New Petrel 2 owner, powering on questions

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geoff w

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My wonderful wife got me a Petrel 2 for Christmas! I've dived with it every day this year so far, but unfortunately my streak is coming to an end today as it's now a work day. I love diving with it and still trying to figure out everything, but a couple of questions on powering it up

For some reason, I though I heard somewhere (Long Beach scuba show or DEMA) that it will automatically activate upon descent. I tested this on one dive, and since it didn't automatically power up under water on the descent, I pushed both buttons at 13 ft to get it started. Did I understand wrong, or is there some setting to get it to automatically power up in the water?

I've noticed on the surface I need to press both buttons a number of times to get the Petrel to power up. Am I doing something wrong, or is there a trick to pressing the buttons wearing thickish (5mm) neoprene gloves. Pressing individual buttons underwater with gloves is no problem at all

Any other tips or insights for a recreational Petrel user also greatly appreciated
 
Unless something has changed it does not power on when it gets wet and under pressure. (At least I have not seen it happen - but I usually make sure it is on at surface) And yes two fingers to turn on - prevents accidentally turing it on. With gloves on there may not be quite enough contact pressure on the buttons at the same time.
 
The Petrel will turn on in the water, I can't remember when but it's somewhere around 15ft or so, but since I dive tech, I always make sure it is on before descent to make sure I'm on the right gas.

Should be turning on no problem with the gloves, but you may not be making solid contact at the surface. Practice a few times and see if that's the issue. If not, something may be wrong with the piezo buttons, but I highly doubt it.
 
The Petrel will turn on during descent. If memory serves, there's a place to turn that function on or off. But I could be wrong.
 
Petrels and Predators come on with a combination of time and pressure. Only controller versions have wet contacts. Petrels check their state every 15 seconds and 2 consecutive depth readings of more than 165mb of pressure are needed before it knows it's on a dive and automatically turns on. This means it could take up to 45 seconds for the unit to recognize it's on a dive. Depending on your rate of descent, you could be fairly deep before the unit switches on.

We always recommend that divers turn their computers on before jumping into the water.
 
That explains a lot, both of mine are controllers
 

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