How many of you have had a dive computer fail?

[DepthCharge]

I've had 2 fail........an Oceanic Datamax back in '98 (I think) was doing a rapid descent and the thing locked up.
2nd was a POS VR3, luckily it was before the start of the dive, (260FT) screen went black.
John

 

[majog]

I had not used my Suunto D6i in 3 years worked fine when I put it in the safe. Took it out and notice no display. Sent it in for a battery and service. The support tech told me a needed a new transducer module because the gell it sits in gets hard and crystalizes after 2 years. When you then go to service the transducer assembly it shatters trying to get it out. Suunto sees this as a known issue and if less than 4 years old covers it under warrantee. Also one he stated one of my buttons are bad (likely due to corrosion) from just sitting and not being used enough. Oh well.... would love to dive more but time and money are always a challenge.

I've been doing tons of diving related reading and have got a question about PDC failure. I know and practice the "one is none, two is one" philosophy in other aspects of life and believe in redundancy and will be doing that more in diving as I delve into it more. I hear everyone saying/asking, what if your PDC failed? So my question is how many of you have had a dive comp failure while diving? I don't consider a dead battery or flooding due to an improperly reinstalled o-ring a failure for my purposes, just a genuine, non user induced equipment failure. Especially of tech computers.

ETA
If you have had a failure and don't mind, please elaborate.
If you haven't had one would you like DM Tom did say how long you've been using your comp and maybe the model, if you don't mind?

 

[fire_diver]

Funny that this was top thread when I logged in, because that was my very reason for coming here! My NiTek Duo just quit on me yesterday.

 

[Michael Guerrero]

Get a Petrel like I said in the other thread . And I'd be pissed if I bought a Suunto w/ these known (to the mfg) issues.

 

[ianr33]

I've had 3 failures in around 500 dives.

1) Aeris Atmos Pro told me I was at 180 with a couple of hours deco . In reality I was at 150 with no deco.

2)Diverite Duo dies during a dive in Ginnie. Early ones had a lot of problems with water leaking through the buttons and causing corrosion.

3) Shearwater Predator . Depth sensor died during a descent. Just said 0 feet. Fixed in record time of course by Shearwater.

 

[padudle]

My experience tells me that once a computer give you a reliability problem, discard it and get a new one.

I bought an early Cressi Archimede 1 dive computer because I liked the user interface and it was not too conservative. On my first dive with it I had a small battery compartment leak in freshwater.

On my first trip to Mexico it started to give me problems. It had difficulty transitioning to dive mode and would sometimes just go into error mode at the start of the dive. I fiddled with the computer, changed the battery and it seemed to work perfectly for a couple of years so I thought it was fixed. Every couple of years after that the problem would come back and each time I thought I had resolved it.

My wife bought a Cressi Archimede 2 so that our NDL readings would match. The Archimede 2 has been great, without a problem in 7 years of frequent use.

My Archimede 1 finally gave up completely so I took it apart. You could see that a very tiny amount of salt water had penetrated at the small reset button on the backside of the device. There was corrosion on the copper circuit traces.

So that is my advice. If your particular computer appears to be a lemon. Replace it or get a backup right away. You don't want to be obsessing about unreliable electronics while on a dive vacation in Paradise.

Pete

 

[tom_n_tacoma]

I haven't had one fail on me yet, but I'm sure that it happens. I have two I carry, just in case.

 

[drbill]

On my last dive (last night) I exited the water and discovered that my Dive Rite Nitek Duo had failed. I can't get it to work even with a reset. Battery is only a month old. This is the 3rd Dive Rite computer I've had fail (two Nitek Trios and a Nitek Duo). My other Nitek Duo didn't fail... it was stolen before it could. Grrr.

 

[victorzamora]

On my last dive (last night) I exited the water and discovered that my Dive Rite Nitek Duo had failed. I can't get it to work even with a reset. Battery is only a month old. This is the 3rd Dive Rite computer I've had fail (two Nitek Trios and a Nitek Duo). My other Nitek Duo didn't fail... it was stolen before it could. Grrr.

That's interesting. How many dives before death? Do you have info on all three?

 

[drbill]

On the Nitek Trios no more than 100 on the first one and maybe 10 on the second one. On the Duo I don't know as I bought it used last year.