Gear failure

[SlowRain]

I may very well be a dinosaur, but I have never been a fan of wireless. Guess if someone is a fanatic, have at it, but I will stick to a wrist mounted independent computer and small analog pressure/depth guage console as a backup. I can't say that in 30 years of diving I have ever personally seen an analog guage go south, although I am sure they have, but I have seen enough problems with wireless that I would not depend on one.

 

[TSandM]

I've seen a number of problems with transmitters. Most of them have been resolvable by turning the unit off and resyncronizing, but some have not. At the best, it results in frustration and delay of the dive, and at worst, if there is no backup, somebody loses a dive.

My husband dives a Vytech with the transmitter, but he does use a backup -- a COBRA on his HP hose. I keep telling him that backing up electronics with electronics is not true redundancy, but at least the Cobra reads pressure direction.

I can manage without a depth gauge, if I have a pressure gauge and a timer. I'm not willing to try to manage without a pressure gauge, except as necessary to exit the dive.

 

[tfsails]

I have a hoseless computer. Once on a Hatteras dive, it didn't communicate with the transmitter until I was at the bottom and about two breaths away from aborting the dive. It did it again on the second dive that day, with the same result. The next day it did just fine.

Since that day, I have added a backup SPG and not had the first problem with my computer. Go figure!

PS--I fly airplanes, and feel much better when I'm in an airplane with two radios instead of just one. And today's electronics are far more reliable than those of ten years ago; so much so that IMHO the reliability argument is now moot. Still, I like redundancy!

 

[diver 85]

I agree...

All of the integration you need is between your ears.

Adding electronics, let alone wireless electronics to monitoring cylinder contents can do nothing but degrade reliability

Integration gets a high rating on the gadget meter and is best at helping you part with your $$$.

The notion of streamlining by elimination of a hose is nonsense.

Just say no.

Pete

LDSs love it-------but----I'm a meat & potatoes guy, I mean SPG & depth gauge man myself........

 

[Rick Murchison]

Were I to dive a hoseless SPG (they have a looooong way to go before they're reliable enough for me to consider it), a brass & glass one with HP hose would be in my save-a-dive kit, guaranteed.
On the other hand, we dove for years without SPGs at all... I think I could still do so safely
Rick

 

[Big Toes]

Thanks all for your great follow-up messages to my original post. I've always been a die-hard brass-and-glass kind of guy and just really can't follow the logic as to how a wireless transmitter/computer setup is any better than good old fashioned analog instruments. Other than, of course, the fact that it's a great gimic that i'm sure makes diving retailers a bunch of money....

To clarify one point, it wasn't a case of this guy's transmitter not synching up with his computer; we tried all the usual procedures to rectify the situation to no avail. This was a class-a failure of the worst magnitude that's now requiring him to send both units back to the mfg. for repair/replacement which means no diving for him for quite a while

Old school rocks!

 

[deep.dude]

In your message you stated "There are those in the school of thought that having an spg just provides another point of failure. " The may in school but they are getting failing grades. They are however 100 percent right regarding thier beliefs that adding additional points of failure being a bad thing.

What they don't seem to realize is that they are the ones adding additional points of failure. In over thousands of dives I have beed around for one SPG failure that resorted in ending a dive early. However I have seen hundreds of case where wireless gauges failed to sync rendering them useless. I have seen over 30 computer failures as a result of leaking (this would cause failure for your air pressure as well). I have found one wrist mounted computer on the bottom as a result of a broken wrist strap and I know of at least four other cases where computers were lost. I have found 2 compasses on the bottom also from broken wrist straps.

I am not anti tech but if you want to added that to your equipment then add it as a redundancy and not as a replacement. I dive with a console containing a brass and glass pressure gauge, a compass and a dive computer. As a backup for my computer I wear a watch style computer instead of a watch. Add wireless to you setup fine. Remove the most important piece of safety equipment, I think not.

Of course this is just my opinion.

"Learn from your mistakes or you are doomed to repeat them. Better yet learn from some elses mistake and never make them yourself."

 

[DandyDon]

I am not anti tech but if you want to added that to your equipment then add it as a redundancy and not as a replacement. I dive with a console containing a brass and glass pressure gauge, a compass and a dive computer. As a backup for my computer I wear a watch style computer instead of a watch. Add wireless to you setup fine. Remove the most important piece of safety equipment, I think not.

Yep, except I have a wrist computer in addition to my console with SPG, compass, and computer rather than a watch style computer. The computers are the same brand so I don't have confusion over disagreeing readings.

 

[muddiver]

Yea, I love it when the new guy with the fancy wrist mount comes up after the first dive of four in a university class, and can not complete the rest of the dives becuse his wrist mount is now missing. That is my argument for console/ or hose mounted gages and computers.

Dive without an SPG, well..... maybe you could pull it off, but why take the chance. Especially since we all know pony bottles and SpareAir's will not help you

Dive without a depth guage, now your asking for trouble.

 

[TSandM]

If you use Tobin's wrist mounts, you don't lose gauges.