This website shows Hawaii now being active :confused: BTW it is the manufacturer of the Rescue 21's systems website.
http://www.gdc4s.com/content/48f936...9b6459e33/images/r21_systemmap20120320_lg.jpg
 
Thank you, everyone, for being vigilant and keeping the chatter up about this. We have been just as eager for information as you have. Sorry for the wait, we wanted to ensure that we had a "complete picture" response instead of speculating along the way with partial info.

Mike contacted Mr. Folsom just this morning with our findings and we have put together a proper release - going up today on Scuba Board and Facebook. Below is a more informal response for those that have vigilantly carried this topic forward, and patiently awaited our response.

Our diagnosis is that Mr. Folsom's unit had a rare case of what Mike calls "The Swiss Cheese Effect" in one of its connections. This title comes from the idea that small holes in the soldering lined up in a unique way that more than doubled the power consumption of the particular unit while asleep. With this, the unit drew more power while it was left uncharged and did not have enough power to operate. This drain happened over 2-3 months instead of our stated 6 month charging period.

Through this diagnosis, we have developed an upcoming firmware update (version 0.60) which will include a self-diagnostic routine for the Lifeline. This diagnostic will check for battery consumption, and full operation of the Lifeline before indicating "clear to dive" or "not clear to dive" on the LCD screen. It's activated with a quick 3 presses of the Orange button, and only takes a moment to complete.

We also now recommend that users charge their Lifelines to 100% before every dive trip, as this will ensure the longest battery life per trip. Thank you for your patience in awaiting our response. We want to ensure that the community is aware of what's going on, and we want to be as up front as possible with any of our information.
 
Thanks for the response. You are being nice by not saying what I'm thinking, why didn't he just charge it within a couple of months of taking it out. Goodness this is a backup support device that could save his life. Some is yours but some is on him. I would certainly have this if I were in a coastal setting diving.

Sent from my DROID X2
 
Thank you TNRonin, but the responsibility of divers' confidence in the Lifeline is entirely on our shoulders and we take this very seriously. Scott is an experienced diver and uses multiple forms of equipment to ensure that he is found if left adrift - part of this gear remains to be the Lifeline. Mr. Folsom's communication with us has been both gracious and understanding, and we would be quite distraught if the focus were taken away from our responsibility as a company to stand behind our product and our valued customers.

We're just happy to know that he made it back safely. Our next mission is to see what went wrong and how we can prevent it in the future.
 
Oh I agree but there has to be a limit. Its like never servicing a Reg IMHO I want a reliable Reg but sometimes it has to be serviced. Now if the nautilus showed charged and in fact it wasn't that might be an issue. I like the diagnostic you have added fire sure.
From a QC engineer point of view that solder issue will be a nightmare.

Sent from my DROID X2
 
Our next mission is to see what went wrong and how we can prevent it in the future.

The type of problem with the solder you describe is something I learned as 'sputter'--you may want to examine the alloy content of your solder used to determine if that's the culprit.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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