EON Core weird behaviour

[UTscuba]

I bought an EON core last summer and since then have logged around 40 dives on it. Most of my dives have been in salt water, in temperatures from 52 degrees to 80 degrees, and depths ranging from 20ft to 150ft, and I haven't had any issues with it yet. It seems a little more conservative than other computers, and I'm usually the one who's hovering around deco while everyone else' computer gives them a few more minutes at the same depth, but I know to expect that now and that's fine. Until now I've been diving on the default conservative setting, with a 5 minute safety stop and a deep stop set.

Today things went a little haywire. It was the first dive of the day, with an SI of 21hrs after an easy day yesterday (two dives in the morning, both around 45minutes, both <75ft max depth). Today was an easy dive: we rolled in, dropped to 30 feet, and stayed there for 5 minutes. We then took another 10 minutes slowly to descend to 62ft, which was the deepest point of the dive, and then we slowly started ascending. I'll confess I wasn't watching my no deco time - I was expecting to be around the 30 minute mark at this point, but looking at the log in subsurface it shows that while the NDL at the end of our 5mins at 30ft was ~70mins, but during our descent to 62ft this rapidly dropped to an NDL of 8 minutes, then to zero, and subsequently at 33 feet during the ascent it showed a 1 minute deco obligation which is when I noticed something was wrong. I ascended to 28 feet and then watched the NDL display flicker back and forth showing values between 0 and 35 minutes as I held a constant depth at 29ft. The deco obligation cleared, and I did my 5 minute safety at 15ft, and then surfaced. The dive profile up until the NDL=0 point was pretty gentle, a slow, smooth descent from 33ft to 62ft, followed by a slow smooth ascent, and there's nothing that stands out as incurring a deco penalty. I didn't go deep enough to even trigger a deep stop - the Suunto manual says a deep stop is triggered at 20m/65.3ft and my deepest point on the first dive was 62ft.

I charged the battery last night, and it showed 14hrs of battery life as I left this morning, and now - post dive - it still shows 11hrs, so this wasn't a low battery issue.

I had a very similar dive profile for my second dive yesterday which gave me the NDL numbers I was expecting - at 61ft, 15 minutes into the dive I had an NDL of 28 minutes, which is what I was expecting today too. As I ascended yesterday, the NDL increased in a consistent manner - the shallower I got, the longer the NDL with no flickering back and forth. And at no point yesterday did my NDL go below 18 minutes.

Comparing the Suunto NDL numbers for today's dive with the calculated NDL for today's dive in Subsurface, and they are way off, with the Subsurface numbers being much more in keeping with the deco limits this dive ought to have had. In fact the Subsurface numbers for today's dive followed a similar profile to the Suunto numbers for yesterday's dive

When I got back to the boat today I also found that the time and date on the computer had reset to midnight Jan 1st 2010. After the second dive I also saw that it gave me a no-fly time of 34 hours and 10 minutes, whereas every other day it's been half that at around 17 hours

For the second dive I set the conservative level to be more aggressive, and I also turned off the deep stop, and the second dive proceeded without any further incident. The NDL numbers on the second dive today followed the Subsurface algorithm pretty well during the deeper part of the dive, and then diverged during the shallower parts of the dive, with the Suunto being more conservative, but as I said, that's seems to be the rule with the Suunto algorithm, and I'm OK with that.

Any thoughts as to what might be going on?

 

[Diving Dubai]

Hi

I suspect it's had an under voltage spike from the battery - perhaps teh software thought it had a lower batt life than it did. The Batt life indicator has a lot of variables. The computer having a reset is my clue, Your batt after a full charge I would expect well into the 20hrs. My steel after 4 years/600 dives, with highest brightness on the screen and using transmitters still has 30 hrs after a charge. Perhaps get teh battery looked at? It is under warranty?

