I got in 2 dives (1 hour each) yesterday in Lake Phoenix, with 2 buddies who also got BlackTips.
I upgraded my firmware before we went. They did not.
Side by side in the water, the almost complete silence with the new firmware was just about unbelievable! The original firmware is loud, but not THAT loud. If someone is within 20 or 30 feet of you running a BlackTip with the original firmware, you could hear them.
With the new firmware, at one point, one of my buddies had gotten separated from us. I went looking for him. When I spotted him, he was stopped and kind of looking around, but not looking towards me. I scootered right up over him and tapped him on the head. He never heard me! I literally drove my scooter within a foot of his head and he never knew I was there until I reached down and tapped him on the head. He had a hood on, but still.
This new firmware is amazing!
I upgraded both my buddies' firmware for them during our surface interval. After that, it was REALLY easy to get separated in the water. The viz yesterday was less than 10'. With the new firmware, you could not hear it if somebody started up and started motoring off. If you weren't actually looking, someone could take off and be out of sight before you knew it.
Also, we all had 12Ah batteries. We did just under 2 hours total in the water. We were driving around for most of that time. When I was leading, I was generally running on speed 4 and sometimes 5. We were all in drysuits. 2 of us on BM doubles and 1 on a Tiburon CCR. I think we all had 2 bars (EDIT: 3 bars!) left on the battery display at the end. Which is simply to say that I feel like my battery life is significantly better than what the specs quoted. But, I haven't done a real test to prove it, so I can only say that it's a feeling, at this point.
Thank you again,
@ben.mcgeever and Dive Xtras for the new firmware and for giving us the ability to load it ourselves.
All I need now is a longer body tube, so it will stay in trim...
