Better than a Petrel?

[nakatomi]

It looks about the same size as the Predator.

It's not. It's about the size of the Petrel, a little thinner actually.

Not sure a rechargeable battery is a big deal. The AA battery on the petrel lasts plenty long. Pretty sure you can use a LiIon rechargeable battery if you don't want to keep buying new ones.

You can use a rechargeable lithium battery with the Petrel but you still need to open it, remove the battery and risk that something goes wrong with the saving and restoring of the tissues.
Also the high quality AW type battery I use in the Petrel lasts about 30 hours in cold water. The OSTC N2 will last a lot longer than that before it needs a charge.

It's not a big deal but both battery types (rechargeable in the unit and replaceable) have their merits.
I do like the QI wireless charging of the new OSTC 2. It doesn't need to be opened up ever, so no risk of flooding it through the battery or charge port.

 

[tbone1004]

oh, the Petrel does have a timer function as of v29 firmware, but if you need seconds, there is a bar on the dive time that gives you 15 second intervals on all models.

 

[cyberdiamond]

Cyberdiamond, can you expand a little on the differences between the two? Pros and cons of each, for those of us trying to make up our minds? Thanks!

John

Both have great support, easily readable, they really are more similar than different.

The buttons are different but I don't really prefer one over the other they both work well.
Usability and gas changing etc are equally easy with both.

I like using rechargeable batteries in both of them the 3.7v lithium ion's work well for me.
I charge them at different times, both computers show me the current voltage, I also carry spares.
Both being able to run off any AA if I am nowhere near a power point is also great.

Things I prefer with the Shearwaters over the Heinrichs Weikamps:

The screen is bigger.

The planner is good.

Could go deeper than the OSCT3 which is limited to 120m or 130 meters (around 415 feet the metric challanged )



Things I prefer with the Heinrichs Weikamps over the Shearwaters:

The screen is bonded so more readable from any angle.

The planner/simulator: You can run through any dive varying the depth and time on the go before even hitting the water, want to try a new feature in the firmware just run a sim.

Its smaller and very thin.

Temperature responds quicker to changes.

2 second (vs SW 10 second) logging.

Comes with bungee mounting.

The open source nature of it, eg:
If I want to customise the screen(s) layout or change a colour I could (not that I have).
All of the firmware source code, downloading, setting protocols etc are well documented and freely available.

Ability to backup and restore as well as set all of my settings via the pc (I use subsurface for this & logging).

Will do CCR (fixed set point or via 02 cells) out of the box.

The battery compartment even though you open it to change batteries it is sealed so if the o'ring leaks you only need to clean the contacts, the whole computer does not flood!


I'm sure there are things I have missed but that's most of it off the top of my head.

 

[Father]

oh, the Petrel does have a timer function as of v29 firmware, but if you need seconds, there is a bar on the dive time that gives you 15 second intervals on all models.

Cool... I just downloaded/updated to v29. But now I can't download my dive log.

 

[guyharrisonphoto]

How do you go about getting an OSTC in the US? There is not even a link on the website for shipping to or purchasing from the U.S.

 

[tbone1004]

you don't, that's the big point of this, you can't get them here unless you buy them abroad and bring them in.

 

[packrat12]

Cool... I just downloaded/updated to v29. But now I can't download my dive log.

If the application is crashing on your computer (Windows 10?), just try several times. Since going to Windows 10, I have had this issue. It takes 2 or 3 tries to get them sometimes.

 

[rhwestfall]

At one period of time, recently after an upgrade, I too lost the BT connection. What worked for me was to unplug the dongle, go to the drivers page, delete the BT drivers, plug the dongle back in, and let it re-install the drivers.

Success!

YMMV.....

 

[cyberdiamond]

How do you go about getting an OSTC in the US? There is not even a link on the website for shipping to or purchasing from the U.S.

Send them an email and ask about the shipping cost and getting the (I think 19%) VAT taken off because of export.

---------- Post added December 23rd, 2015 at 09:33 AM ----------

/snip

Any reason why the OTSC 2 (Tec version) uses rechargeable battery vs replaceable like the one used in the Rec version (OTSC 3) You would think that for Tec, they'd use replaceable batts.

You keep refering to the OSTC3 as the rec version but its not.
The OSTC Sport is the rec version which is basically a cut down version of the OSTC3 in different colours without the Digital optical link wet connector and with no CCR support or trimix (and possibly other small changes).

The names are sometimes confusing because they have different models with nearly the same names, eg:

OSTC 2 series in order of release: OSTC MKII, OSTC2n, OSTC2c, OSTC2 and OSTCcr
OSTC 3 series in order of release: OSTC3 (USB), OSTC Sport, OSTC3+ (new bluetooth le wireless version).
They also had a DR5.

 

[Father]

If the application is crashing on your computer (Windows 10?), just try several times. Since going to Windows 10, I have had this issue. It takes 2 or 3 tries to get them sometimes.

At one period of time, recently after an upgrade, I too lost the BT connection. What worked for me was to unplug the dongle, go to the drivers page, delete the BT drivers, plug the dongle back in, and let it re-install the drivers.

I have internal Bluetooth... that worked to transfer the update to the computer. Once the update was installed... it won't connect. In other words, it worked fine before I installed the update.