Hello All,
'Tis my first post, thanks for a great forum. Allow me to clearly and concisely state my experience with my new DataMask.
1. Brand-new mask ordered from Dive Right In Scuba. After making my payment, I received an email that stated the masks were out-of-stock...I'd receive one shortly.
2. DRIS helped me in multiple ways with this inconvenience. Awesome. It arrived about 2 weeks after purchase date.
3. I learned the menus last night, and dove it today. Couldn't get the wireless transmitter to link up. I had the correct serial #, I skipped the first digit, the transmitter was set to ON, everything was less than 12" apart, yada yada. I verified with Oceanic AT the dive site that everything was correct. WHY I didn't check the transmitter before diving is a long story.
4. I chose to dive at shallow depths without tank pressure information (just flashing zero's and an alarm for low pressure).
5. I think this thing is WAY cool.
6. Finished the dive, went home & installed the USB drivers and software. Upon connecting the mask to my desktop computer, the software gave me a "thumbs up" that the connection was correctly established.
7. There was nothing I could do to download the dive data, I was consistently getting a timeout error. Since the software told me the mask WAS connected, I didn't think the connection was at fault. So I called it a software problem and spent 30 minutes changing, configuring, un-installing, re-installing, etc. to try to get it to work.
8. I realized the mask never began its "count down" from 120 seconds, as it should when the connection is truly established. So the software says "all is well" but the mask doesn't begin countdown?! That's when I knew to call Oceanic.
9. Second incidence of fantastic tech support from these guys. I was speaking to an intelligent person with good common-sense on the phone within seconds.
10. After a bit of checking, the gentleman mentioned fiddling with the connector. That was the problem. If Jupiter is aligned with the Moon and I point my big toe down and left, I can actually get it to establish a TRUE connection. The only real "connection" is one that works (despite what the software reports). It's very difficult to maintain the connection...I don't think this is going to work for me.
This is clearly a design problem... It's a loose tolerance plastic connector that is holding tight-tolerance tiny MALE pins in contact with tight-tolerance tiny FEMALE pins. The pin diameter is probably less than 0.020" (20 thou, 20 mils)...yet there's tons of slop in the plastic.
And I see this problem has been present since 2008 at least?
And I hope the transmitter link problem is just a dead battery but we will see.
---------- Post added December 20th, 2012 at 12:15 AM ----------
Update: The DataMask transmitter link is working properly. The reason I was getting 000PSI... was because I was getting 000PSI. The problem is my HOG first-stage regulator...NEITHER OF THE HP PORTS ARE DRILLED OUT! When the reg is connected to the tank and valve open, I can leave both of the threaded plugs out and I get no airflow out of the ports, even with 3000PSI in the tank.
Wonderful. Now I get to post a "HOG Regulator Comments" post.
'Tis my first post, thanks for a great forum. Allow me to clearly and concisely state my experience with my new DataMask.
1. Brand-new mask ordered from Dive Right In Scuba. After making my payment, I received an email that stated the masks were out-of-stock...I'd receive one shortly.
2. DRIS helped me in multiple ways with this inconvenience. Awesome. It arrived about 2 weeks after purchase date.
3. I learned the menus last night, and dove it today. Couldn't get the wireless transmitter to link up. I had the correct serial #, I skipped the first digit, the transmitter was set to ON, everything was less than 12" apart, yada yada. I verified with Oceanic AT the dive site that everything was correct. WHY I didn't check the transmitter before diving is a long story.
4. I chose to dive at shallow depths without tank pressure information (just flashing zero's and an alarm for low pressure).
5. I think this thing is WAY cool.
6. Finished the dive, went home & installed the USB drivers and software. Upon connecting the mask to my desktop computer, the software gave me a "thumbs up" that the connection was correctly established.
7. There was nothing I could do to download the dive data, I was consistently getting a timeout error. Since the software told me the mask WAS connected, I didn't think the connection was at fault. So I called it a software problem and spent 30 minutes changing, configuring, un-installing, re-installing, etc. to try to get it to work.
8. I realized the mask never began its "count down" from 120 seconds, as it should when the connection is truly established. So the software says "all is well" but the mask doesn't begin countdown?! That's when I knew to call Oceanic.
9. Second incidence of fantastic tech support from these guys. I was speaking to an intelligent person with good common-sense on the phone within seconds.
10. After a bit of checking, the gentleman mentioned fiddling with the connector. That was the problem. If Jupiter is aligned with the Moon and I point my big toe down and left, I can actually get it to establish a TRUE connection. The only real "connection" is one that works (despite what the software reports). It's very difficult to maintain the connection...I don't think this is going to work for me.
This is clearly a design problem... It's a loose tolerance plastic connector that is holding tight-tolerance tiny MALE pins in contact with tight-tolerance tiny FEMALE pins. The pin diameter is probably less than 0.020" (20 thou, 20 mils)...yet there's tons of slop in the plastic.
And I see this problem has been present since 2008 at least?
And I hope the transmitter link problem is just a dead battery but we will see.
---------- Post added December 20th, 2012 at 12:15 AM ----------
Update: The DataMask transmitter link is working properly. The reason I was getting 000PSI... was because I was getting 000PSI. The problem is my HOG first-stage regulator...NEITHER OF THE HP PORTS ARE DRILLED OUT! When the reg is connected to the tank and valve open, I can leave both of the threaded plugs out and I get no airflow out of the ports, even with 3000PSI in the tank.
Wonderful. Now I get to post a "HOG Regulator Comments" post.
