Gear questions- looking forward to tech

[waterpirate]

greenblayza,

I will add that a pdc is like all electronics these days. Everything about them and even how they operate is changing daily. To buy a platform with the thought process that you will upgrade it later would be a wasted effort. By the time you are ready to use a pdc your platform will be antiquated.

I also echo the need for gauge mode and cut tables untill you get some serious deco and number of dives under your belt.
Eric

 

[boulderjohn]

The most important point for you to consider is that a computer is NOT NEEDED at the OP's level of experience and training. Far better to learn how to think rather than how to read.

Also, technical diving is team diving and when a team of divers (three is considered the basic team format) ascends they should follow the EXACTLY the same profile/schedule. Using a PDCs more often than not makes this difficult to impossible... unless the ascent suggested by the computers is ignored and tables (or the most conservative computer) are followed: which reduces a PDC to becoming a very expensive bottom-timer. Far better at this point to ignore the temptation of a bright shiny new toy and focus on learning about decompression and ascent behavior.

While I fully agree with Steve that a computer is neither necessary nor desirable at this point in training, I recently asked experienced deco divers who use computers to guide their ascents how they deal with the problem Steve describes. It turns out that if you have the right computers, it can be done. Assume first of all that the computers on a team have been programmed so that there should not be much difference in the ascent profile. Next, some (by no means all) decompression computers will continually adjust their advice based on what you are actually doing and, more importantly, not shut you out if you eventually surface without having followed that advice precisely. This allows a ream to follow the most conservative computer to the surface and stay together throughout the dive. I have never done this myself, but I know people who do it regularly.

Once again, that is a decision for the future, after one has been thoroughly trained and understands the options for decompression planning and the consequences of those options.

 

[txaggie08]

Thanks for the advice guys. I was not intentionally ignoring anyone, I've been away from the boards and had forgotten to come back to this thread...