Atomic COBALT : WORST DIVE COMPUTER EVER !

[MikadoWu]

For the Record, my Cobalt 2 was Fixed and have had zero issues since. I would like to say the communication and speed of the repair was 10x better with Atomic then when my Oceanic OCi. Atomic had my unit back in my hands in 2 weeks, Oceanic took 3 months. For my Suunto Vyper that went bad, it was still under 90 days and I just returned it to the shop.

I have not lost faith in Atomic DC's, and be more then happy to Purchase their next Unicorn.

 

[Nuribromanski]

The failure point is that if a drop of water gets in the QD, they fail. And many folks want to take their QD apart on every dive.

lolwhut? You can dive the Cobalt just fine detached from the QD.

 

[jndiver]

I feel your pain of those that paid an arm and leg and had the unit fail. I had to endure a return 3 times. From bad battery, to bad switches to just plain flooding. Had one go from a 60' reading to 1520' .

When it works is is a dream to use. I think the new scuba pro unit will give it run for the money. Air integrated, bigger face and only around $1400

Let it be known I am Atomic fan. Fins, mask, T3 and of course colbolt 2. I am going to little cayman in 10 days, the site of the 1520' recorded dive last year and just resurrected an old scuba pro as a backup and it will be with me on all dives.
The current 2 has 20 + dives and, so far perfect.

Wish me luck.

 

[Downing]

My wife and I just returned from two weeks worth of diving in Belize. We were early adopters of the Cobalt 1 and have been using them ever since with no issues, other than the water temperature reading on both is always about four degrees high. We have about 400 dives between the two.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, lol.

It's time for some maintenance, though. The rubber casing on the air hoses has rotted away and my dust cap broke off. I'll send them into Atomic before we go diving next year.

 

[justnorthofsouthern]

My brand new Cobalt 2 completely died after less than ten dives. I want to love it....but just cannot....

 

[RonR]

My brand new Cobalt 2 completely died after less than ten dives. I want to love it....but just cannot....

Can you give me more specifics? Through a personal message if you prefer.

Ron

 

[justnorthofsouthern]

For the first five dives (shallow water) it worked like a dream. Then, for dive 6, oddly it wouldn't turn on. I plugged it into the charger thinking perhaps I didn't push the charger in far enough. About thirty to forty-five minutes later the screen booted up. My dive log was present, but my personal information had reverted back to factory settings, as well as other dive settings. The device then worked for dives 6-9. Today, at dive 10 (charged to 100%), not in direct sunlight, et cetera, it shut off. It will not come back on....connected to regs, alone, plugged into charger.

 

[deeper thoughts]

For the first five dives (shallow water) it worked like a dream. Then, for dive 6, oddly it wouldn't turn on. I plugged it into the charger thinking perhaps I didn't push the charger in far enough. About thirty to forty-five minutes later the screen booted up. My dive log was present, but my personal information had reverted back to factory settings, as well as other dive settings. The device then worked for dives 6-9. Today, at dive 10 (charged to 100%), not in direct sunlight, et cetera, it shut off. It will not come back on....connected to regs, alone, plugged into charger.

Unfortunately this still happens with my wifes computer. Do a reset which means push and hold the left/right button. It will reboot

 

[RonR]

For the first five dives (shallow water) it worked like a dream. Then, for dive 6, oddly it wouldn't turn on. I plugged it into the charger thinking perhaps I didn't push the charger in far enough. About thirty to forty-five minutes later the screen booted up. My dive log was present, but my personal information had reverted back to factory settings, as well as other dive settings. The device then worked for dives 6-9. Today, at dive 10 (charged to 100%), not in direct sunlight, et cetera, it shut off. It will not come back on....connected to regs, alone, plugged into charger.

Well, that's definitely unacceptable behavior.
If the computer turns off or won't turn on when the Select button is pressed that is very likely due to a power interruption, possibly a loose battery connection (I can send you instructions on how to check the battery if you like). The fact that personal settings were changed indicates a reset or power interruption (which could include running the battery all the way down) took place. If the Cobalt is reset, the settings will be restored to those that were in place as of the last dive- there isn't any "factory" setting that is stored, but the settings are saved in non-volatile memory at the end of each dive.

What firmware version are you running, and what is your serial #? The serial # will let me know when the PCB was manufactured. Current firmware for the Cobalt 2 is 2.430. There was an issue we found with some early backlight controller chips (a small percentage were out of spec) that could cause the screen to sometimes go dark, making the Cobalt appear to be dead, though internally it was working normally. That chip has been replaced in production for some time, but there could still be some out there. If you got one the unit may need to be replaced.

Try using the manual reset function- press both the Back and Select buttons together for at least 11 seconds. If the Cobalt doesn't boot up from that then I strongly suspect a power problem, if it does boot up from a manual reset, then the problem lies elsewhere and the information above may help to determine if it should go back.

Ron

 

[RonR]

Unfortunately this still happens with my wifes computer. Do a reset which means push and hold the left/right button. It will reboot

If your wife's computer is intermittently shutting off, that's not normal and the cause should be determined. Even if a reset appears to restore function, a manual reset should not be needed other than when installing new firmware. Can you send me the serial # and firmware version? I'm wondering if you have one of the defective backlight controller chips.

Ron