Cobalt 2 shutting off

[DavidRDiver]

I was playing in the pool this afternoon practicing for an upcoming advanced stress and rescue class. One of the things they do in the class is take our gear to the bottom of the pool, turn off the air and have us go down to get it. One of my instructors sunk the gear and turned the air off. I went down turned my air back on recovered reg, and donned my gear. I looked at my Cobalt and the screen was black. I tried everything I knew to turn it back on, even tried getting out of the water. It finally came back on after I got home, and plugged it in. I had 93% battery so obviously the battery was not dead. I've never had this happen before, and of course am going to have to do the same drill in the class. Any ideas?

 

[RonR]

You should always be able to wake the Cobalt by pressing the select button, and if the pool was more than a few feet deep it really shouldn’t go into sleep mode- provided the water contacts are wet and not prevented from connecting with the water. In the exercise you describe it might squawk for a full minute if the air were turned off, but it shouldn’t go black.

Let me get some details to help figure out what might have happened.

When it came back on, at home, what screen did it first come up to?
When you plugged it in and got it to come back up, were you connecting to USB or the wall charger?
When it went in the water, was it in the ready to dive screen, or asleep, or something else?

Have you used this Cobalt diving previously?
What firmware version is installed? You can find this on the System Info page.

If you put the Cobalt to sleep manually, from the Main Menu, and dip the nose in some water, it should immediately come up to the dive screen- is this what you see?

In normal operation, do the buttons (especially SELECT) seem responsive?

Poor contact with the water at the USB pins can cause a failure to start a dive- that has been caused by things like suntan oil getting on the pins.

Another possibility would be something like a loose battery connector that interrupted power- some of the answers to the above questions will help isolate the cause, and tell us if you have a hardware problem of some sort.

What you describe should not happen, we will work to determine what the problem was.

Ron

 

[DavidRDiver]

You should always be able to wake the Cobalt by pressing the select button, and if the pool was more than a few feet deep it really shouldn’t go into sleep mode- provided the water contacts are wet and not prevented from connecting with the water. In the exercise you describe it might squawk for a full minute if the air were turned off, but it shouldn’t go black.

Let me get some details to help figure out what might have happened.

When it came back on, at home, what screen did it first come up to?

It came on to the dive screen, same one as when you push the select button at ready to dive

When you plugged it in and got it to come back up, were you connecting to USB or the wall charger?

Wall charger

When it went in the water, was it in the ready to dive screen, or asleep, or something else?

I had been in the water, left my gear floating at the side of the pool for approx 30 minutes

Have you used this Cobalt diving previously?

Yes I have about 50 dives on it.

What firmware version is installed? You can find this on the System Info page.

2.14/2

If you put the Cobalt to sleep manually, from the Main Menu, and dip the nose in some water, it should immediately come up to the dive screen- is this what you see?

Yes

In normal operation, do the buttons (especially SELECT) seem responsive?

Yes

Poor contact with the water at the USB pins can cause a failure to start a dive- that has been caused by things like suntan oil getting on the pins.

I dont wear wear suntan oil, I did return from a trip a week prior, in salt water, all my gear was rinsed, I do add a little woolite to the water and let it soak for 30 minutes or so, followed by a through rinse.

Another possibility would be something like a loose battery connector that interrupted power- some of the answers to the above questions will help isolate the cause, and tell us if you have a hardware problem of some sort.

Only other her time I saw something similar was when I let the battery run down. Upon charging it came right back up. Battery was charged for approx 4 hours prior to my pool sessions. Battery charge was indicated at 93% when it came back on.

What you describe should not happen, we will work to determine what the problem was.

Ron

i also spent a couple of hours in the pool tonight with no issues. I did charge overnight last night.

Thanks for the help!

 

[RonR]

OK, I have some thoughts here.

First, a little explanation: When the Cobalt has wet contacts, it enters a rapid sampling mode, as we are thinking it might be ready to go diving and we want to detect the beginning of a descent in just a few seconds. If a dive doesn't start within 5 minutes, the display will turn off, but behind the scenes the Cobalt is still in a "ready to dive" mode and working pretty hard. Since this is using much more battery power than in sleep, if a dive doesn't start within 60 minutes- and the contacts are still wet- we revert to a standby mode. This is not quite the same as sleep, but uses less battery than ready to dive (but more than sleep). This will help prevent dead batteries if the Cobalt is left in a wet gear bag, a rinse tank, or in a wet boat. Since the contacts are already wet and can't get wetter, in standby we must use pressure change to start the dive and wake the display.

One possibility is that the depth of the pool- or more accurately the delta between wherever the Cobalt was hanging while you gear was floating and where it was on the bottom- was insufficient to trigger the start of a dive from standby mode, so the Cobalt stayed in standby. Firmware version 2.14 may not always have worked as expected in standby mode if left there for a long while, and may have sometimes failed to wake the display until after the contacts had dried. It's complicated to get into, but this would only happen on occasion, not consistently, as it is timing related. I can't say for sure this is the reason for what you saw, but I would definitely recommend updating to the current firmware version. Atomic Aquatics Cobalt Updates It's very easy to update the Cobalt 2.

If the Cobalt had reset, run out of battery power or had the battery disconnect, or there had been a serious firmware problem, it would have come back up to the Set Time and Date screen. Since you came back up to the dive screen it sounds to me as if the Cobalt was still running, and the firmware didn't turn the display back on until after the contacts had dried and then were bridged again with the charging adapter.

So my best guess is a combination of specific circumstances that triggered a firmware issue, now fixed, that kept the display dark.

Hope this helps, and hope you enjoy the Cobalt.

Ron

 

[DavidRDiver]

Thanks Ron, I will update it tomorrow. This is my second Cobalt, my first was stolen back in May great computer!