Suunto being more conservative, but as I said, that's seems to be the rule with the Suunto algorithm

It seems a little more conservative than other computers

It doesn't have to be. It depends on your personal settings

On -2 (most aggressive) it will still have NDL time when my Perdix running 45/95 has 2 mins deco - after repetitive dives.

 

[beepbird]

My brand new EON Core has a max of 19 hours after a full charge. I'll keep an eye on it.

 

[Diving Dubai]

My brand new EON Core has a max of 19 hours after a full charge

I'm surprised the difference between the Core and the Steel is that much.
The battery indicator - doesn't indicate what's actually left, it predicts remaining time based on settings and usage

For instance if you change the screen brightness from max to min you'll see a change in the predicted remaining time. Same with enabling AI

The Eon also "learns" from your settings and usage, so it's not uncommon after a few recharges for the remaining time after on a full battery to increase or decrease based on your usage, settings and ambient temps

 

[UTscuba]

Hi

I suspect it's had an under voltage spike from the battery - perhaps teh software thought it had a lower batt life than it did. The Batt life indicator has a lot of variables. The computer having a reset is my clue,

I would have thought the same, but it's been charging all night and I'd pulled it off the charger and was in the water maybe an hour later.

Your batt after a full charge I would expect well into the 20hrs. My steel after 4 years/600 dives, with highest brightness on the screen and using transmitters still has 30 hrs after a charge.

I think I've never had more than 17hrs on a full charge on this one, even when new, and I'm now down to 14hrs when fully charged. I just assumed that was normal for this computer, I do have it set for full brightness, but I wasn't running AI on this trip, although I usually do.

Perhaps get teh battery looked at? It is under warranty?

I think it is, I've had it just under a year, that would be a better option than sending the whole thing back

thanks for the advice

 

[UTscuba]

My brand new EON Core has a max of 19 hours after a full charge. I'll keep an eye on it.

that sounds about the same as mine, but I have max brightness turned on, and I think that brought it down to the 17hr mark when the battery was new

 

[UTscuba]

Hi

It doesn't have to be. It depends on your personal settings

On -2 (most aggressive) it will still have NDL time when my Perdix running 45/95 has 2 mins deco - after repetitive dives.

you're right, I meant, its default settings are more conservative than other computers default settings. I usually have an oceanic pro plus 2 as a backup computer, and with both running their defaults I find the Suunto usually has me closer to deco than the Oceanic. I prefer the pessimistic approach, and like a wider safety margin personally.

How do you like the Perdix vs the Suunto?

 

[Scott]

How do you like the Perdix vs the Suunto?

My .02
Night and day. Perdix uses gradient factors which allows you, the user, to make it as conservative or liberal as you want it.
You can program the screen to show what you want/need.
Should you go into deco, Shearwater keeps working, Sunnto locks you out in a preset time. Disregard due to lack of clarity.

Shearwaters customer service is outstanding.

Those things made me sell every Sunnto I owned. I now have two Shearwaters.

You’ve witnessed the down side to presets and the Sunnto proprietary RGBM.

I was told Sunnto is releasing a firmware update to allow GF’s. Not sure when or if it’s been released yet.

 

[JackD342]

I was told Sunnto is releasing a firmware update to allow GF’s. Not sure when or if it’s been released yet.

I thought it would be here by now, but the way it was described last November was that the GF option would only be available on the Eon Steel - not the Core, and not anything else that can upgraded via firmware. (there should also be an upgrade from Fused RGBM to Fused RGBM 2. Anyone already have that firmware upgrade? I notice the Suunto website now includes a description of it that suggests it is already out there in the marketplace, but maybe it is just the D5 for now.)

 

[UTscuba]

My .02
Those things made me sell every Sunnto I owned. I now have two Shearwaters.

Hey, another high desert diver, who do you dive with in SLC?

but yeah I do have a little buyer's remorse. I don't hate the suunto, but I don't love it either. I've been considering doing the same thing

Can you use the suunto transmitters with the perdix ai?