My Cave Diving blog... On my way to the Abe Davis Award.

[The Chairman]

I think I'm only going to do one long dive a day... maybe add another short dive under some circumstances, but I don't need to do boat loads of deco. Doing four a day would take all the fun out of it for me.

 

[kensuf]

It's not a race to the finish line fellas.

 

[victorzamora]

It's not a race to the finish line fellas.

I couldn't agree more. Mine wasn't about getting to 100 or 500 or 10,000 cave dives....mine was about making the trips worth it. I have 15 hours of round-trip driving to go cave diving, at a not-insignificant cost. A short weekend trip would cost me ~$300 minimum, and doing 2 dives for that cost (time and money) didn't seem worth it. Slowing down and smelling the roses is really what the whole experience was about anyway. 3 enjoyable dives are infinitely better than 6 rushed, miserable dives.

 

[The Chairman]

I have the same turn around since I live in the Keys. 7 hours one way, so I try to stay as long as I can.

 

[The Chairman]

Battery issues... I realised during the last two trips that I can't analyze charging issues very well. I have a problem in my charging station in the van, that's a certainty. I definitely need to suss that out soon. To help figure all this out, I have acquired the following tools (click on the pic title for a link to buy it off of Amazon):

DROK Plug In Digital AC Meter

Nitecore D4 Smart Charger

WATT's Up Watt Meter and Power Analyzer​

So why talk about batteries in a cave diving blog? Flashlights are pretty useless without power. Rather than simply 'trust' that the chargers are doing their jobs, I want to be more certain. Many thanks to Joel at Light Monkey for showing me the Watt's Up meter. That's a really sweet tool and while you'll always be the "Pro" when it comes to figuring out what's broke and/or needs replacing, I don't always want to wait. I think it's as important to understand as how to fix my regulators or how to vis a tank. In that regard, knowing how things work and how to test them takes more of the guess work out of diving, making it less of a 'trust me' dive.

So, while I plug in my chargers to straight house current, I'll begin with using the DROK AC tester to suss out the van.

 

[kensuf]

I like to run a battery test every six months. Lights are easy -- charge them, turn them on, put them in a 5 gallon bucket filled with water, start your stop watch.

My backup lights all use traditional alkaline batteries, and I also like to test my backup lights when I replace the batteries. I replace the batteries every six months if I don't use them (Christmas and 4th of July), and I replace them the minute I get out of the water if I do use them.

Scooters require a resistor pack that simulates the load of the motor, or a long dive in Manatee (I'm kidding).

My last few dives have been in the 4-7 hour range, knowing what kind of battery power I can accurately count on for those dives is pretty important.

 

[The Chairman]

My last few dives have been in the 4-7 hour range, knowing what kind of battery power I can accurately count on for those dives is pretty important.

Of course, the longer the dive, the more critical it is to accurately know your battery situation. I feel it's still important for the 1+ hour dives that I do. Blind Trust = Death.

 

[victorzamora]

Of course, the longer the dive, the more critical it is to accurately know your battery situation. I feel it's still important for the 1+ hour dives that I do. Blind Trust = Death.

I have a bunch of smart chargers and battery performance experience from my other hobbies (RC planes/cars) as well as research on college to know what I'm talking about. My current dilemma is I'm not overly concerned with any of my batteries but my canister light is up on the block for some investigation. It's a Bobby light, so nothing has gone wrong....I'm just starting to get curious. I'm about to start putting time into getting proper (well, proper for a cheap skate) battery testing gear set up. Scooter batteries are too big for me to really screw with beyond a Watts-Up between the charger and pack.

 

[The Chairman]

I am fast discovering how ignorant I am when it comes to even common batteries, like the 18650. I'm seeing 5000mAh being sold, but they aren't rated for fast discharge. What is the best rechargeable 18650 out there and why???

 

[kensuf]

Of course, the longer the dive, the more critical it is to accurately know your battery situation. I feel it's still important for the 1+ hour dives that I do. Blind Trust = Death.

And if you're doing multiple dives in a day, it's a good idea to know how long you can count on the battery running for.