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My D4 is two years old now with 104 dives . Strap still shows no fatigue . I inspect it before every dive now as I have read so many reports of the strap failing . I wear it daily as a watch . I never tighten it snug , I like it loose while on wrist . My fingers are crossed it will hold out until the next battery exchange .
A solid alternative would be nice , Suunto... are you listening ?
My D4 is two years old now with 104 dives . Strap still shows no fatigue . I inspect it before every dive now as I have read so many reports of the strap failing . I wear it daily as a watch . I never tighten it snug , I like it loose while on wrist . My fingers are crossed it will hold out until the next battery exchange .
A solid alternative would be nice , Suunto... are you listening ?
I've been looking at the Suunto compass, which I think has the same or similar strap. One recommendation I was given is to replace the strap with a bungee.
Mine is the black one .
I use my watch daily , I do landscaping and it gets filthy dirty some days . I cannot believe it is still strong after reading all the other complaints .
I am a little gunshy about it and I check it thouroughly before diving .
I think the trick must be to not overtighten the strap putting too much stress on the rubber . When it is on my wrist I can spin it freely , on the boot I just snug it enough to secure in the boot .
After the daily use and dive use I am totally satisfied with the integrity of this strap that so many others have loathed . weird or what ?
I wish we could help you guys, but we didnt make a Tibby-adapter for that one.
Just the D6 & D6i plus the titanium ones for the older D9's.
I think Suunto is making more off the straps than off the computers now.
When they first came out the whole thing was. Overex for two years, and they did good service, if a little slow at times
But now, the Crystal, battery& strap are all considered "consumables" and are only guaranteed for 1 year.
Write them about the strap, they tell you to buy the metal onne about 50% of the.Cost of the watch.
My first strap outlasted my first battery in my D4. I had a new strap put on with my first battery change. Thanks to the info I got from this thread.
My son looked at "aftermarket" straps while he was in Manila. He found one but it was half the price of the D4. He got his D4 used from Kirk Krack, PFI inst.
Here are pics of the Oceanic strap (that I picked up for $10) which I've adapted for the Suunto.
I notched the ends with a pair of wirecutters - as you can see I didn't do a very aesthetic job - but it has worked very reliably for the past year or so. I wear the watch daily, to the gym, working in the yard, etc, etc. and of course, freediving and scuba once a week. It has held up to a lot of abuse as is evident from the scratches on the bezel of the watch.
Also for you D4 owners, I recently changed the battery myself as I didn't think paying $80 or so every 12 to 15 months to the dealer was worth it. I have taken the watch down to 120' (on scuba) for 20 to 25 min on several occasions since then. I has also endured about 100 drops while freediving and no leaks so far. The entire operation took less than 30 minutes, and it only took that long because I was very, very careful about cleaning it. It is a pretty simple procedure as far as I'm concerned, and there is at least one tutorial on the subject on Scubaboard, on another thread. Feel free to contact me if you want details on the battery swap.
Update... this year's strap is still holding... tho it's due to break in the next month or so.
The issue seems to be a case of the wrong elastomer being used. It's not very resistant to natural skin oils. None of my failures are due to mechanical stress... as there are often lots of cracks, and a noticeable degradation of the elastomer itself... (and my massive collection of old broken straps are crumbling!)
If you don't wear the D4 all day, every day, as a standard watch, like i do, then your strap is likely to last years... Like the Gekko/Zoop/Vyper do...
As a fellow mechanical design engineer, i seriously hope the designer and materials engineer did specify the correct, skin oil resistant elastomer... But then the managers came along with a cost-down exercise and probably changed the material to some generic cheapo black elastomer... or the management chose the, now evil, designed obsolescence route... the year and a day design life... And i learnt that they're also manufactured in China... outsourcing often leads to quality being sucked out to make it cheap to produce... you need Quality Engineers on site, standing over them... It's probably one of these reasons...
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