Dead Cobalt 1 Buttons-First Timer Advice

[rcharvey71]

Hello,
First time ever poster here...long time lurker. My Fiancee and I both have Cobalt 1 dive computers. Which we love. Taking them out of storage for the first time last night both were totally dead. Totally. No big deal just charge and all is well. Also found they needed firmware update. Updated mine with no issue. Hers? Different story. As soon as it powered up it went into No-Fly with the 24hr countdown and will not do anything as far as changing settings because since it was dead the time/date needed to be reset. I waited 24hrs and went to turn on and it will only turn on when plugged in and battery shows 100%. I found this odd and started checking things out. Seems that the Select/On button is inop. Researching on here I found that this sometimes happens and that there is a replacement keypad available that is sealed and that solves this problem. How do i go about getting one? Is it possible to get one for my other Cobalt 1 that is in working order and just replace it and have peace of mind that I won't have to worry about this in the future? Sorry about the long post I just wanted to be as detailed as possible as to what occurred in case i may have done something to cause this. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Harvey

 

[RonR]

Harvey,

After the battery is run down, the Cobalt will come back up to the exit time of the last dive, so the 24 hour countdown timer for no-fly would be correct. It should clear on setting the time. Is that what you saw? Did it ever run when not connected to external power?

If the Select button does not work that will prevent waking the Cobalt, so the first thing is to check that out. I'm sending you a message with instructions for removing the top cover. You can then use one of the other button magnets to see if the Cobalt wakes. If so, replacing the keypad is very simple. Since your Cobalt was produced Atomic has altered the keypad production process to fully encapsulate the magnets, that has eliminated the corrosion problems that did sometimes occur.

Ron

 

[rcharvey71]

Thanks for the info...I took my cobalt to my dive shop where I purchased it and had them remove the faceplate and the select/ok button did have some corrosion so we cleaned it off and switched magnets and reassembled the unit. This had no effect. Even with a different magnet I was unable to operate the select button. At this point the owner of the dive shop said he was going to call atomic and most likely send it back for repair. The question I have is this...if it is a battery issue and the battery needs to be removed will the dive log be erased? My better half isn't sure how up to date her manual logbook is and is concerned that the dive log will bee erased. Thoughts or advice?
Thanks
Harvey

 

[rcharvey71]

In addition my dive shop was reluctant to check the battery connections and felt it would safer sending it back to be checked

 

[RonR]

Thanks for the info...I took my cobalt to my dive shop where I purchased it and had them remove the faceplate and the select/ok button did have some corrosion so we cleaned it off and switched magnets and reassembled the unit. This had no effect. Even with a different magnet I was unable to operate the select button. At this point the owner of the dive shop said he was going to call atomic and most likely send it back for repair. The question I have is this...if it is a battery issue and the battery needs to be removed will the dive log be erased? My better half isn't sure how up to date her manual logbook is and is concerned that the dive log will bee erased. Thoughts or advice?
Thanks
Harvey

When you say the Cobalt's Select button wouldn't work, was the Cobalt up and running at the time or would it not turn on?

It's not a bit deal to open the battery compartment- it's isolated from the rest of the electronics, but if you have the time sending it back to Atomic is great, they will no doubt do a lot more checking and updating.

The dive log (and all other relevant information) is stored in non-volatile memory, so it won't be lost with power being removed. Actually, changing out the battery is no different from having it go dead, which is what happened when they sat unused for so long.

Ron