Hello everyone, thank you for your patience during our diagnosis of Mr. Folsom's Lifeline. It has taken a while for our response, for which we sincerely apologize, but we wanted to ensure a response with complete information. We were just as eager as anyone to uncover and relay any information.
Our diagnosis is that Mr. Folsom's unit had a rare case of what Mike calls "The Swiss Cheese Effect" in one of its connections. This title comes from the idea that small holes in the soldering lined up in a unique way that more than doubled the power consumption of the particular unit while asleep. With this, the unit drew more power while it was left uncharged and did not have enough power to operate. This drain happened over 2-3 months instead of our stated 6 month charging period.
There has been thorough testing of this, hence the time period, which required load-testing for battery consumption while the unit was "asleep" or off.
Through this diagnosis, we have developed an upcoming firmware update (version 0.60) which will include a self-diagnostic routine for the Lifeline. This diagnostic will check for battery consumption, and full operation of the Lifeline before indicating "clear to dive" or "not clear to dive" on the LCD screen. It's activated with a quick 3 presses of the Orange button, and only takes a moment to complete. Firmware version 0.60 will be available for beta testing to those who are wishing to test this function. We appreciate any feedback on it, and hope to have this completely implemented in the near future.
We also now recommend that users charge their Lifelines to 100% before every dive trip, as this will ensure the longest battery life per trip. Thank you for your patience in awaiting our response. We want to ensure that the community is aware of what's going on, and we want to be as up front as possible with any of our information. Any further information will be conveyed here as it develops.
Best regards,
Nautilus Lifeline
Our diagnosis is that Mr. Folsom's unit had a rare case of what Mike calls "The Swiss Cheese Effect" in one of its connections. This title comes from the idea that small holes in the soldering lined up in a unique way that more than doubled the power consumption of the particular unit while asleep. With this, the unit drew more power while it was left uncharged and did not have enough power to operate. This drain happened over 2-3 months instead of our stated 6 month charging period.
There has been thorough testing of this, hence the time period, which required load-testing for battery consumption while the unit was "asleep" or off.
Through this diagnosis, we have developed an upcoming firmware update (version 0.60) which will include a self-diagnostic routine for the Lifeline. This diagnostic will check for battery consumption, and full operation of the Lifeline before indicating "clear to dive" or "not clear to dive" on the LCD screen. It's activated with a quick 3 presses of the Orange button, and only takes a moment to complete. Firmware version 0.60 will be available for beta testing to those who are wishing to test this function. We appreciate any feedback on it, and hope to have this completely implemented in the near future.
We also now recommend that users charge their Lifelines to 100% before every dive trip, as this will ensure the longest battery life per trip. Thank you for your patience in awaiting our response. We want to ensure that the community is aware of what's going on, and we want to be as up front as possible with any of our information. Any further information will be conveyed here as it develops.
Best regards,
Nautilus Lifeline
